from Jack Todd at the Montreal Gazette,

Obviously, the column on Hockey Night in Canada and its slavish devotion to the Toronto Maple Leafs had struck a nerve. And while at least half the letters were from fans of the Canadiens, there were substantial responses from another Canadian NHL cities, especially Ottawa, Edmonton and Vancouver.

The verdict? People outside Toronto are mad as hell. They have no choice but to go on taking it from Rogers, Sportsnet, Hockey Night in Canada and (to a lesser extent) TSN — but they aren’t happy about it.

Hockey Night in Canada, it’s clear, has become one of the things that divide us.

Of the letters I received, 95 per cent were positive. Without exception, the negative letters came from Leaf fans, divided equally between attempts at an articulate defence of the HNIC approach and the inevitable “your a idiot” letters from charter members of Ford Nation.

The conclusion? Fans across the country are very angry with HNIC and they have three main complaints:

First, viewers across the country hate the Maple Leafs 24/7 approach in which the Leafs can do no wrong, even when (see Auston Matthews) they pretty clearly have done wrong. It’s not only Montreal — if anything, fans in Edmonton and Vancouver seem even more disenchanted with HNIC.

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