No doubt, some folks will be into the gnashing of teeth, given the Thrashers’ two goals in less than a minute in the second period.  No doubt, the Leafs fell apart for a bit for a few minutes there, and they paid for it when Atlanta cashed in a couple of markers.  Keep in mind, though, that this is the youngest team in the NHL.  They are bound to lose focus and composure from time to time this year, and it must be remembered that this will happen from time to time next year too.  The key thing for Leaf fans to watch when this happens – not “if”, but “when” – is how the team reacts.

A couple of nights ago, the Leafs got themselves down 2-0 to the Rangers after two periods and managed to come back and get a win in overtime.  Tonight, the comeback wasn’t complete, but the team bore down and got a couple of goals to tie it before surrendering the eventual winner on an Antropov tip in front of Gustavsson.   There was some inspired play from Bozak again tonight, his pass to Stalberg on Stalberg’s first goal was brilliant.  Stalberg himself showed some good determination to get to the net, though it was a bit alarming to see that his shot on that first goal was actually headed wide but bounced rather fortunately off the goaltender’s skate and in to the net.  Tonight was probably one of Christian Hanson’s better games as a Leaf.  There were also some terrific saves from Gustavsson – especially his save on Afinogenov with about two and a half minutes left in the second period, when Afinogenov was in alone on him just before the first Stalberg goal.

So yeah, another Tuesday night, another loss to a mediocre southeastern opponent, but I’ll say it again:  there is reason for hope.

Happily for all fans of the Blue and White, it was the Leafs who showed up ready for the most recent installment of the Battle of Ontario.  They ran the Senators out of the building, quickly and efficiently, much to the despair of Senators fans everywhere.

Following along with the game’s progress in the aforementioned game thread is an exercise in comparative anthropology:  whereas ordinary human beings experience “reality”, we are able to learn that Senators fans enjoy a rich and imaginative fantasy world of their own invention.  In this charming, but barely recognizable version of the world :

• Despite the fact that Roberto Luongo is superior in every statistical category, Cam Ward should be on the Canadian Olympic Team instead;
• Nick Kypreos is preferable as a hockey journalist…when compared to any other human being;
• It is uncertain who the “most overrated” band of all time is, but we know that the honour belongs to one of either Led Zeppelin or the Beatles; and
• The “running” of J.S. Giguere by Daniel “Clownpants” Alfredsson was a great job.
  After that, with the Senators thoroughly failing to provide any sort of sustained resistance to a Leaf victory, things got decidedly more fatalistic and profane.  They also got less entertaining, except in a “Senators fans, your tears of shame are delicious” sort of way.  Which, come to think of it, I enjoyed very much thank you. 

By the end of the second period, with the Leafs up 4-0 and the Senators hiding in plain sight, live in HD and to the obvious delight of a raucous Air Canada Centre crowd, one Senators fan assessed the situation as follows:

I quit. This is bull. This game can go fuck itself.

More or less symbolizing the pervasive emotional distress inflicted upon Senators fans by the end of the game was this tweet from DHSpeedwagon.  In addition to publicly wrestling with alcohol-induced impure thoughts about CTV newscaster Sandy Rinaldo following the ignominious trouncing of his Ottawa side, DHS advised us that:

For anyone worried about me Mrs. Speedwagon has hid all the knives and taken away my shoelaces. My wine rack is bearing the brunt.

By way of contrast, here in Juniorvania, I watched the game with Spouse.  Her commentary, some of which I relayed by way of Twitter, was much more perceptive than that of the Senators fans assembled in the game day thread, but no less entertaining:

• On Daniel Alfredsson:  (with suitably scrunched-up expression on her face) “I don’t like him”;
• On the Senators first attempt with the man advantage: “This is a shitty powerplay so far.  They’ve done fuck all”.  The historical record will show that she was absolutely correct about this;
• On Jason Spezza:  “He seems a little goofy.”  In the interest of fair and accurate reporting, I should point out that Spezza was not especially disliked by her, being thought to be generally a pleasant enough young fellow, even after this video of Spezza laughing was brought to her attention (via Twitter by  KidKawartha);
• On the Senators supporting cast of aging and ineffective shit-disturbers: “I’m not that fond of that Neil fellow either”;
• Daniel Alfredsson, reconsidered: “I just don’t like him.  There’s something off about him.”

There followed a discussion in our living room about whether it was appropriate for me to be broadcasting Spouse’s observations without prior consultation on the issue.  I assured her that the merriment I and others were deriving was most assuredly not at her expense.  After nevertheless briefly being subject to a wide-ranging gag order, I was able to secure her consent to continue sharing;  that concession was obtained by resorting to the age-old favourite of petulant and spoiled children everywhere: the guilt trip.  I told her that my Leaf-fan Tweeples would be disappointed not to be able to share her experience of watching the game.   She reluctantly relented, though she seemed a little less quick to opine upon the game from that point forward.  She did, however, offer the following:

• On the occasion of an excellent shorthanded chance by Leaf rookie Christian Hanson: “Hey what happened, I thought Ottawa had a powerplay?”
• On CBC play-by-play man Bob Cole: “I like this announcer guy.  He sounds about a thousand years old”;
• On Glenn Healy’s reckless and irresponsible usage of the term “shutout” midway through the second period: she was incensed.

