The folks at a Florida library and the Toronto library are in the midst of a friendly troll-off, as their hometown teams face each other in an NHL playoff rivalry.
The Toronto Maple Leafs, prevailed in their first two games of their second-round showdown against the defending Stanley Cup champion-Florida Panthers.
The
on Wednesday night, winning 4-3.
Playful hometown trolling often accompanies NHL playoff matchups, especially when teams from different countries or regions face each other. It falls in the same good-natured support as city mayors betting on a playoff outcome. For example, that happened between the mayors of
(the Panthers’ hometown) in 2024.
It
appears the recent bookish beef began
when Toronto Public Library staff posted a poem on X with an accompanying photo of a stack of books.
“Panthers are red/ The Leafs are blue/ Tonight is the night That we win Game 2,” the X post read.
Panthers are red,
The Leafs are blue,
Tonight is the night
That we win Game 2.Your turn, @BrowardLibrary 😜@MapleLeafs #LeafsForever #BookSpinePoetry pic.twitter.com/E1yOMgmaSb
— Toronto Public Library (@torontolibrary) May 7, 2025
The bibliophiles with the Broward County Library in Sunrise, Florida rose to the challenge. (They operate 37 branch locations in the area surrounding the Panthers’ home arena.)
They responded with their own X post: “We love Toronto / Their team is quite nice / But the Florida Panthers? / Well, we rule the ice!”
We love Toronto
Their team is quite nice
But the Florida Panthers?
Well, we rule the ice!@FlaPanthers @torontolibrary #BookSpinePoetry #floridapanthers #stanleycup #hockey #library pic.twitter.com/ZJ3XLReuG0
— Broward County Library (@BrowardLibrary) May 7, 2025
Their quip was accompanied by a photo of a children’s book published in 2000, entitled Fall Leaves Fall, a not-so-new
: the “Leafs” versus “Leaves” debate.
(University of Toronto professor J.K. Chambers told the Washington Post in 2017 that Leafs may be a linguistic oddity, but it’s not a mistake. Maple Leaf refers to a proper noun, so keeping the “fs” ending instead of “ves” is not grammatically incorrect.)
This friendly trash-talk
is meant to amuse and engage library communities as well as sports fans in literary and lighthearted comment, celebrating reading and the excitement of big games.
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