The Toronto Maple Leafs have been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.

Which isn't surprising, given how poorly they've played for much of the 2007/08 season. What is surprising is that it took the team this long to make it official. Heading into this week's crucial home-and-home series against the Boston Bruins, the Leafs were still on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. A two-game sweep, however, would've brought them level with the Bruins on points and given Toronto a real shot at the postseason. Instead, it was Boston who took both games, outscoring the Leafs 10-4 in the process...which is an appropriate aggregate score, all things considered.

So that's it: we can finally put this hockey season to bed and start looking forward to another championship-less year. (It's forty-one and counting, by the way...but still, things could be worse: we could be Chicago Cubs fans, who are about to embark on a one hundredth consecutive year in the desert. In situations like these, perspective is everything.) The Leafs made a spirited late-season charge, but the net result (aside from eventual failure) is that we've been left feeling like we just got out of a four-hour-long breakup. And while we're sure we've got plenty of ideas about what needs to be done in order to right the ship, for now—just like at the end of an epic breakup—we're simply too tired. A couple weeks ago we noted that being die-hard sports fans required us not to give up on our team "until basic math forces us to do so." Now that basic math has done exactly that, we'll turn our attention (albeit fleetingly) to the teams who're still alive in the battle for Lord Stanley's Mug. And, well, silently pray it doesn't eventually wind up with the Ottawa Senators.

Photo by gbalogh from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.