I have to confess that soon after this, I became distracted by an unsettling notion that I have seen Senators coach Cory Clouston somewhere before.  Spouse became somewhat distracted herself, though she (like Down Goes Brown) was more intent on learning the identity of the bearded fellow that sits behind the Leaf bench at the ACC.  More on that in a moment, but while I pondered the question of Clouston’s twin, I neglected to report the following additional Spousal pronouncements (retrieved from memory alone):

• Daniel Alfredsson, reconsidered once again: “There’s something….clowny about him.  He’s like Sideshow Bob.  He might be very nice in person, but there’s something just not right about him at all”;
• On Ottawa Senators fans and their impression of Daniel Alfredsson: “Do they like him?  Why?”

In addition, Spouse referred to Matt Carkner as the “man with the brain injury” throughout the game (after he was punched into another dimension by Colton Orr).  Late in the game, she watched as Chris Campoli (who had tipped one into his own net late in the first period) carry the puck up the ice into the Leafs’ zone, then simply glide to a halt hesitantly and stand there as the Ottawa attack fizzled without a shot.  When he was promptly stripped of the puck and the Leafs headed back up ice, Spouse said simply, “Oh, dear.  That man has had a really bad game.”

He wasn’t alone among the lads from the NCR, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

As for Cory Clouston’s doppleganger:  no doubt about it, it’s Gary from “Team America World Police.”

One of these fellows is creepily wooden; the other was in a movie.

A terrific effort from all the Leafs.  I was particularly impressed (for the third game in a row) by the effort from the Sjostrom/Wallin/Kulemin line.  I never thought I’d type “impressed” and “Wallin” in the same sentence this year, but there you have it.  With two timely goals scored via slapshot in an opportunistic fashion, not to mention a solid defensive effort, Luke Schenn also made me look like a genius, which I always appreciate.

]]> http://heroesinrehab.ca/blog/2010/02/07/what-senators-fans-and-spouse-had-to-say-about-the-game/feed/ 4 http://heroesinrehab.ca/blog/2010/01/28/meeting-brian-burke-hope-for-haiti-at-the-kings-game/ http://heroesinrehab.ca/blog/2010/01/28/meeting-brian-burke-hope-for-haiti-at-the-kings-game/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:00:24 +0000 junior http://heroesinrehab.ca/blog/?p=1241 I went down to the Leafs/Kings game at the Air Canada Centre last night with my Dad.

I’ll wait a moment or two while you make whatever derogatory, insulting and completely justified remarks about the woeful performance of the Blue and White.

(taps foot.  scratches ear.  coughs.  looks at watch.  scratches ear again. yawns.  checks email.  still scratching ear. you done yet? cracks knuckles…)

Well, that took some time but I’m glad we got it out of the way.  Very inventive use of profanity by you, by the way;  you have a special gift.  Your mother must be so proud!   To summarize, then:  the Leafs’ recent performance ranks somewhere on the acceptability scale between “cannibalism” and “child pornography”;  let us all agree that the Buds’ bed is now well and truly shat and – though it’s only late January – this has to be seen as another lost season.

I’ll have more to say about the reasons I think these things have happened and I hope to get into some discussion about the future too, but for now I want to give MLSE props where props are due.  I can hear the yowls of protest from the talk radio haters now; what good could possibly be said about MLSE? Everybody (well, at least everybody who calls into talk radio shows) knows that MLSE is a soulless corporate behemoth, one that greedily hoards every spare cent for the Pension Plan, right?  Everybody knows that the greed of ownership is the reason the Leafs always suck, right?  And everybody knows that’ll never change because the suits don’t have any incentive to ice a competitive team when they’re making money hand over fist already, right?

Except that the truth is more complicated than that.  As for basic economics and the impetus to compete, this myth has been compellingly debunked elsewhere by a commentator no less cynical than Sean at Down Goes Brown.  Some pretty compelling arguments  have been made that the notion of the perennial mediocrity of the Leafs is about as firmly grounded in fact as that of unicorn-riding leprachauns (read the piece by daoust at Pension Plan Puppets).

As for the heartless greed of MLSE, consider this: last night, MLSE and the Leafs arranged to collect funds from fans entering the building for relief of those affected by the recent earthquake in Haiti.  Typical, right, MLSE reaching into your wallet for your dollars, all the while cackling maniacally on a giant stack of their own money, right?  Except that the Leafs were matching every dollar collected threefold; that’s right, for every dollar collected from fans attending the game last night, MLSE is chipping in three bucks of their own for the emergency relief fund.   Apparently, the Leafs did the same thing at a Marlies game on the 23rd and a Raptors game on the 24th.   This doesn’t appear to me to be an attempt to grab some cheap publicity;  I wasn’t able to find any reference online to how much the promotion raised, though I did find the newspaper stories and press release announcing MLSE’s intentions to do the fundraiser.  None of the MLSE Twitter feeds make any reference to how much money was raised, according to a search I did earlier tonight.  I’m going to try and contact MLSE tomorrow to see if they can confirm the results.  I’d also like to find out whether that money is going to be funnelled through a charity to which the federal government’s matching program applies – which would effectively convert every dollar handed over by the fans into eight bucks in the hands of relief organizations in the quake zone.

