When the Toronto Maple Leafs lost game 7 of their playoff series with the Boston Bruins recently, I was mad for a moment.

But then I shrugged my shoulders, turned off the TV, and got some shut-eye.

Since that loss, I've hardly thought about the Leafs being banished from hockey arenas and forced to play golf until the fall (despite some ribbing from friends of mine who don't like them). 

When I was a kid the Leafs weren't very good, so they rarely made the playoffs. But I remember watching them on Saturday nights, and if they lost a meaningless mid-season game against the Buffalo Sabres I would be grouchy and complain about it for days afterwards. 

I heard some of that victim-speak from my fellow Leafs fans after their elimination from the playoffs this year.  

There was the usual complaining about the referees favouring the opposing team (hardly an original complaint), but the main fallback has been fans whining about how the NHL playoffs are structured. 

In a nutshell, a lot of fans think it's unfair that the playoffs are structured in a way that two of the best teams in the conference have to face each other in the first round, which guarantees elimination for one of them while worse teams get to skate through to the next round. 

They probably have a point - but what's the sense of complaining about it? 

The way I see it, the Leafs would eventually have to play the Bruins (or another good team) at some point to make it to the Stanley Cup finals, so they might as well get it out of the way early on. 

Taking off my Toronto hat and jersey, I can acknowledge that the better team won this year - but I take comfort that the Leafs have a good young team that will have plenty of chances to win it all in future years. 

The other silver lining? 

I can spend my evenings enjoying fresh air outdoors instead of being stuck in front of a tv watching hockey. 

So I'll choose to be a victor rather than victim, or a winner instead of a whiner. 

Some people whine about others getting booked for speaking gigs, but if you'd rather just get it done then check out the free training that Manny Wolfe is doing today at 6 pm EST. 

It's called The Proven Way To Deliver A Killer Speech And Get Booked, and in it he's going to cover: 

- The missing secret to making sure that you’re telling a powerful, compelling story.
- The principles of stagecraft that guarantee that you’ll be able to look like a rockstar on stage.
- The proven system for getting all the speaking engagements you can handle

You can register here: 

Marc