Life, Universe + Everything

I guess I was secretly hoping that the Leafs would be that team that goes 10-1 in the preseason and 26-52 during the real one, but at least no one can accuse these guys of having any pretension of greatness. I appreciate honesty, I think, and truth in sports is hard to come by. The Leafs are as honest an organization as you will find these days. It's a nice change, actually. It's like, with no chance at a Cup, everyone can just be real with each other, just be honest, just be like, hey man, I never get a chance to say this but I really appreciate all the little things you do, there's no more pretending and we can sit back and laugh and share a beer and we can make jokes about McCabe that we don't really mean because he had some pretty good years even if it didn't end all that well and god I hope he does well in Florida because he's a bang up guy I don't care what any of you say.

This is going to be a chill season. This is your last summer before college, you know? Take it easy, don't strain yourself. Figure some things out. The Leafs will still be there when you're done.

Conspiracy Theories

Hey this cool: When the Leafs finish 26th or 25th this season, you know, just good enough to be out of of first pick contention, anyway, when they have the 5th pick again guess who is projecting out at 5th? It's Brayden Schenn, lil bro of Luke Schenn, the Leafs first round pick at the last draft. Brayden is a (surprise) physical centre playing for the Wheat Kings.

You know people tell me that there is no plan in Toronto, but then I see this and I just have to laugh at them. No plan? You telling me this stuff happens by coincidence?

We are looking at a new kind of "Winning"

This is going to be a good year, I think, for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Ha ha! Not in terms of wins or losses or whatever arbitrary bullshit you are used to measuring the success of your sports teams; no, this season is going to require a completely new definition of the word "good". But that's ok. If you are anal retentive or whatever I guess you might say that Leafs are in for a "bad" season, but then, what is "bad" if not a completely false idea set up by the "winners" in life to validate their own futile and largely empty accomplishments? Exactly! I'm glad you agree.

So the Leafs are going to "bad" this season, by which I mean to say that they will not win very many games, and there are those out there, still stuck measuring success in completely obsolete terms, "Games Won" and "Goals Allowed" and "Powerplay Goals For," who will see this as a failing. Ok. Not everyone is perfect, say, like me, and I understand that not every Leaf fan has quite caught up to my advanced Nirvana-esque state of Hockey tranquility. That's ok too! Don't worry about it. Leaf fans have never been noted for their intelligence anyway! So it's not personal.

If you want a playoff team to cheer for, might I suggest Montreal? They are a pretty good team, I think, and hardly anyone really cares about that rivalry anymore. I know it won't be easy, because it is easy to get stuck in the past when you are a Leafs fan. After all, some of the best moments in Maple Leaf history could arguably be said to have happened in the past! For example: Stanley Cups.

The Leafs are not going to win the Stanley Cup this year. Some people probably consider the Cup to be a measure of success. Leaf fans! Don't listen to them. It has been forty years since the last Stanley Cup, and we've turned out pretty ok. What is another five or ten extra years of waiting? Will it not taste as sweet? Sweeter even, just ask the Boston Red Sox, those famous losers who could only keep their streak going 86 years, didn't even have the fortitude to push it to a hundred, and people call them "winners". I don't know. I just don't.

Don't get hung up on Mats Sundin. He was part of the problem, remember? He's the one who picked this team up and dragged it kicking to the end of the season and for what? Just heartbreak and trauma and nothing good. We don't need that and we don't need him. If the Leafs are "bad" then there is no risk. Sundin is risk. Let him sign with Montreal or New York or Vancouver and maybe he can be happy and we can be happy and live vicariously through his new team.

The point of this season is to lose. Never forget that. It will be difficult, I understand. You will see this team rally in the third period from two goals down and force overtime and your primitive lizard brain instincts will kick in and you will want to cheer so hard. You will watch them outscore Ottawa by embarrassing margins and you will want to crow and stick it to very jerkass Sens fan you know.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Success will be measured in the Loss column. Readjust your self accordingly, savvy Leaf fan, and maybe we can enjoy this season, together.

I don't want to play anymore

Here's the dilemma the Jays marketing arm must be running into: how do you sell a product that every Jays fans has already seen before? We've seen this season before is the problem. We know how it ends. You don't make headlines by tanking out in August. But look, it is another September, and oh golly the Jays are out of contention, again, but whatever we have next year and good prospects and whatta pitching staff hey guys? Just imagine what the season woulda been like without all those- haha I won't insult you with that word. The Jays are overpaid and boring. They can pitch but they can't hit, and even with a feel good love guru new manager there is no life at this party. And it's worse because we got to see Tampa Bay shoot past us for the first time, like worrying about New York and Boston wasn't bad enough. Ten years ago Tampa Bay was awful and the Jay's were mediocre. Today Tampa Bay is amazing, and Toronto is still just mediocre, the team that gets sympathy votes at the beginning of each season from sportswriters, "well, a darkhorse to watch maybe," yeah watch them spin their wheels for three straight seasons.

