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There’s a moment every September when my Toronto sports brain starts moving from baseball to hockey.
This year, baseball isn’t ready to let go.
The Blue Jays beat the Detroit Tigers 5–1 on Wednesday to improve to 76–77. At the time of writing, they are 1.5 games behind the Chicago White Sox for the final American League Wild Card place with nine games remaining.
These aren’t meaningless dates being played out before everyone goes home. Every win matters, along with every result involving the teams around them.
Meanwhile, Maple Leafs training camp is underway. Hope has returned right on schedule.
Last Labour Day, I admitted thatmy interest in sports was waning. I no longer have the desire to follow every regular-season game across baseball, hockey, basketball, and football. There are only so many hours in a day, and I’ve discovered that I’m perfectly happy spending some of them doing something else.
High-stakes sports still pull me in. Give me a Blue Jays game with Wild Card implications, an Olympic hockey game, or a big Leafs game, and I’m there. A random game in the middle of an 84-game NHL season now has to earn my attention.
Yes, the NHL regular season is 84 games this year. The league added two games while shortening each team’s preseason from six games to four. Apparently 82 was not enough.
The Leafs begin their preseason on September 19 with split-squad games against Montreal. Half the group will play at Scotiabank Arena while the other half visits the Canadiens.
The regular season begins only 10 days later, when Montreal returns to Toronto. That’s not much time to build lines, evaluate prospects, and prepare for games that count.
Gavin McKenna will be the obvious attraction. The Leafs selected the 18-year-old forward first overall in the 2026 NHL Draft, and every practice combination involving him will become a story.
If he skates beside Auston Matthews, people will start planning the parade. If he moves to another line the following morning, someone will wonder what went wrong.
This is what Toronto does.
Following all of it now requires at least two screens. The game is on television while the phone delivers scores, fantasy updates, line combinations, and whatever the group chat is arguing about.
Sports platforms feed the same habit. The Betway sports betting page, for example, groups upcoming and in-play events across baseball, hockey, football, and other sports. In September, those schedules overlap, giving me plenty to check before returning to whichever game is actually on television.
More information does not always mean more understanding. A notification can tell me that McKenna changed lines during practice. It cannot tell me whether that combination will survive the afternoon.
The shortened NHL calendar makes those early observations more interesting. According to the NHL’s examination of this year’s condensed training camps, teams playing on opening night have only 12 days between their first practice and first regular-season game.
Players with at least 100 NHL games are restricted to two preseason appearances. That should create more ice time for prospects, but it also gives coaches fewer opportunities to evaluate everyone.
Naturally, we’ll draw firm conclusions anyway.
One good preseason game will make someone a future star. One bad turnover will inspire questions about whether he is ready. By November, we’ll have forgotten most of it.
That’s the September sports pile-up in Toronto. The Jays are fighting to extend their season while the Leafs begin another one.
My interest in regular-season sports may be waning, but September clearly didn’t get the memo.
