Game 7 for Bruins, Maple Leafs nothing new

“The Leafs also went down in flames that night,” Hadfield joked in a chat with NHL.com a few months after Toronto’s 2018 Game 7 First Round loss to Boston, a few months before their Game 7 First Round loss to the Bruins in 2019.

As commander in 2013, buckled into the Soyuz capsule, Hadfield was too busy with science and gravity to worry about how his team was doing. But he was flying the colors, so to speak, wearing a Maple Leafs T-shirt under his spacesuit, “completely against the rules.”

The reentry was flawless; the Maple Leafs not so much.

“We came thumping down on a windy day into the plains of Kazakhstan, the vehicle rolls to a stop, I’m hanging from the ceiling and they roll it the right way,” Hadfield recalled. “I’m the third and last to come out, after Tom and Roman. … They plunk me down in a chair, give me a cup of tea, loosen my collar and then they hand me a satellite phone to talk to my wife and tell her I was okay.

“I said, ‘Helene, how are you? I’m back, it all worked out great.’ She said, ‘That’s wonderful.’ I said, ‘How did the Leafs do?’ And she said, ‘Ohhhhhh, I’m sooooooo sorry…’ ”