Our only consolation is a new GM next year, and won't we be happy to hear him say, "well obviously we need to cut payroll and compete on a budget, just look at what teams like Tampa are able to accomplish with so little," and then we get a re-made farm system (allow three to five years) and before you know it our new GM is wearing expensive sun glasses and being an arrogant dick to fans.

Anyway all this is to say that I am happy to see that the Jays traded David Eckstein today but I am still pretty pissed that he was ever signed in the first place. I don't get to be right very often so let me quote myself, briefly, from what I wrote nine momentous months ago when Mr. Eckstein was signed: "Essentially now the Jays have pitched out 4.5 million dollars for a utility infielder because even if Eckstein starts the season at short you have to imagine that by September that somebody will have become frustrated enough to put MacDonald back where he belongs..." (even when I am right I am wrong; it is of course Marco Scutaro who made Eckstein unnecessary).

This should have been the Jays year to make noise. They had the payroll and the pitchers and apparently a new winning attitude but the warning signs were there in the off season as we watched Ricciardi stumble around signing players ad hoc. He was trying to save his job of course, using his familiar throw spare part players against the wall and hope somebody sticks strategy.

Why do we put up so much mediocrity. The Jays will finish well out of contention this year, the Leafs will be happy if they end up dead last, and the Raptors will squeeze into the playoffs again but only because the NBA's tendency towards bad teams so outweighs Toronto's.

Anyway, all this negativity is no good for anyone so good night.

Sorry Canada, and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland

If you have somehow managed to avoid any contact with any of the 500 arms of the Bell Globemedia empire, then you probably don't know that CTV is Canadian hockey's most recent saviour, and shouldn't we be all glad and thankful for them huh? Awfully kind of them to buy the rights to that song, as if there was any other way this sordid loogey on Canadian history was going to end.

So now TSN's Wednesday night hockey (Wednesday!), steeped in tradition and dignity as it already is, will be graced by those familiar strains, guaranteed to add gravitas and history to any broadcast or cellphone that spouts it. And what's really worse is now they own it forever because there is no way CTV will ever do something stupid like argue the details with the people who own The Friggin Hockey Theme because who would ever be that dense? Who would do that? I know, it is insane to think that there could be a broadcasting organization out there that would make a hash of negotiations with a piece of Canadian culture so indelibly tied to hockey and history. Can you even begin to imagine what kind of publicly funded disaster of of a national broadcaster would be capable of such a faux pas?

>:(

Endnotes - Maybe you are a girl or guy who has a deep, but unhealthy obsession with goalie masks? Then you probably already know about this: goaliesarchive.com/masks.html. Pretty rad! Have you ever really looked at Evgeni Nabokov's mask? It is kinda creepy

Things could get HAIRY

I picked Pittsburgh to win the Cup, which has unraveled pretty completely now, though I should have known better; my vote of confidence has been a virtual kiss of death for hockey teams this spring. But maybe a Detroit victory is for the best. Perhaps delaying Sidney Crosby's first Stanley Cup is in all of our better interests. Perhaps we don't need iconic photographs of him, the Stanley Cup, and that unfortunate playoff beard lingering for the rest of his career. Guy looks like he's ready for a prom in Louiseville, all picking up your daughter in his dad's '86 Chevy Silverado, all blue tuxedos and Jim Beam aftershave, Jordan Staal following behind in his horse drawn carriage starchy white shirts and suspenders, wide black hat, the good Amish boy that he is.

Anyway.

They say defense wins championships, but uh, the obvious correlation here is championship calibre beards are what win championships.

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.

Head for the hills, the Canadians are coming

Pity any poor fan of English soccer stuck cheering for Leeds United, they don't even know what's about to hit them. People are reporting from both sides of the pond that Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the sports holding company last seen putting forty years between championship hockey teams, is now extending its gaze outward. Having conquered just about every sporting mountain there is to climb here in Toronto (money making hockey team, competitive basketball team, a Major League Soccer team with actual fans, and the groundwork for a future NFL team) this city must seem all of a sudden rather provincial. How better to extend the MLSE brand than to gain entrance to that playground of Russian oligarchs, oil rich Arabs and bored Americans, the English Premiership?

