Sad-sack Sens survive despite sartorial sins

I don't even have anything to say! The Ottawa Senators have an awful third jersey. It is lazy and boring and unpleasant to look at, but then, I guess it is pretty appropriate for the team that wears it, huh? Hah hah!

YEAH I WENT THERE

Meditations on a Loss

This is great. It's only a game into the regular season and we already get to second guess Paul Maurice. Raycroft over Toskala? Yeah? For real? Oh this is just the start. Toskala will start game two, and Ottawa will win, because they're Ottawa, and everyone will be all, Toskala over Raycroft? Yeah? For real? This is going to be a fun season, I can tell.

The Leafs were competitive, especially during the second, but Ottawa ramped it up in the third and Heatley, who I really thought was heading to free agency next season, rewarded the team that had rewarded him so handsomely with a pair of goals. He's averaging almost a goal per game when he faces Toronto. Raycroft was ok, and I don't want to blame the loss on him. How about a powerplay that couldn't score? And how about Wade Redden, who looked like he had a personal vendetta against Toronto's fourth line. I like this side of Redden. Kudos to the Leafs for getting Ottawa to sink to that level. Or it might just be Mighty Duck syndrome. Everybody wants the fighting majors these days.

Andy the Woz was solid, having to go one on one with Heatley a couple times. Antropov is gonna have one of those good seasons. I'll keep saying it. I made fun of Matt Stajan yesterday, and then he scored. Hey Matt, your face is stupid.

Oh and in "hey he's just noticing this now?" news, Pierre Maguire is not very good at his job. There is no law of commentating that states that the quality of commentating increases proportional to the number of decibels you can hit. In fact it's probably the reverse. Gord Miller is also pretty blah. And poor Dave Randorf, I associate his voice with B-grade world championships and Spengler Cups. I can't take the guy seriously. While I'm criticizing TSN, Kanye is not the right musical artist to be sponsoring four middle aged white guys talking about hockey. It only leads to Bob MacKenzie namedropping Fiddy, and this is not something anyone needs to hear, ever.

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

These Sens Are Scary

It was the crazy Leafs fan in me that made me choose Buffalo over Ottawa, not the rational level headed hockey connoisseur I normally am, I swear. Ottawa is obviously the best team left in the playoffs. Obviously. They didn't so much as blink while dusting off New Jersey and Pittsburgh, and it's not like those teams are bunch of stiffs either.

Ottawa is the complete deal right now, and I just hope you, as the reader, can understand how hard it is for me to type those words. In picking Buffalo, it was more because I wanted them to win, than because they deserved to win.

Ottawa has done something special this year. I don't know what it is exactly, but I've always gotten the sense that past Ottawa teams tried to hard. They compiled great regular season numbers, and then when they got to the playoffs, folded quietly. This year, they're regular season was anything but smooth, and I don't know, I guess it made them more... human? That sounds stupid, but what I mean is it's a lot easier to sympathise with them this year than in any other year previous.

Buffalo won last night, which isn't that surprising, I mean, they didn't get to where they are without being a decent team, but Ottawa will take control, like they did in their two previous rounds, and clamp down on the Slugs.

This really hurts to say, but I think Ottawa will win the cup. Even worse, I think I want them to.

Jason

Marry Me, Darcy

Here is why the Maple Leafs are going to make the playoffs: Darcy Tucker is back.

Scoring two goals for the Leafs last night, the second coming in overtime against those damn Ottawa Senators, Darcy Tucker is what the boys in blue have been missing (and also Kyle Wellwood, who made his return last night as well, but damn it, this is a love letter to Tucker, not Wellwood).

Down 3-1 in the third period, despite outchancing Ottawa, the stage was set for another loss. It was only two nights removed from their last game in Ottawa, an ugly 5-1 loss. Then Boyd Devereaux scored, and suddenly it seemed almost inevitable that Nikolai Antropov would eventually score the tying goal before the clock ran out. He did, overtime ensued, and Darcy Tucker one timed a dandy of a doozy past Ray Emery.

This only befitting the man who recently did the home-team discount for the Leafs signing for the modest sum of three mil per while still injured. Now he's playing again, and scoring again, and the playoffs are within reach. Every game is important, yadda yadda yadda, but the Leafs have the only guy on their team who seems to understand it back.

Good things ahead.