Incidentally, I learned about the Leafs’ efforts in this regard from the big boss himself;  when I entered the Air Canada Centre with my Dad for the game at around 6:20, Brian Burke himself was at the front door, schlepping a coffee can for donations.   Say what you will about the way Burke is running the team;  go ahead and criticize the way his rebuild plan for the hockey club is unfolding.  Whatever you feel about either of those things, you’d have to agree that it takes some flat out balls for the General Manager of a Maple Leafs team that’s on its way to missing the playoffs for a fifth consecutive year to stand right there in the lobby, look the paying customers in the eye as they come through the turnstiles, and ask them to pitch in for an excellent charitable cause.  When I spoke to him, he was careful to tell me that MLSE was kicking in the extra matching funds, and he seemed genuinely interested when I told him about the fundraising efforts that the crew at Pension Plan Puppets recently made.

The Leafs have rightly taken a lot of heat for their performance on the ice this year.  Give them their due when it comes to community responsibility and good corporate citizenship.

Alec Brownscombe has asked me to contribute my thoughts occasionally over at MLHS, and I’ve agreed to do it.  It doesn’t spell the end for this site;  I plan to continue posting here just as sporadically as always.  We may find, you and I, that my thoughts about the Leafs get plastered more frequently over there instead of here.  I honestly don’t know how this will go.  Anyway, I told Alec a couple of weeks ago that I’d “have something for him shortly”, which of course translated into a two week delay.  I think I was having a very difficult time deciding exactly what to write about in my first post.  I felt that what was needed was something fresh and different,  a thematically consistent column with insight, humour and unassailable logic.

Instead, I told a story about one night in a bar in Washington D.C.  Oh, and the Tragically Hip makes an appearance.  Go on over and check it out;  let me know what you think, provided your feedback is positive.

(Kidding.)  (Mostly.)

I know there will be some gnashing of teeth in the Barilkosphere about OT loss to Buffalo tonight;  yes, there should have been someone in front of the net there when Derek Roy potted the winner, and I’m looking in the general direction of Francois “Happy Trails” Beauchemin when I say that.  Yes, it’s a bummer to lose to a divisional rival (and its apparently super-fucking-human goalie) like seventy-eight times in a row, but there are bigger pictures to see, larger fish to fry, and more metaphors to mix.  In short, there are reasons to take heart.

Hear me, Leafs fans.  Tonight:

• On a Tuesday night matchup in late December, in a game that would be their third in four nights, the Leafs brought effort and forechecked the crap out of a Sabres team that has been their nemesis for oh, approximately nine years.  In years gone by, Tuesday night + 3rd game in four nights + pre-Christmas ennui = 9-1 shellacking led by a four goal third period from the Sabres’ team bus driver;
• Viktor Stalberg potted a beauty and may still have the use of both shoulders;
• the Monster raised everybody’s Christmas spirits by allowing the Sabres to ring enough pucks off the posts behind him to play the Carol of the Bells.  He also battled through some questionable play to post another solid outing without a visit to the cardiologist; and
• NIKOLAI KULEMIN.  OMG BEST GAME AS A LEAF EVAR.

It’s the last point I want to really focus on.  I’ve been waiting for Kulemin to break out in a way that doesn’t involve a visit to the dermatologist and I think he is now absolutely poised to take his game to the next level.   If he plays every game in his career like he did tonight, it will be a long and fruitful one in Maple Leaf Blue & White, that’s for sure.  Kulemin was on the forecheck aggressively and with physicality throughout the game, showing excellent anticipation and then following through with the physical effort to get himself into the right spots at the right times.  He was the direct cause of several Buffalo turnovers.  He took a tremendous hit along the boards to chip the puck out and generate the rush that produced the second Leafs goal.  He was also quite responsible defensively and used his body to separate the Sabres from the puck, not shying away from some tough customers like Mike Grier.  Terrific game from this young guy.

Whatever, we could’ve had another point, yadda yadda yadda, but I really liked what I saw out of this kid tonight.  Best game he’s played in a Leaf uniform.

My wife and I are running a charity auction tonight.  One of the items that’s up for grabs is an autographed hockey stick that  Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment was kind enough to donate.  It’s autographed by the 2008-2009 Toronto Maple Leafs;  you know, the pre-truculent ones.

Now I know that there will be some among you who say, “Meh.  No Nasty Nazem, no Komikazi, no Happy Trails.  I am excited about this year’s team.  Last year is so – well, last year.”   But there’s a lot of this year on the stick too;  Luke Schenn, Mickey Grabs, Nick Hagman and Nikolai Kulemin, for example, were all Leafs last year.  And if I could identify all the signatures on it, I would be able to assure you that they’re all there (just kidding – most of them added their numbers beneath their signature).