Of course MLSE has some work to do to make it that far. Leeds United, the unfortunate soccer team that has become choice number one for MLSE's great European soccer experiment, is not currently playing in England's top league; regulation has seen them tumble down two rungs to the third division, League One. But bad teams are nothing new to MLSE, it's the turn around that seems to give them difficulty.

Will Leeds fans take heart at this news? Going on nothing but a Wikipedia page MLSE certainly looks solid enough. Who wouldn't want their team owned by an organization with dollars and clout?

I don't want to be the petty, older child, jealous at his new sibling, but I don't like this at all. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment has a hard enough time with the Maple Leaf aspect of their business, their crown jewel, the one aspect that any one ever expects anything from, and now it's time to invest in English football? The Premiership is serious business, and Leeds fans have an expectation that that is where their club belongs. They deserve an owner with a commitment to winning, who has a stake in the team, who understands the sport and what it takes to win.

Come to think about it, so do the Maple Leafs.

A Love Letter, Of Sorts

Things looked, and I don't want to exaggerate here, but the day the Toronto Maple Leafs fired John Ferguson Jr, things looked good. There was optimism and there was hope and there was genuine reason for Toronto fans to think that for once, for once in a long time that maybe theirs would soon be a team not at the whim and drift of cluttered ownership and muddled and always contradictory vision, but that they would be able to cheer for a team that was moving forward both on the ice and off it. Richard Peddie said, "we'll get a hockey man with brass balls and vinegar in his blood and he is going to clean up Dodge City," or words to that affect, and there was that reason to think that those years of neglected drafts and overpaid veterans would be a thing of the past, something to be filed away and forgotten; along side other effluence of the early twenty first century, alongside Tila Tequila but before Transformers: The Movie, there, in resplendent , hidden glory, Toronto Maple Leaf teams, Crappy.

Every day since that first firing though, we've been given nothing but a file to wear away that ironclad hope. A search committee was formed, a search committee of two who were clearly in no great rush to complete the search. "We'll have a GM in place by September," Peddie informed us, as if the knowledge that MLSE's president thought that going through an entire off season with no one in charge of hockey decisions was somehow an acceptable way of rebuilding a broken franchise. Brian Burke's name was whispered as the golden grand slam that would save the franchise, and so we waited for Anaheim to be eliminated, diligently and patiently, assured with the knowledge that managing a hockey team in Toronto was definitely and obviously the dream job for any GM with his head screwed on right.

But Burke didn't happen, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, for whatever reason. That didn't faze the Leafs; I'm sure some of them were privately terrified of the thought of a demon like Burke telling them how to do hockey.

This was when I first heard the insidious whisper of an ugly idea begin to spread around. "Well," the thinking went, and to be sure it still goes today, "Burke is a free man in one more year, why don't we just wait for him? Why don't we just let Cliff Fletcher keep the job till then."

I suppose I understand the thinking behind this, but I don't like it. Burke would do something special for this team for sure, but he is not a superman, he is not the panacea we all need him to be. There are other GM's in the sea, and the idea of sacrificing a whole season, a whole season another completely capable GM could have spent putting his plan for Toronto in motion, to throw next season away and leave it all to Cliff to take care of in his doddering hands is such a completely Made in Toronto solution that we need to throw it out at once.

What could be more MLSE than doing nothing? Leaving Fletcher as GM, when we have heard so many times that he is just an interim guy, that he will not be in charge next year, to stick him with the full time job now is creepy and Orwellian in its doublespeak and is the most obvious move for Leaf management to do. What's easier than doing nothing? They sit back and say, "hey, it's worth the wait for Burke" (and then, only because this is Toronto, we'll watch as free agent Brian Burke signs somewhere else).

I don't believe MLSE will leave Fletcher in place, because just from a marketing stand point, even if this is the the Leafs and they could probably sell out the next twenty years of tickets if they just put them up for sale tomorrow, how do you sell a team that is saying "We'll get started next year"?

That's not to say the "wait for Burke" plan is not off the table. The latest proposed gambit involves Dave Nonis, ex of the Vancouver Canucks (and why they would fire the guy who pulled off Luongo for Bertuzzi I never understood) taking over from Cliff and then setting the table for Burke, his former boss.

The people talking this stuff are the people who give Leaf fans a bad name. The Nonis-to-Burke plan is pure Toronto arrogance, bright and shiny. Of course Dave Nonis would love to be GM for a year and of course he would love to go back to working for Brian Burke even if he has had a taste of the manger's chair because working for the Leafs and bringing them a Stanley Cup just transcends everything else and golly gosh if they wouldn't be lucky to be just working here in the first place, etc.

