“AI Told Me to Love Toronto”
by A Hockey Convert with a Wi-Fi Connection
I’ve always loved sports. Not in a “catch a match when I can” way, but in the “cancel dinner plans because darts is on” kind of way. Football, UFC, NFL, even competitive cornhole if the stars align—I’m there. But until recently, ice hockey was just one of those things I admired from a distance. Fast. Loud. Cold. Like a sport designed by someone who thought, “What if football but on knives?”
Then came the Edinburgh Capitals.
A mate had a spare ticket to a local semi-pro game and dragged me along. I wasn’t expecting much. Maybe a few awkward slips, a pint, and some mildly entertaining fights. But the moment that puck dropped? I was hooked. The speed, the chaos, the sound of bodies slamming into boards—it was love at first crunch.
Two months later, I’d spiraled. Hard. NHL games had taken over my weekends. I was recording 2 a.m. broadcasts and watching them with bleary eyes and buckets of coffee. I binged Face-Off on Prime Video like it was Breaking Bad. I even booked a trip to Stockholm to see the Predators play the Penguins. Stockholm! For a sport I didn’t know the rules of six weeks ago.
There was just one problem: I didn’t have a team.
And if you’ve ever fallen in love with a sport, you know that’s a problem. You can’t just float around, cheering for everyone. That’s chaos. That’s anarchy. I needed loyalty, colors, heartbreak. I needed a team.
Naturally, I turned to the most emotionally intelligent and deeply nuanced force on Earth: artificial intelligence.
First stop? ChatGPT.
I asked, “Can you make me a quiz to determine what NHL team I should support?” Because when faced with an emotional decision, I apparently prefer BuzzFeed energy over introspection.
Ten questions later—playstyle, fan culture, appetite for winning—I had my answer: the Toronto Maple Leafs. “Rich history, huge fanbase, fast exciting playstyle,” ChatGPT said, like a robot therapist who’d spent the weekend watching Hockey Night in Canada.
And honestly? Not bad. I’d been watching the Leafs on TV and vibing with their whole high-speed, heartbreak aesthetic. But also… it felt a bit random. Like being told your soulmate is the person in the blue jacket because a computer said so.
Still, I wasn’t ready to commit. So I escalated.
Enter Deep Research mode.
I asked ChatGPT and Gemini: “Can you analyze NHL game start times over the last five seasons and tell me which teams play most often between 4:30pm and 11pm UK time?”
Because if I was going to fall in love, I needed availability. Long-distance relationships are hard enough—try adding five time zones and a puck drop at 1:12am.
The results? A mess.
ChatGPT told me the New York Rangers were my best bet, clocking in at 14% UK-friendly matches. Gemini, with all the swagger of a speed-reading genius, claimed it was the Tampa Bay Lightning with 28.35%. Then, in a plot twist worthy of a daytime soap opera, Gemini re-ran the data and informed me that 45.5% of Montreal Canadiens games met the criteria.
Forty-five point five percent. For the Habs. Lies. I’ve stayed up until 3am for them more times than I’d like to admit.
After an hour of charts, tables, and wildly conflicting percentages, I realized something: I was asking robots to measure chemistry. I was trying to spreadsheet love.
Because that’s what this really was. An emotional commitment. And no amount of predictive modeling or data analysis could tell me why I kept yelling at my screen whenever the Canadiens missed a power play. Or why, when I saw those red, white, and blue jerseys on the ice, something in my chest shifted.
It is possible that the French connection is the reason—I speak French, and Montreal has always had a romantic aura, one that is reminiscent of the combination of heartbreak and snow. Maybe it’s the drama. Or maybe, just maybe, the heart knows what the algorithm never will.
So no, AI didn’t help me choose a team.
It confirmed a few things. It entertained me. It built a pretty sick fake podcast clip. But in the end, it was useless in answering the one question I really cared about: Who do I belong to?
And I think I’ve got my answer.
I’m a Habs fan. Not because ChatGPT told me. Not because their games fit my schedule. But because I feel something when I watch them. Joy. Frustration. Hope. The good stuff. The messy stuff.
The human stuff.
