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The Stick Tree
It was a cold night in Toronto and the traffic was thick as thieves. As the team bus slowly inched from the hotel toward the arena, Geoff Courtnall sat up front and blew his warm breath against the cold window. In the midst of the condensation that formed, Courts drew a single tree with a fallen Leaf on the ground. Several other players saw it and broke out in smiles. The message was clear, even if the window wasn't.
No matter how you slice it, this was an important early season game, and everyone knew it. It was a match-up between two undefeated teams, with the Leafs coming in with a perfect 4-0 record, while we stood at 3-0-1. And to make things even bigger, it was our first ever nationally televised game on Hockey Night in Canada. The audience would be huge and no one wanted to make a mistake...
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Week 1:
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