I am open to the idea of Nonis as GM because he seems like a competent guy capable of making creative trades, and more importantly because it would represent action and decisiveness on the part of MLSE, which is such a strange and dizzying concept that I might need a lie down if I keep thinking like that. But to suggest that Nonis would be ok with an interim job so that the man he replaced in Vancouver can then replace him seems like a stretch. I don't know Nonis at all, and I have no idea what his relationship was like with Burke, but on the surface at least, this seems like a mildly insulting proposition on the Leafs part.

The Leafs, obviously, and I shouldn't say obviously because to the people in charge it is obviously anything but obvious, but the Leafs need their guy in place by the entry draft, or else all claims to moving forward with unifying vision are null and void. Nonis could be that guy, Burke won't be, Fletcher should absolutely not be. Doug Wilson will also not be, and Ken Holland will be too busy enjoying a Stanley Cup. There are still lots of guys out there. Doug Armstrong is more than capable, Neil Smith would love a job I'm sure, and Colin Campbell's name always seems to appear somewhere.

In the end, who knows what's going to happen. The Leafs promised change when they fired Ferguson, but since then it's just been more of the same out of Toronto. I still like to think things will turn out right, I mean you have to hope, or why bother with any of this at all. Another year of Fletcher, even if it is in service of the greater Burke good, is the wrong message to be sending to fans. I wish Burke's name would be dropped, but if the Leafs do in fact lure Nonis, or if Fletcher is in fact named full time interim, then we are in for a very, very long year of speculation.

Endnotes - I won't say anything bad about Paul Maurice. I watched his press conference today (school's out and goodness knows there is nothing better I could have been doing) and I realized how little really knew about him. Maurice seems like a genuinely nice human being, and while his firing was inevitable, I guess, perhaps it didn't have to unavoidable. Even if you were like me and thought Andrew Raycroft could have used a good five or six or twenty more starts down the stretch, you have to admire the way his team never gave up.

I am not good at this game at all

You don't have to bother checking the archives, but it turns out I am awful at making predictions. 11-16! What the hell is that! Why am I even allowed to have an opinion about hockey? Shouldn't there be some sort of test? I could have gotten the same results with a print out and a dart board.

Defies explanation how bad I was. Well, I wasted a spot on Toronto, but I would have done that even if their top line was Mats Sundin and a pair of well trained golden retrievers. And who saw Montreal being as good as they are? That wasn't even fair. And Washington beating out Carolina on the last day? And Boston making the playoffs by boring their competition into submission? Not fair, not fair, not fair.

Whatever. I'm not sure I trust myself to make playoff predictions though. Or maybe I should, and then you can just make the opposite pick and you probably won't do worse than 75% success.

A Manifesto, Or Something

Sometimes you just have to get angry. If ever there was a time to get angry dear Leaf fans, it is now. This isn't about 40 years of no Stanley Cups. Most Leafs fans weren't old enough, or alive enough, to appreciate that last one. This wouldn't matter if the drought was ten years, or a hundred years. I don't care about Howard Ballard, Punch Imlach, I'm not angry with them. I'm angry, and so too should you be, frail reader, at the current cacophony of clowns running this team.

There is a sentiment out there, I think, that says that the Leafs many sins this year have been absolved, forgiven and forgotten for the last minute effort and grit they've shown over the last month. Maybe, maybe if this was your first time cheering for the Leafs, maybe if you weren't here last year, the year before that. Remember J.S Aubin and the undefeated run to the end of the season? What good did that do us? And now we're being treated to a redux, an encore performance, because gosh if we all didn't enjoy it last time. It pisses me off ok, watching this team bumble and stumble all season long, and then now, all of a sudden, with their playoff hopes essentially dead, now they decide to show up, now they play hard, now they want to be taken seriously. All too late. It's nice that Pavel Kubina has rediscovered his ability to score, but where was that in December? Back when it counted this team folded, but when the games stopped mattering, suddenly they start winning. Nuh-uh. Sorry if I'm not impressed.

So much about this team is frustrating; so much about this team makes me want to give up and cheer for Montreal. A good fan should support their team through thick and thin, but that doesn't mean we can't look critically, can't pause to re-evaluate whether our loyalty is being well spent. No where in our contract does it say we need check our heads at the door, only heart past this point. It's not about winning and losing; if the Leafs were the worst team in the league (and who's to say they aren't already?) I could still cheer for them, if I thought there was at least some design to it, that there was a plan in place, that there was some sort of hope for the future. But here we are, three years removed from the lockout, and witnessing our third straight thoroughly mediocre team. The Leafs will miss the playoffs again, pick 12thish again. Barring miracle trades by our as yet unnamed future messiah/GM, the roster will still be built around the same stiffs that pretended to give a crap for the first four and a half months of this season.