There are also some elements of history and soon-to-be-history.  For example the stick is signed by Nik Antropov and Anton Stralman.  Since both of those players were traded by the Leafs, the successful bidder is virtually guaranteed* to own a stick signed by sure fire future Hall of Famers and future winners of multiple Norris, Hart and Art Ross trophies.

The stick comes with a certificate of authenticity.  I picked it up myself from MLSE;  it’s the real deal.

The auction is taking place between 5:30 and about 8:00 tomorrow night.  If you’re interested in submitting a bid on the stick, I can do it for you – we can communicate by Twitter (my handle is warwalker) or email (junior [at] heroesinrehab.ca)  on my iPhone.   I’ll cough up the dough for the charity, you can PayPal me the amount of the bid if you win, and I’ll even pay to ship it to your home, apartment, dorm room, cardboard box or park bench. Which is a joke, of course, but it’s a nice way to segue to…

…the charity.  It’s called “Miles for Smiles“.  We’re raising money for homeless and street-involved youth here in the City of Hamilton.  All the money we raise tomorrow is going to the Good Shepherd Centres and is specifically ear-marked for two facilities they run for these kids, Notre Dame House and Brennan House.  They’re places that these kids can go when they have nowhere else to stay;  they offer social support services and try to hook the kids up with counselling and educational services to help the kids try to address whatever problems may be causing their homelessness.   This year, our honorary chairperson is a young lady who once found herself having to make use of these services, but who has made a success of her life – she’s off the street and attending a post-secondary institution, and she wants to become a social worker to help the clientele of these facilities.  So it’s a good cause.  If you’d like to help out, I’d appreciate it.

——————–

*If you listen to the mittenstringers, anyway.  What I’m saying is that the guarantee is entirely fictional.

Clancy is an intimidating ghost

of the Leafs  is no doubt a busy man, but  Burkie’s recently been a bit busier than most.  On top of the usual day to day stuff, he’s still dealing with some of the remnants left behind by the previous occupant of the office:  emptying the crayons from the top drawer in the desk, tossing out the half-finished Word Jumbles and comic books scattered throughout the office and executive bathroom, and (most labour intensive of all) scrubbing  the yellow highlighter off the computer screen.

Imagine that as Burke is attending to these various tasks, shuffling things about on the managerial desk, he finds a dented and scratched old coffee can that’s filled with a bunch of dust.  The magic marker/masking tape label has long ago faded and is now illegible.  What Burkie can’t know is that the battered tin, a relic from days gone by, contains the ashes of a deceased player  – unceremoniously stored there years ago after the player’s cremation by a skinflint owner determined to economize wherever possible .

Seeing the tin, Burke is puzzled. He feels sure he would have noticed the disfigured canister on his desk before, but he has not.  He picks it up to examine it, and as he does so, it tumbles from his hands to the floor.  A pile of dust spills on to the plush blue carpet; there is a flash of light and a puff of smoke.   Burke rubs his eyes in disbelief and stares at the apparition that now stands before him in the office.

Something very rare and incredible has happened:  Brian Burke is speechless.

Slightly less unusually, the ghost of a hockey player dead for more than 23 years has spontaneously appeared in a downtown Toronto office building wearing full equipment and a period uniform.

The ghost appears as he did on the night of March 17, 1934:  wearing a bright green sweater with a large shamrock emblazoned across the back where his trademark number 7 ordinarily appeared.  He is carrying a stick and wearing skates. He is pale and very obviously dead.

GHOST: Greetings, Mr. Burke.  I (dramatic pause) am…

BURKE: (recovering his senses)   Great, another stick-wielding zombie  in my office.  Look, I told Chris Chelios just a couple days ago, we’re not looking for any undead players at this time..

GHOST: Silence!  Speak not, mortal.

BURKE: (rising from his chair) What the hell?  Listen pal, nobody talks to me like that, and certainly not in my office.

GHOST: …but…but…look, I said “silence.”  That’s supposed to shut you up;  it’s the first thing they teach you in haunting class.

BURKE: Yeah, well I guess I was away that day.  Say, aren’t you….?

GHOST: Yes, I am.  King Clancy, Mr. Burke.

BURKE: (Stands staring at the ghost, unblinking)

CLANCY: (Stares back,  clears throat)

BURKE: (Continues to stare)

CLANCY: (Shuffles feet, finally shrugs and raises his palms.) What?

BURKE: Well?  Isn’t this the part where you tell me why you’ve  appeared, little fella?

CLANCY: Look, I’m the apparition here, I’m supposed to control this encounter.  Must you be in charge of everything?