Jason

This Just In: Lists Are In Vogue

Things about the NHL that make us smile:

Goalie fights - We need more of these. You've probably seen, or at least heard about the fight between Ray Emery and Marty Biron last night in Buffalo. Perhaps it's the sheer absurdity of having the the two paddedest players on the ice wailing on each other, or perhaps it's the rarity with which they occur (the last one in the NHL involved a guy named Felix Potvin, if that helps). While last night's probably made Patrick Roy laugh a big hearty laugh (c'mon Biron, at least pretend to try!), it's really the thought that counts.

Ray Emery - Keeping on the Emery theme, that guy is now our favourite goaltender in the NHL. Taking down Biron and then squaring off with Buffalo heavy Andrew Peters all the while wearing a huge grin on his face has cemented our belief that Ottawa has a winner in net. Too bad it took them so long to figure it out.

Three Point Games - Some people don't seem to like that overtime losers still get to take a point home with them, despite not actually winning. Screws up the standings don't you know. No, no, and no. Three point games are why the Eastern Conference is going to go right down to the final day in deciding who makes the playoffs and who doesn't. It's all about the drama here folks. The same can't be said in the West, where the top eight won't change between now and April (Edmonton, even your GM would agree with us), but hey, it's official company policy here at 64 Years and Counting care that we don't care about anything west of Toronto.

Simple Salary Caps - Some have suggested that in the new NHL, deadline trades are next to impossible due to salary cap constraints. All the good teams are brushing against the thing already. If only, if only teams could trade away cap space to other teams! Imagine the possibilities! Yeah, but here's what would actually happen. The NHL's salary cap would look something like the NBA's, by which we mean it would be five kinds of confusing and nobody but the sportswriters would really have any idea what the hell was happening. Seriously, the first person who can explain the NBA's cap system deserves a Nobel prize in economics. Hockey's version is clean and easy. Don't spend more than the cap, dumbass.

Blockbuster Trades - Tell us you don't love it when big names get swapped. C'mon, do it, and then revoke your sports fan identification please. The NHL's trade deadline, a mini-holiday here in Canada (American fans, you can probably only guess at the silliness engendered by all day tradecentre coverage), is a beautiful thing. Peter Forsberg is gone already, but what about Tkachuk, Guerin, Tucker, Smyth, Biron et al? The suspense is killing us.

Goalie Fights - Ok, we said that already, but really, can you name a better part of hockey? Four-on-four overtime? Good, but not great. Shootouts? Not as cool as we had hoped. Toronto beating Ottawa? Well, getting closer, but still not quite as special. Goalies of the NHL, please, beat each other up more often. It's what we all secretly want.

Jason

(Props to us for not mentioning Kerry Frasers' fuckup last night in the Leafs-Isles game. We could mention how it was his bollocks of an incidental goalie interference call that called back what would have been the Leafs third goal, but we are too classy for that. We are also too classy to also mention that that because of that call, New York was able to tie the game, and take advantage of the Leafs godawful shootout record. Even furthermore, we have too much respect for the NHL and its officials to complain that incidental goalie interference is as stupid a rule as you can find. If he interfered with the goalie, give him the freaking penalty. If anything, it was DiPietro who interfered with Ponikarovsky anyway. And did you even see Sundin's non-goal? The puck was almost literally level with the redline when he shot it. He deserved the the goal just for sheer ballsyness. Right, but we're not going to mention any of that, because that is crass and poor sportsmanship.)

Come Home Gary

The NHL's trade deadline is approaching, and the Maple Leafs look to be buyers, which in of itself might just be an accomplishment on it's own. The Leafs have a slippery grasp of the East's eighth spot, and you know John Ferguson will want to do something about that.

With the Leafs brushing up against the salary cap, that will be difficult however, which is where Mike Peca's long-term injury comes into play. Using the space made available, the Leafs have just enough to squeeze our good friend Gary Roberts back into the line-up.

Last seen in a Leaf uniform before the lockout, Roberts, one of the hardest working players in the NHL and oozing veteran leadership, has spent the last season and a half in the sunny hockey hinterland of Florida. He tried to get himself back to Toronto last summer via trade, but Ferguson (perhaps wisely) declined.

Things are different now. The Leafs are a playoff team, and the Panthers are ready blow up their roster (we've heard even Ollie Jokinen is no longer untouchable). Roberts needs to come home to Toronto. He's said the only places he would like to play for are Toronto and Ottawa, and we don't think our poor hearts could take the sight of him in red and black. Please Fergie, make this trade happen.

Jason

A Few Words on the Worst World Series Champs of All Time

Ew. The St. Louis Cardinals are the World Champions. This is so wrong on so many levels, we don't know where to start.