I wish more Leaf fans would try to hold this organization responsible for the inbred sense of complacency that pervades this team. There are no excuses why a hockey team in Toronto should not be consistently at the top of the standings. This is not an organization that ever has to worry about it's next dollar, and yet we continue to settle for mediocrity.

Our only gem of hope is this white knight general manager who will soon come riding into town. We've heard that this man will have only the highest pedigree, that this man will be a guy who understands hockey, who can make tough decisions, who won't have to listen to advice from a board of governors adept at making money, but useless at winning hockey games. If it wasn't for this prospect, I probably wouldn't be writing any of this, because I would have already given up. I'm writing this because I care. I want to see this team do well.

The Blue Jays start next week. You'll excuse me if I don't feel like thinking about the Leafs for awhile.

God we're all the loser here

Good good good. The Boston Bruins ended this still born playoff run before it got too silly. I'd like to hope that this loss will finally shut people up and that the Leafs can now get back to losing games like they should have been doing for the last month. It won't shut every one up - I know the headlines tomorrow won't play this as the deathblow, just another "setback" for the Leafs' "slim" hopes.

But what else is new. I've been keeping a low profile here while the Leafs have been winning because I just didn't know how to spin it. I knew deep down that they weren't going to make the playoffs and I was damn sure not going to repeat last year's heartbreak - last year when I put my heart on my sleeve, gave them all my faith and hope until that very final day. Once burned, twice shy, you know. Though strictly speaking this will be three straight burns, unconscionable for any team, but quadruple so for a team that likes to pretend it plays in the hockey capital of the world.

So jaded Jason has been keeping his eyes of the games, confused and battered and hurt and almost so willing to jump back on the Leaf bandwagon, but here we go, 6-2 loss to Boston, the team currently in eighth. If the Leafs had beaten Boston in both games, I probably would have thrown my hands up in resignation and started cheering. That won't be necessary now. Now I can sit back and feel smug and superior that I didn't get sucked into beleafing again, lord it up over every one silly enough to put any faith back into this sinking stock.

Yeah being right is great and whatever, but we're all still losers here.

Pre-Game For the Last Game

Just going to make a prediction for the next two games, the games that will hopefully finally shut up anyone who is still telling that old story about a team named Toronto and their run for the playoffs. They're home and home with the Flyers, the team in eighth place, the team that Toronto
is going to have to surplant if they are going to do this. Lost in that though, is the Leafs' current place in the standings, 12th in the East.

If you've been following the Leafs at all, you'll already know exactly what is going to happen over the next two games. The Leafs will do just enough, just barely enough, so that their playoff hopes come out the other side tarnished, battered, but still in existence. I don't know what that means in wins-losses. Probably a win and a loss, maybe two OT wins, two OT losses even? Whatever, I'm not expecting this to be the last time somebody mentions Toronto and playoffs is all. Even if their playoff run died back in January. Hopefully Phillie will run Toronto over, sweep the two games, knock them around a bit and then maybe we can start seeing Andrew Raycroft in net

There Are Still Some Things You Can Rely On

It's comforting to know that as uncertain our Maple Leafs are, no matter how flaky, shaky they may be, no matter how inconsistent their play is game to game, we can always rely on Martin Brodeur to put them in their place. Thanks Devils.

So uhh, We Doing This?

C'mon Leafs, be serious. Are you guys actually aiming for the playoffs? It was cute a few weeks ago when you guys were losing 8-0 to bad teams while still talking about the post season, but now that you're backing it up with wins, it more annoying than anything.

8-4-1 over the last stretch and you've managed to gain, what? One point on eighth place? And Philadelphia has games in hand. Everyone knows where this is heading. We've seen it enough before to smell a ninth place finish a mile away.

I read somewhere that the Leafs need to go on some sort of magical 12-3 run from here on to have any chance at this. Hah hah hah aha hah, chortle guffaw.

I'd advocate putting Andrew Raycroft in net to insure more losses, but I think by this point, having watched this team do their thing all season long, the most likely result would be Raycroft winning games, because that is exactly what we don't need.

It's nice to see to Mats Sundin put his money where his mouth is and everything, and it's nice that Vesa Toskala is a legit starting goalie, but it would be a hundred times nicer to see Steven Stamkos playing in Toronto next year, you know? None of this will end well.

Jason