BURKE: (still staring)

CLANCY: (under his breath, with resignation) Fine.   (Raising his voice, Clancy gestures in the air with his stick as he speaks dramatically) In 1986 when I passed away, my mortal remains were imprisoned in that outrageous receptacle by that backstabbing cheapskate so-called friend of mine who used to own the team.  With my corporeal remnants consigned to ignominy by that mean-spirited prick of an owner, my spirit could not rest…

BURKE: You’ll have to move this along, buddy.  I’m trying to get my desk cleaned up so I can call Chiarelli back.  I don’t know if you get the Internet where you come from, but I’m working on a trade for this guy named Phil Kessel….

CLANCY: …three wishes.  You get three wishes for freeing my tortured soul.

BURKE: Three wishes, eh?  Hey, lucky me.  Can’t believe I was fortunate enough to be the first to set you free…

CLANCY: Oh, first shmirst.  Ferguson knocked the can over  daily when he was here.  When I told him I was King Clancy, he wanted to know what country I “owned” and whether I could help him find his shoes; he was wearing them at the time.  I explained that I was a ghost;  he told me he is a Libra.  He  is not a Libra.   I tried to raise the subject of the three wishes a bunch of times but he kept getting distracted by the voicemail light flashing on his telephone or a Garfield cartoon.  One day I found him just sitting and staring at an orange juice container;  I asked him why, and he told me the package said “concentrate.” As you can probably imagine, it took several years for us to get to the actual wish-making/granting phase.  When I told him I was going to grant him three wishes, he asked me for (1) a cookie;  (2) another cookie; and (3) some Leafs tickets.  On that 3rd one, I explained to him that he was the General Manager of the Leafs and that he didn’t need tickets to get into the games.  I gave him one more wish.  He wished that he could perform his duties competently, but some things are beyond even my otherworldly powers, so I arranged things for Peddie to fire his ass and just climbed back in the can.

BURKE: That does kind of  help explain some things around here (shuffles cancelled cheque made out to “Andrew Raycroft” to one side of desk).  Three wishes, eh?   Hmmm, let  me think for a second.  Do I have to tell you the wish?

CLANCY: It will suffice, oh truculent one,  if you merely concentrate upon the object of  your desire.

BURKE: You use a lot of pretty flowery language for a guy who turned pro at 17.  Can’t imagine you spent a lot of time in school as a kid, King.  What gives?

CLANCY: (sighs) I’m dead, Brian.  We have a duty to be dramatic when we speak.  Just make your first wish.

BURKE: Hmmm.  What do I really……really….want?

(Far across the country, Kevin Lowe’s genitalia spontaneously detach from his torso and fall to the floor.)

CLANCY: There you go, first wish granted.  That wasn’t so hard, was it?

BURKE: Are you talking about the wish, or…

CLANCY: Mind out of the gutter, Brian.  Second wish?

BURKE: Can I just wish for more wishes, or for my team to win the Cup?

CLANCY: Are you familiar with the concept of a monkey’s paw?

BURKE: Yeah.

CLANCY: Well, let’s put it this way:  I don’t have the paws of a monkey, exactly, but you don’t want to be messing with 75-year old sweat-sopped hockey gloves that have been worn by a corpse for a couple of decades.

BURKE: I did notice a bit of a smell in here….

CLANCY: No, no, that was Nonis.  He’s been eating chili-dogs at Burkie’s Dog House every morning, then coming in here to float a couple of trouser coughs before you get back from lunch.   I think he’s pissed he doesn’t have a concession stand named after him.   He mutters under his breath a lot about the trade for Roberto Luongo while he’s letting them fly in here.

BURKE: Son of a bitch!  Are you telling me my assistant has been surreptitiously farting in my office?

CLANCY: That’s nothing; more than one person has peed in the coffemaker in Richard Peddie’s office.

BURKE: Yeah, I do that all the time.

CLANCY: Brian, everybody else does it when Richard’s NOT in the room.

BURKE: Oh.

CLANCY: Clearly, we digress.  Your second wish?

BURKE: Well, I guess I should use the remaining wishes to achieve some success around here.  Let me see…how could I do that?

CLANCY:  Well, Feschuk and Grange suggest that the team would improve if Leaf fans just stopped coming to the games.

BURKE:  (laughing) Idiots!

CLANCY:  (laughing) Yeah!

(They double over in hysterics, clapping each other on the back and stomping their feet on the floor.  After a time, they dry their tears and resume their conversation.)

BURKE: Okay, okay.  My second wish is “for the Maple Leafs to be a much better team.”

CLANCY: (sighing) Alright.  Jamal Mayers has been waived.

BURKE: That’s it?

CLANCY: Seriously, have you never seen an episode of the Twilight Zone?  You can’t just make broad, sweeping and general wishes like that, or I – as a ghostly apparition – have a moral duty to grant your wish in a way that achieves your objective, but still screws you.

BURKE: How does waiving Mayers screw me?

CLANCY: I could have chosen Stempniak instead;  he’s still on the team.

BURKE: Who?

CLANCY: Never mind.  Look, make a third wish, will you….but do it carefully.  Phrase your wish carefully, with appropriate qualifiying language, or I have to screw you.

