As if there weren’t reason enough to despise those dastardly boys in blue from Toronto (and no, I’m not talking about the police) there’s news this week that they are disappointing more than their own fans.

Yes, somehow the pitiful excuse of a hockey team that is the Maple Leafs is somehow responsible for the demise of some of the best of a very rare commodity – Canadian television.

Late last week, in the usual underhanded manner of corporate executives, the plug was unceremoniously pulled from some Canadian entertainment that was actually entertaining.

Soon to be gone from the airwaves is the unabashedly-sexy MVP The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives, the crime drama that lived up to it name Intelligence, and the quirky and witty JPod.

So long breaths of fresh air.

The shows, with the exception of a the soapy MVP, really were just that – breaths of fresh air.

In today’s television climate of plots driven by ever more ghoulish serial killers, the Canadian fare was a relief to kick back and watch on taxpayer-funded airwaves.

The shows didn’t, for example, consider people in lab coats swirling test tubes to bad 70s rock a good way to waste five minutes of our time.

Intelligence, instead, actually used character development, ambition and cliff hangers to keep audiences hooked.

There’s no use explaining that now. It’s all just crying over spilled milk.

But Rob, you said the Leafs had a hand in killing these palatable Canuck productions.

Oh, yes. It seems the big profit maker at CBC television is hockey. And within that profit centre, the Leafs are king. When the blue and white take to the ice, for some reason, eyeballs tune in. And when there’s eyeballs tuned in advertisers are willing to fork over cash.

So, with the Toronto Make-Believes poised to miss the NHL playoffs once again, CBC bean counters are calculating that their advertising bait isn’t going to be as potent as it could be.

Solution: cut costs.

Cut Canadian programming.

Who says Toronto isn’t the centre of the universe?

There are no delusions here that the television business isn’t just that – a business. And I know perfectly well that if the dollars aren’t there, no matter how good a program is, the show can’t go on.

But CBC isn’t blameless in this.

There are four Canadian NHL teams currently with a spot on this year’s Stanley Cup dance card. Only thing is hardly anyone has seen these other dancers play.

By constantly serving up the losing Leafs in its flagship Hockey Night In Canada time slot, only the most die-hard hockey fanatics know who is in the lineups of the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Canadiens or the fifth place Ottawa Senators.

Come April people are all-of-a-sudden supposed to care about teams they haven’t been able to watch all year, because of the national broadcaster’s appeasement of Leaf’s Nation.

It’s also another example of the CBC failing in its prime directive – to be a national broadcaster.

So where does that leave those of us sucking in our boob-tube signal from a set of worn rabbit ears? That’s hard to say. CBC executives have yet to reveal just what they will replace the cancelled shows with. And with the NHL playoffs looming it’s hard to imagine they’ll be dropping much dough or thought into whatever it is.

So I guess I’ll just have to take comfort that while the Canadian airwaves are about to get even dumber, it will soon be free of those loathsome Leafs.

R.L.