Yes we do actually. Let's start with the fact that the Tigers rolled over for them, playing a painful to watch game of possum. But that analogy only works so far because the possum is supposed to get up at the end and these Tigers clearly weren't pretending. The Tigers gave away a World Series title. It was theirs to lose. Because face it, the Cards weren't exceptional themselves (though Jeff Weaver's game five performance was about as good as it gets), but compared to the boys from Detroit, they were the freaking '98 Yankees. As far wiser talking heads have pointed out, St. Louis didn't beat Detroit, Detroit beat Detroit.

The Tigers just needed some token effort for the series, and they could have had it. St. Louis now has the ugly distinction of being the worst World Series winning team ever (in most news stories, the word "worst" is surrounded by quotation marks. This is not most news stories). They won a grand total of of 83 games.

83 games.

Do you know how many games the Toronto Blue Jays won in that same season? Hint: It was higher than 83, that's for damn sure. If there was a less deserving championship team in baseball history, we don't want to know about it.

Ahah, you might say, the regular season doesn't count for peanuts in the playoffs. Just look at the Edmonton Oilers. Nuh-uh buddy, that argument doesn't fly. There was nothing special about these Cardinals, there was no heart warming underdog label, just a bunch of semi-decent (and Chris Carpenter) baseball players plodding through October. There was nothing sexy about their run.

Compare that to the Tigers, who going into the Series, had all the momentum in the world. We frankly found it impossible to even conceive that Detroit could possibly lose, especially to such a bland team as St. Louis. Not that the Tiger's weren't bland too, but they had that magical playoff aura surrounding them that transformed every player into a potential playoff hero.

Except something went wrong. In the six days between sweeping the floor with Oakland, and beginning their first World Series since before anyone at 64 Years and Counting was ever born, something happened. The Tigers' momentum evaporated. Poof, and they were human again.

What's worse is that two years ago, the last time the Cards had a shot at the title, we were actually cheering for them. With all our heart and soul even. We were desperate to see them defeat Boston. The Cards were the only thing keeping the Sox from ending the curse, a prospect we weren't thrilled with (sharing a division with them does that to you). Except they didn't win. They didn't just not win the series, they didn't win a single game.

So that's why we don't like St. Louis. A forgettable team caps off a forgettable World Series in what has been an overall forgettable affair. But just imagine if Detroit had won it. Now that would have been a story. Just a few seasons removed from a 100 loss season, turning around and winning it all. That makes for good TV. St. Louis, does not.

In other news, the Ottawa Senator continued their regular season tradition of summarily kicking the crap out of Toronto, with back to back beatings this week. The Leafs can try to salvage some respect against Montreal in glorious Hockey Night in Canada action tonight. Or they could continue to embarrass themselves. Oh, and we heard Nik Antropov might be back tonight.

Guess which side we're leaning towards?

Jason

Sour Grapes, à La Russa

To recap: Kenny Rogers had something on his hand in the first inning of his impressive win against the Cards. And apparently St. Louis manager Tony La Russa has suddenly become professional sport's defender of fair play, integrity and all that is good and holy. Whatever. Rogers cleaned up, and went on to shut them down for another seven innings. Case closed.

And all of a sudden that's old news now (64 Years and Counting: Always Late to the Party), since the Cardinals went out and gave the Tigers their own take on good pitching, a 5-0 shut down by former Jay, Chris Carpenter (we are actually legally required to point out any player that has ever worn a Toronto uniform. Except Vince Carter). The Cardinals are up 2-1 now, in what just might be shaping up as the first actual World Series since a bunch of scruffy Marlins took down the Evil Empire.

However, all of this is in flagrant disregard for our World Series predictions, but we haven't lost faith in the Tigers yet. Tigermentum is still a go.

Detroit wins in six. Simple as that

Jason

(P.S - The Ottawa Senators are officially "Back on Track", handing out back-to-back pummellings to New Jersey and (our beloved) Maple Leafs. Also, we might have to revise our predictions for Pittsburgh - if that trio plus Marc-Andre Fleury (M.A Fleury? Ma Fleury?) is as good as they were last night, this team could be scary)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, On Ice!

Let's put this in as plain English as we possibly can: The Toronto Maple Leafs kicked the crap out of the Ottawa Senators last night. Oh man, that was sweet.

The Leafs opened the season with a home and home against the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night. There was a lot of doubt surrounding the Buds. Could they score five-on-five? Could they keep up with the ultra-slick Senators speed? Could the Leafs defy their critics and prove everyone wrong?

