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TORONTO – John Chayka has a sense of what the Toronto Maple Leafs mean to the most crazy, tortured fan base in hockey. The club’s new general manager just 19 weeks in the job that began with such furious scorn from many quarters used to be one of them. “I’ve loved this team for as long as I can remember,” Chayka said in a recent interview.
The love that fans have for their team is really unique. Love is complicated in our personal lives. When you think about loving a team, there’s the euphoric highs. And if there’s downs, people are upset.
Alongside senior executive adviser of hockey operations Mats Sundin – a franchise hero reunited with the Maple Leafs after the spring purge – Chayka believes the Toronto Maple Leafs have made progress in the past four months since missing out on the playoffs for the first time in 18 years.
“The hockey capital of the world,” Sundin said as he sat beside Chayka in the same video conference call with The Canadian Press. “With that comes responsibility.
But before the duo could get to work, the 37-year-old Chayka was subjected to a miserable and awkward introductory news conference where his character, reputation, integrity, qualifications and resume were questioned.
He had been gone from the NHL since 2020 and some of his moves as a peach-fuzzed, analytics-focused GM for the Arizona Coyotes didn’t inspire as much confidence, including an 11-month ban for “conduct detrimental to the league” after he tried to get hired elsewhere while still under contract. Chayka shrugged off the criticism.
“It wasn’t the season anybody wanted and changes were made,” he said of an Original Six franchise that has made it to two post-season rounds in the salary cap era without winning a Stanley Cup since 1967.
“You’re communicating those changes. I wish I could say I was surprised there were hard-hitting questions or there were people that wanted to ask followups and dig in.” “The media plays an incredibly important role in this entire ecosystem,” Chayka said. “That connection to fans is really important to me.
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