BURKE: (makes chin-rubbing gestures and thinking sounds) Okay.  Here it is.  I wanna draft an elite scoring talent, a top-6 kind of prospect to our team;  I want him to be a top 5 draft selection, but I want him to play for us right now, this year – and I don’t want to lose any players from our current roster.

CLANCY: All right – done.  Get Peter Chiarelli on the phone, he’s going to offer you Phil Kessel for your 1st round picks in 2010 and 2011, and your second rounder in 2010.  You’re going to take the deal.  Wish granted.

BURKE: But that’s exactly the transaction I was talking about with Chiarelli!  I was hesitating a bit, because you know on the one hand, Kessel’s only 21 and he’s shown a ton of offensive upside, the kind of young talent that isn’t commonly available on the open market.  On the other hand, though, I was reading this Internet site – this Pension Plan Puppets, and there was this guy who goes by the name mf37 who had me all wrapped around the axle about this.  Jesus Christ, I nearly crapped my pants when I read this:

[W]hat if those picks turn out to be Parise (17) and Getzlaf (19)?

It’s amazing that Kessel scored 36 goals once, but that’s all there is to his game. If he can’t shoot the same way post-surgery, Burke just acquired the next Rob Brown.

Or to Chemmy’s earlier point, this could be the next Cheechoo.

CLANCY: Yeah, I saw that.  Scary stuff.

BURKE: Scary?  You’re a zombie!

CLANCY: Still.

BURKE: Anyway, I was really torn about whether to do this deal.  The way I look at it, getting a young guy like Kessel is kind of like taking next year’s draft pick and putting him on the team now- he’s youthful enough to still count as a prospect.  So it’s almost like you’re not really surrendering a first round pick, so much as taking next year’s pick now.  But draft picks, even first rounders, don’t always pan out.  So you have to ask yourself, essentially, is it worth giving up a 1st round pick, and a second rounder too, basically in order to buy some certainty that the guy you selected is capable of playing and scoring in this league.  Kind of like an insurance policy.  Is that insurance worth that additional first and second round pick?

CLANCY: Don’t forget about the third rounder you gave up to make this deal possible in the first place.

BURKE: (burps nervously) Fucking mf37!  That guy is gonna give me a heart attack, I swear.  Christ, I’m ready to take up the pitchforks and torches after me,  reading shit like that.  Rob fucking Brown, King!

CLANCY: Yeah.  Well, it’s academic now.  You’ve got your wish – the Leafs’ first rounder in 2010 is a 21 year old Phil Kessel.  He scored 36 goals last year and he’s the kind of young, elite scoring prospect that the Leafs haven’t had in the lineup since – well, I don’t wanna say it was back when I was playing, but it was pretty freaking close. You know that the kid can play in this league, and the price you’ve paid for that certainty is a first, second, and third round pick.  You haven’t lost any players from your current roster, so your team has to be considerably improved.  Assuming you get any kind of goaltending in the next couple of years, you should be well positioned – with a couple of judicious additions here and there (and a little bit of luck in terms of the development of your other youngsters) to open a window in which you will be competitive for the Stanley Cup.  Of course, the draft picks you gave up could turn out to come back to haunt you – there are three chances that somebody else is gonna draft the 2015 league MVP on your dime.

BURKE: Yeah, that’s pretty much the way it is.

CLANCY: You gotta take some risks to get a reward, right?  You know, back in my day, I was the shit;  I was playing for Ottawa when Conn Smythe bet a crapload of money on a race horse – at 200-1 odds -  and he won the bet.  He used his winnings to buy my contract.  200-1 odds!  Now that’s a risk.

BURKE: Gimme a break.  Seriously, what are the chances that race wasn’t fixed?

CLANCY: Fixed?!?  Scandal!  Opprobrium!

BURKE: There you go with your dead guy words again.  So this Kessel trade is a done deal now?

CLANCY: Yeah.  Pick up the phone.  Chiarelli is faxing you the papers right now.

BURKE: (pause)  So, straight up, King.  Did you screw me over Monkey’s Paw style or no?

CLANCY: (Smiles…and slowly dissolves.)

No. Not "Leafs Nation"

I’m going to go ahead and say it – fuck “Leafs Nation”.  Strange words to hear from a lifelong Leafs fan and recent contributor to the Maple Leafs Annual?  Maybe.  Hear me out.

Kim Jorn, Godd Till and mf37, the Three Amigos of the Barilkosphere, have combined their considerable forces to launch a new blog called Zambonic Youth.  Armed with a somewhat confusing but nevetheless distinctly unsettling manifesto that takes time out from hockey issues to warn against the coming cyptozoological war, the electronic Zambonic goes sardonic on the Leafs Abomination lexiconic – yo they be riffin’ supersonic’ like the London Philharmonic¹ – on the recent Random House offering by Dave Feschuk and Michael Grange, Leafs Abomination.

Mf37 concludes his review thusly:

One last message: whatever you do, don’t buy this book.

Seriously.

One of the authors’ central arguments about the Leafs is that fans have supported crap for far too long and that support is partially responsible for perpetuating a four-decade string of mediocrity.

