They are still the engine that drives the ratings for Hockey Night In Canada, no matter how ugly it gets on the ice.
But for how much longer will the Maple Leafs be foisted on the majority of the nation each Saturday night?
The deeper the struggling team's slump gets and the greater the level of anger rises in Leafs Nation, the closer CBC executives will look at how many homes the team reaches on Canada's most-watched weekly sports program.
Much like the team itself, the broadcaster realizes it's too early to panic just three Saturday nights into the NHL season. It doesn't hurt that the Leafs continue to draw big ratings and will continue to do so in the immediate future with all-Canadian matchups coming up.
The next two weeks are audience locks - with the Leafs visiting Vancouver and Montreal. But if Toronto's record still stinks after that, the CBC won't hesitate to adjust the picture in its national distribution.
"After that, we may start to play with how much of the country sees the Leafs or the Sens or the Habs based on team performance and matchup," Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC Sports said yesterday in an email.
For now, the numbers are holding up surprisingly well. The Leafs most recent loss this past Saturday's against the New York Rangers brought in a healthy 1.7 million viewers, the most watched sports show of the week.
Seven days earlier, the Leafs-Penguins were strong at 1.69 million and the first Saturday, a three-game national split, which included the Leafs and Washington, drew 1.74 million.
Part of the reason for the big numbers is the freshness of the season. Part is a new ratings system that is giving a truer (and much larger) audience.
And a third is the car crash theory - viewers want to see just how bad it is going to get for the Leafs and then hear Don Cherry vent about it, part of the reason third-period ratings haven't dove-tailed significantly, even in blowouts.
The longer the slide goes, however, interest is bound to wane and those numbers surely will soften. And then Moore and the other CBC suits will take a closer look at how best to serve the country.