And Wednesday night they responded to those questions with a resounding "No." They lost 4-1, basically fulfilling every criticism anyone has ever laid at this team. Their only goal came on a (very generous) penalty shot. Bryan McCabe looked out of place. Hal Gill was a glorified pylon. The youngsters were ineffective. Andrew Raycroft was completely average. Their offense lacked spark.

So no one was very surprised come Thursday morning. Disappointed, sure, but not surprised. We were also left a general sense of dread regarding the follow up game in Ottawa. Thoughts of Toronto's 1-7 record last season versus Ottawa floated through our heads. Turns out, we had nothing to worry about.

The fans in Ottawa bought tickets for a hockey game Thursday night, but what they ended up with was a production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde On Ice. Where Martin Gerber had been a rock for Ottawa 24 hours earlier, he was ineffective and didn't even manage to finish the game. Where the Leafs' forwards couldn't seem to care less in game one, they were all over the ice, forcing turnovers and taking shots for sixty solid minutes in game two.

So the question for both sides is, which performance was the real one? Can we really expect Toronto to play with that kind of passion for another 80 games? Can we really expect the Senators to be so listless for the rest of the season? On both accounts, we would advise not betting on it.

The Leafs are, for as much as we love them, not that good a team, and the Senators, for all we hate them, are not that bad.

But damn if it doesn't give us Leaf faithful some hope.


Speaking of hope, the Philadelphia 76ers have given the Raptors some in a rather backwards sort of way.

The NBA, in an attempt to cosmopolitanize itself, has sent half a dozen teams to Europe to sell some merchandise. Oh, and play some games. That too.

This plan worked for the Leafs a few years ago when they did a preseason tour of Sweden and Finland, routing all of their European competition in the process.

However, we can't help but feel that NBA has set itself up for a rather large fall. The quality of European basketball teams is way higher than most are willing to give credit; Greece proved that by beating a certain American team in a certain world championship.

Which brings us back to the 76ers, who lost to a Spanish team yesterday (we can't make fun of them; the Raptors lost to Maccabi Tel Aviv last year). Now to the good news: The Raptors have a roster that looks like it's ready to compete for the Eurocup, not to mention containing two members of the World Cup winning Spanish team. Extrapolate people, extrapolate!

Silver lining under every cloud,

Jason

State of the Canadian Game

All of the Canadian NHL teams have been busy little bees this season, Montreal becoming the last to jump on the bandwagon today with a flurry of signings and trades of their own. Let's take a look at what the more northernly teams have been up to, accompanied by our expert (snicker) commentary. From east to west, here we go.

Montreal
In: Sergei Samsonov, Mike Johnson
Out: Richard Zednik

Montreal was good last year, without being great. Next season looks to be more of the same. They don't have a number one goalie; Aebischer and Cristobal Huet will have to duke it out for that honour. Samsonov is a nice addition, though he kind of went MIA in Edmonton last year at the end, he still has his goal scoring touch. Saku Koivu and Alexei Kovalev are just another year older though. And why do they still pay Radek Bonk?

Ottawa
In: Martin Gerber, Joe Corvo, Tom Preissing
Out: Zdeno Chara, Dominik Hasek, Martin Havlat, Bryan Smolinski, Tyler Arnason, Bryan Pothier

Unlike Ottawa GM John Muckler, we're not so keen on his new-look Senators. At best, this team is merely as good as the one that preceded it, but we're skeptical that it's better. We like their move in net, signing Carolina's Gerber, which gives them a legit number one, and an end to the Hasek circus (How did signing him ever seem like a good idea?). They also completed one of the more confusing trades of the off-season, sending Havlet and Smolinski to Chicago for San Jose's Preissing. We're told that Corvo and Preissing are both underrated defensemen, but do they equal one Chara? We're skeptical. We're also from Toronto. Go figure.


Toronto
In: Andrew Raycroft, Hal Gill, Pavel Kubina
Out: Eddie Belfour, Tie Domi

Our beloved Maple Leafs are looking younger and better than ever. They have a former rookie of the year in net, plus four legitimite defensemen. And GM John Ferguson has shown the door to the old Leaf policy of hiring old timers well past their prime (Sorry Gary Roberts, not this time). The future is bright in the centre of the universe. Oh, and how many more chances does Nik Antropov get before the Leafs' brass give up on him? Four, minimum, is our guess.

Winne...oh, right.

