Better Burke Days

This is maybe a rethinking of the criticism I leveled at Maple Leaf management in their search for a GM. With every creeping day it seems more and more likely that Toronto's General Manger next year will be be less a strong and experienced man and more a collection of senior hockey people keeping the seat warm. The thought of leaving Cliff Fletcher in as an extended interim man got me riled up, I think justifiably, and I labeled this as just more of the same do-nothingness from the men in charge of this hockey team.

But here's something else: the Leafs much publicized and talked about pursual and subsequent rejection by Anaheim tough guy Brian Burke was the fault of not Burke, who by all reports wanted the Toronto job, but was instead at the insistence of Gary Bettman who has developed a near puritanical distaste for tampering in his league. Burke is under contract for another year, so Anaheim ownership was under no obligation to let him go, but in the interest of healthy working environments, you would think that letting the man who won you Stanley Cup go would be best for all parties. The story goes though, that it was Bettman doing his own special brand of tampering that led Henry Samueli to quash the Leafs' request, in the interest of preserving the sanctity of NHL contracts.

So Gary Bettman vetoes any Burke movement, thereby ensuring that at the end of the next season, Burke is in any city other than Anaheim, and if the Leafs have anything to say about it, that city will be Toronto. They've already started greasing the wheels; that's why Burke's former wingman Dave Nonis is in talks to take a senior management position. Is this, and this is hard to even put into words, but is this MLSE being clever? I'm not used to seeing astute and long range plans being put forth by the hockey side of the operation so it's hard to say, but if hiring Nonis is the Leafs unsubtle up yours to the commish, a sort of above board and quite transparent tampering that is hard for anyone to prove and punish, then I don't know what to say. Screw you Gary Bettman, for one, but that is hardly an original sentiment.

I'd still rather see the Leafs commit to a real GM for next season and avoid a long winter of endless Brian Burke speculation, but if it ended in some sort of confrontation between the Leafs and the Commissioner well, at least that is high entertainment right there.

I've been listening to Bob McGown too much.

Commence the Invasion

I'm am skeptical of anybody who feels the need to specify the game as ice hockey, which limits my skepticism to only, oh let's say, everybody in Britain.

Regardless of what I think (a common trend among Gary Bettman's decisions), the NHL put two regular season games in sunny London, England (I'm sure London, Ontario would have appreciated them just as much).

The NHL deserves props for making them regular season games; games for points and glory and everything. Any two bit major sports league could schedule a pre-season game across the ocean, but those invariably turn out to be bland affairs that lack any real star power. This way, Europe gets to see what real hockey is like, not that Brits really have anything to compare it to.

I watched the Saturday opener between Anaheim and LA. The crowd at the O2 Stadium (owned by the same suit who owns the Kings, of course) was the real highlight. It was a regular United Nations of sweaters circling the ice. Name a hockey team, and 5 quid says they were represented by a fan. My favourite was the pair of green St. Pats one couple was rocking.

The game itself was ok. Anaheim doesn't look ready. Not having Niedermayer and Selanne will really hurt them. Their absence plus the jet lag sucker punch is going to translate into slow going early on. Bertuzzi looked eager though. This might be his comeback year.

The Kings could surprise some people this season. They ripped the Ducks apart on the powerplay, and they might finally, just maybe, cross your fingers, have found a goalie they can ride in nineteen year old Jonathan Bernier. That would be a major victory for LA, which hasn't had anything legit in between the pipes for as far back as I care to remember.

The final score was 4-1 LA, though Anaheim evened up the series with their own 4-1 victory the next day.

The league is for sure interested in more European jaunts after seeing the arena at capacity and they sure as hell can't let the NBA - the league that went from All-American to Cosmopolitan seemingly overnight and has half their teams doing European training camps as I type - conquer the old world. Word is Prague, a city that actually plays the game, might get the season opener next year. Who knows, fifteen year from now, the only place with any guarantee of not hosting a debut will be cities in North America.

Jason

Oh Yeah, That Stanley Cup

Call it the Stanley Cup Final that Toronto forgot. Ottawa versus Anaheim will do that.

I'm a little late here, so you know how the story ended, and nobody should be surprised, except for Ottawa fans who were probably already planning ahead to next year when they would finally have a definitive piece of evidence to prove their superiority over the Maple Leafs - it's hard to argue with a Stanley Cup.

I think we should all agree that the better team won here. Anaheim deserved it, and now we really do know that Brian Burke is a hockey God.

Also, don't rag on Ray Emery too much, if anything he proved that he is capable of taking a team to the Stanley Cup finals. Ottawa needs to resign him.

And finally, I have a feeling that Ottawa won't be in the finals again any time soon. They had their shot, the last decade was practically building up to it in fact, and then they blew it and is this team good enough to repeat? And will the upper management be able to resist blowing up this team?

Free agency is less than a month away,

Jason

Endnote - I can't seem to reliably spell Anaheim. Thank goodness for the Google spellchecker