If you shovel $20 at product like this, there’s a real danger that it’s only going to encourage more publishers to hire basketball writers to pen a half-baked book about your favourite hockey team. And no matter what franchise you’re a fan of (and there are plenty of them that have gone 30+ years without a Cup to chose from) no good can come from that.

I believe the appropriate phrase would be “hoist by their own petard.”  Nicely played.

I have to say that this book does seem to be the lexical equivalent of a Howard Berger blog post, squarely raising the issue of why it wasn’t released in November, when things matter.  Others have rightly pointed out the hackneyed resort to cheap tricks like the upside down Leaf on the cover, the supposed selling price of $19.67, the guy on the cover with the bag on his head and so on.  I don’t know whether Feschuk and/or Grange were involved in making those design choices, but it doesn’t sound as though these features of the book’s exterior are thematically inconsistent with the actual content of the tome.  At the very least, Feschuk and Grange would seem by inference to be implicated as being complicit in this lazy and blatantly obvious resort to familiar cliches.  The whole idea (of both cover and book), presumably, is  to attempt inflame those who retain the capacity to be astonished by such nakedly calculated shit-disturbing and thereby gain publicity for the publication (remember the Maclean’s issue purportedly dedicated to exploring “Why the Leafs Stink“?  Bet that issue, sporting the Leaf-bashing cover story sold a shitload of copies too.)   All in all, shame on Messrs. Feschuk and Grange for falling victim to the sporting world’s equivalent of populist demagoguery.

For my own part, I am going to take the opportunity presented by the release of this book and the consequent recent focus on these tired memes to make a declaration.  I am going to formally and officially express my discomfort with the term “Leafs Nation”, a (hilariously witty, no doubt) perversion of which phrase  serves as the title for the Feschuk/Grange offering.

First, a disclaimer:  I’ve used the term myself in the past.  It may even have found its way into my article in the Maple Leafs Annual, I can’t recall.  I’m not saying I haven’t sinned in the past.  What I am saying is that I’ve never been comfortable with the term, and I am taking this opportunity to expressly disavow it.  I am also urging my fellow Leafs fans to do the same and refer to themselves nevermore as “Leafs Nation.”

Why? Though the true genesis of  the “fanbase as Nation” concept is somewhat obscure (or at least “not readily surrendered to me by the Internet using  mediocre Google skillz and ten minutes to spare), so far as I am aware this idea originated in the early 1980s with fans of the Oakland Los Angeles Oakland Raiders of the NFL.  Whatever the exact circumstances surrounding the origin of this practice, it is clear to me that the idea of “Leafs Nation” is no more innovative a concept than a “Kyle Wellwood is fat” joke – and it’s considerably less entertaining to boot.

There are almost literally Leagues of Nations – and we know how well that turned out last time.   It seems like every pro team in football – from the USC Trojans (see what I did there?) on through the New York Giants, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots – has its own “Nation.”  In baseball too, the Red Sox, the Cubs and the Blue Jays each apparently aspire to nationhood.  Turning to other sports, the Lakers,  Knicks and even the execrable L.A. Clippers ( ! ) each have fanbases boasting of their jurisdictional sovereignty.   There are a plethora of “Tiger Nations” in a variety of sports, Lions Nations littered (tee hee!) across the continent, and both East and West Rangers Nations.   Confusingly, there is even a Nationals Nation, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sporting world has indeed become a Byzantine and ridiculous network of balkanized Fan Republics totally bereft of imagination.

For Christ’s sake,  even the Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Effing Lightning have their own “Nations.”  Surely, these two must be the Vatican City and Monaco of the sporting afficionado atlas.

The point is that this terminology, when combined with the name of the team – any team – has become a straight synonym for “fans”.   It gets used generically, indiscriminately and without regard to whether there actually are any identifying characteristics at all that distinguish supporters of the team in question from fans of their rivals, or indeed from, say, “model train enthusiasts” for that matter (Lionel Nation represent!).   Ultimately, usage of this repetitive, unoriginal and jingoistic nomenclature to describe Maple Leafs fans does a disservice to them;  by painting them with the same brush as fans of virtually every other team in every other league at every other level in every other sport, it fails to adequately describe the undoubtedly unique culture that cheering for the Leafs involves.

It eviscerates from the notion of Leaf fandom, by force of its own banality, the burning and passionate hatred for everything Habs-related;  the Blue & White’s traditional affinity for defense, rugged play and workmanlike efforts, which have historically been preferred and celebrated even more than more flashy offense-oriented talent;  the fondness for the Maple Leaf Rag and Paul Morris’ dispassionate goal announcements;  the love for Wendel Clark, King Clancy and Johnny Bower;  the hatred of Harold Ballard;  the sense of pride that warms the Leaf fan’s heart when the chants of Go Leafs Go can clearly be heard on a Saturday night telecast from the other team’s building, or hearing a cross-provincial rival’s Captain booed robustly in his own barn by fans of Mr. Smythe’s team just happy to get the chance to get to a game in person for a change; or the sense of identity that comes with having fiercely supported a team so publicly derided for so long, even while fans of its sworn enemy (once the Habs, more recently the Red Wings) have gloated over Cup victory after Cup victory.