Edmonton
In: Daniel Tjarnqvist, Marty Reasoner, Joffry Lupul
Out: Chris Pronger

It doesn't matter what the Oilers do now, they've lost Pronger. That's an imbalance no amount of signings is going to fix. Lupul is no slouch, and the handful of draft picks are nice, but they don't add up to one Pronger. And Dwayne Roloson has suckered them into giving him a three-year contract. We suspect that by the end of that, somebody is going to regret signing that contract, and it's not going to be Roloson. On the other hand, the Oilers have a bunch of great young guys, so it's way too early to write them off.

Calgary
In: Alex Tanguay, Jeff Freisen, Andrei Zyuzin
Out: Jordan Leopold

Dare we say it, but Calgary is shaping up to be a team we could actually cheer for. Our main sticking point last season was that they played old-style defensive hockey in the new goal-happy era. Mikka Kiprusoff was the very deserving Vezina winning goalie thanks to that system, which saw the Flames take one goal leads and then shut down the game. But now with another goal scorer or two on the team not named Iginla, this is shaping up as a very interesting team. Also, coach Darryl Sutter (and not, as I almost typed, Darryl Sittler) resigned as coach, for better or for worse. He's still the GM, and the new coach (the hilariously named Jim Playfair) was his old assistant coach, so we all know who's pulling the strings.

Vancouver
In: Roberto Luongo, Marc Chouinard, Willie Mitchell
Out: Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan Allen, Dan Cloutier, Ed Jovanovski

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Vancouver pulled off an amazing trade in getting Luongo, and dumping Bertuzzi. The Canucks have all the pieces now. They have the scoring, the goaltending, and most of the defense, though losing Jovanovski never helps. This team badly underachieved last year, somehow managing to miss the playoffs. Marcus Naslund needs to shape up, Anson Carter needs to come back, and Luongo needs to put up the same numbers he did with the Panthers. Vancouver should do much, much better this season. Or they could crash and burn, again. You know, whatever's easier.

So could this be the year that all six Canadian teams make the playoffs? You better believe it. Not only that, but this could be the year that the Cup comes home. A Canadian team to win it all this season? Why not.

With eleven months to go until the Stanley Cup is next awarded, we're going to go out on a limb and predict that the Leafs will win it all. Let's say in a four game sweep of Calgary, no wait, Detroit, no, no, we got it: Columbus. Yeah, Columbus. We'd be willing to put large sums of money on it, in fact.

Until then,

Jason

Mo' Maurice, Mo' Problems

It was really only a matter of time of course, before the Toronto Maple Leafs made it official.
Paul Maurice becomes the newest schlub to take on the daunting task of coaching in the centre of the universe. He is always described as having a great sense of humour, which is a trait he's going to have to hold on to if he doesn't want to have his soul sucked out by the enormous pressure and ridiculous expectations placed on any Leaf coach.

Pat "Lower Body Injury" Quinn, the last sucker to try to do anything with this team, was adept at handling the swarms of "reporters" (excuse our cynicism) that even the most meaningless of practices would attract.

Will Maurice be able to take that? His last job was after all, in that hockey mecca of Raleigh, North Carolina, where the team was lucky to attract two or three members of the media.

Maybe that's all a little unfair to the guy though. Despite being saddled with crappy Hurricane teams for his entire NHL coaching career, he has managed one Stanley Cup final appearance, which mathematically speaking, is an infinitely greater number than the Leafs have managed over the past forty seasons.

Welcome to Toronto Maurice, the place where ambitions come to die. We only hope you make it out of here in one piece.

In other news, it's time to break out the bubbly. The Jays' whipping boy, Josh Towers, finally won his first start today, dismantling the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 8-3, in a very convincing, 8 inning, 76 pitch outing.

That puts his record on the long path to recovery, now an only slightly less unsightly 1-7. If you wanted to be a Gloomy Gladys about it, you could point out that he got his first win against one of the worst teams in the league, and that manhandling the D-Rays hardly qualifies as an accomplishment. But that would also make you a jerk. Just savour the moment. Josh Towers is back baby.

In other, other news, the Ottawa Senators have choked. Again. They were eliminated from the second round of the playoffs in a depressing five games by the Buffalo Sabres (doing their best impression of the Toronto Maple Leafs).

The most ridiculous thing that we're hearing though, is that owner/jillionaire Eugene Melnyk wants major changes made to the team.

Major changes? What? Are you kidding?

You have one of the undeniably best teams in the league, and you want to blow it all up just because you were undressed in the playoffs?

