#34. World Champions (Thursday, June 13, 2019)

#34. World Champions (Thursday, June 13, 2019)

What was your best day…of doing something totally reckless, and not regretting it one bit?

Given the deep psychological trauma I had unnecessarily inflicted upon myself fifteen years earlier (#47), you’d have thought I would stay away from making impulsive bets for the rest of my life.

But no, this was different. This one, I had to make.

In sports, there is this thing called an emotional hedge. Where you bet money against your team in an important game, so that if they lose, your fragile emotions are protected by the fact that you’re now X amount richer. The X that’s required for a perfect hedge varies by person, depending on their level of fandom, their psychological vulnerability, and the amount of money they’re ready to throw away on the outcome of a sports game.

Clearly my X was a lot greater than I thought.

The years, months, weeks, and days that led to this moment are pretty common knowledge for all basketball fans (and those in Canada especially). The Toronto Raptors spend the better part of their first twenty seasons being an absolute shitshow. Then in 2013-14, they are thisclose to trading their superstar point guard Kyle Lowry to the Knicks and tearing it all down again. But instead, the Knicks nix the trade, Kyle Lowry leads the Raptors on a furious run and their first playoff berth in seven years, and every year after they get closer and closer to that elusive championship. Leading to this past summer, when their GM goes all in and swaps franchise player Demar DeRozan for legit superstar Kawhi Leonard from the Spurs. In the playoffs, Kawhi saves them in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semis vs. the Sixers with a miraculous buzzer-beater, they upset Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks in 6, and they race to a 3-1 lead in the Finals against the hobbled Golden State Warriors.

Game 5 I watch in the MacLaren’s Pool Bar, my lucky charm spot1 that has hosted many a jubilant Blue Jays victory celebration (#40). When Kevin Durant tears his Achilles fourteen minutes in2, a delirious shock comes across the bar, and every bar across the country. Like, they’d talked for three straight weeks about that possibly happening, so of course it wasn’t going to happen…but it did. Surreal3.

My heart is pounding out of its chest all the way. The Warriors maintain a lead throughout most of the game, but Kawhi goes nuts late and the Raptors go up six points with two and a half minutes left. It’s happening, the Raptors are gonna be NBA Champions. There’s no way this team, this team standing before us, would ever blow that.

But they do. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson make a run of 3-pointers, Lowry misses the potential game-winning shot, and the Warriors squeeze it out. And in that moment, it feels like exactly the type of deflating loss that is followed by losing the rest of the series. I sit in the rain for an hour, head in hands, before bothering to call the Uber home.

I’m so distraught by this, and so afraid of a nervous breakdown from any more basketball-watching, that I vow to not watch a minute of Game 6 (and, I’m sure Game 7). But my best friend Faroz Mansour, the other rabid Raptors fan in my department who’s joined me in those regular bar appointments for the latter part of this run, has not lost hope. He’ll keep watching no matter what. So, eventually, I get over myself and we agree to change locations and go to the Lowertown Brewery (in the Byward Market, #112, #83) for Game 6.

But that tense anticipation and sinking feeling is still too much, and I’m afraid of how I’ll react when the Raptors inevitably choke away what may be their only chance in a generation to bring home a title. So I decide to hedge my bets.

I find the money line for the next Raptors-Warriors game, and put down $600 – for a chance to win $400 if the favored Warriors win. But it feels like that’s not enough. So go back and put down another $2,000; with a plan to put all that plus the winnings on the line for a Game 7. That still feels like it’s not enough; but I tell myself that I know my limits. (This stupefies Aaron Brookbank, my Nova Scotian close friend and co-worker, the next day when I tell him this at his condo, while we’re watching his beloved Boston Bruins getting destroyed by the St. Louis Blues in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. He tells me – with no bitterness whatsoever – that, for my sake, he hopes the Raptors lose the series.)

It’s game day at the Lowertown with Faroz. Game 6. Lowry is on fire early, and the Raptors maintain a decent lead early on that eases me up a bit. The game goes back and forth. Klay Thompson tears his ACL and leaves the game4. Fred Van Vleet hits a series of threes in the fourth quarter. The Raptors cling onto that miniscule lead; and they’re up by two points with eight seconds left. When Steph Curry launches up his patented three-point shot.

And it…clangs off the rim. The Raptors recover the ball; there’s a bit of chaos with the clock, but Kawhi seals it with two free throws anyways. And the RAPTORS ARE NBA CHAMPIONS!

Oh, and I’m also out $2,600. But, as I high-five Faroz and the rest of the packed bar, scream my repeated “Yeah!”s, then run out into the celebration in the street, I’ve already completely forgotten about that.

  1. Though I did seriously consider making the hour-long drive up to the viewing party in Almonte, a tiny town to the west that happens to be the hometown of the inventor of basketball James Naismith. (There are conflicting accounts as to whether he was ever a student at my high school.)
  2. This, after three weeks of him being out after spraining it in an earlier round, and nonstop speculation of whether he’s going to re-injure that Achilles if he comes back too soon.
  3. Though you have to feel terrible for Durant, who despite being a pending free agent, himself pushed to get back on the floor to help the Warriors win.
  4. But not before shooting, and making, two free throws on literally one leg.