In Toronto, the Stanley Cup is on display just one subway station from the Air Canada Centre, but it's only a couple more stops to the American consulate on University Avenue.
Going on 43 years without the former, so-called Canada's team appears to be going the extra mile for the latter.
They are slowly but surely turning from the Maple Leafs into the Toronto Stars 'n' Stripes, a trickle when Ron Wilson was named coach last year to a red, white and blue torrent when general manager Brian Burke burst on the scene in January.
He made American-born Dallas Eakins the Marlies' coach and signed Christian Hanson at the head of the Leafs' big NCAA grad class. Hanson joined veteran forward Jason Blake, the first American to lead the Leafs in scoring in 20 years and Lee Stempniak. He did bring Canadians Francois Beauchemin and Garnet Exelby into the fold and Swede Jonas Gustavsson.
But Burke also went for a big slice of apple pie in free agent Mike Komisarek to run the blue line and perhaps the whole show as the club's first Yankee captain. Ex-Coyote and Penguin Bill Thomas was added on tryout.
On Friday, Burke mortgaged a chunk of the farm on Phil Kessel, sure to be the flashy face of the team until Nazem Kadri or someone else emerges.
Burke and Wilson aren't shy about their citizenship. They signed on to lead Team USA at the 2010 Olympics, Wilson promising to dig out the loud American-themed tie he wore when he beat Team Canada at the '96 World Cup.
This is quite a U-turn for a club that thinks it bleeds more maple syrup than the other five franchises combined, much to the amusement of its many detractors since 1967. And how would you feel in Hamilton, where the Leafs have been thwarting a seventh Canadian team for years, if Toronto were to get back in the Cup hunt on the wings of a bald eagle?
But after four years out of the playoffs, GTA son Matt Stajan doesn't care if Vulcans and Romulans are on his wing and doubts fans will either.
"We're all hockey players in here, playing the game we love," he said. "It doesn't matter where you're born - Europe, the U.S., Canada. We all have good attitudes, we all have the same goal.
"Once you are in this room, it's how you play on the ice and how you treat your teammates. As of right now, we've been meshing great."