Talk about fickle.

As a fan of a team that has only topped the 100 point mark once in it's 70 or so year history, I find it hard to believe that people are so negative on the Senators.

Of course, even if they wanted it, the Senators brass would be hard pressed to keep this team together. All-star defensemen Wade Redden and Zdeno Chara are both free agents, and the best bet is that the Sens will only have money for one of them (A sudden image of Redden wearing a Leafs' jersey has filled my head). Martin Havlat has another year on his contract, but he may be on his way out anyway. And we'd be a little surprised if Emery was the starting goaltender next year.

Not because he isn't good enough, because he is, but because Ottawa fans are notoriously capricious. Nothing short of absolute and total success will ever be tolerated by Senator nation (which, come to think of it, is a pretty weak criticism. Sure beats the laissez-faire apathy of Leafs fans).

And in one last tidbit (we promise) of news, this guy seems to be surprised that Yankee pitcher Randy Johnson is, get this, struggling.

Umm, when you're approaching your 93 birthday, I hardly think it counts as struggling. This is just the way Randy Johnson is now.

Where did people get this idea in their head that Randy is still in his prime? The man is, by sports standards, ancient. It's unfair for people to assume he's the same pitcher he was ten years ago, or even five.

We've long been critical of the Yankee's move to make Johnson their so-called ace.

"So, what, exactly, is wrong?" asked Mr. Klapisch, in the above referenced article. What went wrong? I'll tell you what the problem is. He turned 42, that's what.

Get off Randy's back people, his best days are in the past. Just appreciate him for what he can still do.

Later,

Jason

Redemption and Elimination, All Wrapped Together

The Leafs are done. Finished. It's official. No playoffs for them, the first time in seven years. They made a go of it though, I'll give them that much. And they went out in style, those Leafs did, 8-0-2 in their last ten. But in the end, they left it too long to pull off comeback.

But on a brighter note, the Leafs did win tonight, against none other than their most hated rivals, those bastards from Ottawa. They didn't just win, they handed Ottawa their asses on a stick, as the kids might say. 5-1 final score. That's Toronto 1, Ottawa um...7... on the season. But those seven previous losses don't matter now, because the boys in blue won the only game that mattered, the last one. So what if Ottawa beat Toronto by scores of 8-0 and 8-2? That's ancient history now. One can't dwell on the past, doncha know.

And in other news, A.J Burnett made his belated season debut for the Jays against the World Champion White Sox. Suffice it to say, they lost. Burnett wasn't terrible, but compared to the Chisox starter Mark Buehrle, he was totally outclassed. The score was 4-2, hardly a blowout. All of the Sox's runs came curtesy of Paul Konerko's two home runs , both off of Burnett. I mean, he wasn't that bad, it's just he wasn't that good either, by which I mean $55 million dollar good.

And I would really like it if the Toronto sportscasters would put down their pom-poms for half a second and stop making excuses for Burnett. There's a fine line between commentary and cheerleading, and the's Jays play-by-play guys seem to be firmly planted on the rah-rah side. I mean, I understand that the company that owns the Jays also owns the sports network on which the games are broadcast (and the stadium in which they play, and sooner or later the air which they breath, and the thoughts which they think), so that essentially Vernon Wells and the man telling me that Vernon Wells is stepping up to the plate are recieving their paycheques from the same source. I understand that, I do. I understand that Burnett represents a huge investment for the Jays and that by extension the broadcasters also share a vested interest in Burnett's well being, but still, could they at least pretend to be unbiased? Just a little bit? Just because your boss is paying him big bucks, doesn't mean he's above criticism. A loss is still a loss.

And in other news, those lovable losers, the Toronto Raptors were facing the powerhouse Detroit Pistons yesterday and actually won. And yet, somehow life goes on. I'm told the game was sold out in Toronto, but you can be sure that those fans weren't there to see the Raps play. The season will soon be over, mercifully, and Brian "I Relish A Challenge" Colangelo will begin trying to turn this franchise into something resembling more like basketball team than a three ring circus.

And speaking of broadcasters who should put down the pom-poms, where did the Raptors even find Chuck Swirsky and Jack Armstrong? I assume it was in a lobotomy doctor's waiting room, because you would have to be slightly brain dead to be able to call 82 Raptors' games a season and still find reasons to be excited about this team. That neither of them has even contemplated suicide in their tenure with the team is a testament to their dedication. Or severe mental retardation. Either one really.

Later

Jason