This “Nation” thing similarly obscures the sense of injustice that those of us in the Barilkosphere feel when we hear the tired memes trotted out by the working media to sell papers, increase viewership or otherwise boost the bottom line;  those of us who have followed the team closely over the years know that those who say these tired and unoriginal things – Grange, Feschuk, Berger, your cousin Jerry, that loudmouth at the end of the bar – they’re not only working with tired material, they’re also just plain wrong.  We know they’re talking shit, and we know they’re doing it either because they’re motivated to stir up the pot  for their own selfish purposes (usually related to the fact that there’s a hell of a lot of us) or they just plain don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, and it gets us angry.

This “Nation” thing eviscerates, elides and obliterates all of that and more, more than eight decades of proud history, everything that makes a Leafs fan unlike a fan of any other team in any other sport.  And Feschuk and Grange write a book in which the very term is included in the title.   My God, they couldn’t even pun a Maple Leafs-specific insult into the title of their book, the book that is destined to succeed precisely because of the special nature of the Maple Leafs fanbase.  Ask yourself what other pro sports team in North America could possibly be the subject of a whole book about the degree to which it supposedly sucks and realistically hope to sell any copies whatsoever?  That list probably only includes a handful of other teams – the Cubs, probably, and perhaps the Clippers for the sheer scale of horror involved.  As Mf37 has convincingly argued in the Maple Leafs Annual, though, there is only one team whose fans actually get blamed for the supposed failures of their heroes:  the Leafs.

Thus, referring to us as Leafs Nation, just like any other fanbase, trivializes the very real fact that the people and organizations who are trying to sell you this book – relying upon you to buy it, in fact – are the same ones who have pilloried you for supporting the team in the first place.  They’ve incorrectly told you that the team has been a spectacular failure;  they’ve continuously falsely and illogically claimed that you alone among all sports fans are to blame for that supposed failure;  now they want to rob you of your unique identity by foisting upon you a generic label. Feschuk and Grange – and any other person who uses the term “Leafs Nation” – homogenizes us and equates us  (by implication) with the sorry dozens that have been straggling by Tampa Bay Lightning games for the last few years.

Well no more.  Join me in rejecting the term “Leafs Nation.” Let us instead follow the example of the Cheeseheads²  (preferably without the foam replica dairy products on our head).  Supporters of the Green Bay Packers have it right – lovers of the small town team located on the frozen tundra and steeped in tradition and myth have set themselves apart from the fans of other teams- as it should be.   There’s a difference between the guy who lives a couple of miles from Lambeau Field with a Cheesehead wife, three Cheesehead kids and a dog named Lombardi, whose family’s tickets have been handed down like heirlooms  through generations – and some fucking guy with a “Houston Texans” logo stuck to the bumper of his truck.

Have I convinced you?  Good.  Now comes the next, more difficult question – what term should we use instead?    Suggestions in the comments, people…

—————————————-

¹Sorry, I think I may have briefly channeled Tupac for a moment there.

²Inexplicably, even Packers fans have fallen victim to the pernicious evil of this “Nation” thing.  Consider, for example, this site.

Time for a bit of full disclosure:  I know Mike Grange.  It would be a stretch to say that he’s a friend of mine because we never really hung out together back in the day; I met him through a friend.  He seemed like a nice enough guy, so I don’t personally dislike him, but I have to say I’m not terribly likely to run out and buy his book, for reasons enumerated in mf37’s review and elsewhere.

• Kid Kadri!!!!1  He’s the real deal, people.  He could use some bulking up, especially up top, but the guy is slick smooth with incredible hand/eye co-ordination and a retinue of subtle moves, little shifts from side to side, slight changes of pace, small stick movements, etc. – that put his opponents off balance and allow him to sift through defenders and to find open space.  I don’t think he’s NHL ready right now, but I would be willing to bet he’ll make the Leafs next year;
• Jesse Blacker has a howitzer for a shot.  That kid is some steady, too.  I was impressed with his play, though he was on the ice for the Penguins’ second goal, scored on a soft little spinerama move on the goalline  by Moon;
• Stalberg and Stefanovich showed lots of promise and combined on the Leafs’ only goal of the evening – basically a short 2 on 0 after a Penguin defender turned it over to Stralberg in the high slot;
• I didn’t notice Bozak and Hanson as much as I thought I might.  I did see Hanson a lot, and he seemed to be playing well positionally, but they didn’t seem to accomplish much.  The power play (which featured these two prominently) was an abomination worthy of an actual big league Maple Leafs power play – it was that bad;
• Dale Mitchell continues to get noticed.  He’s full of energy and plays a smart positional game, especially defensively.  He played on a line with Gilati and Kurtz, and these three were more visible to my eye (especially in the late stages of the game) than Bozak and Hanson (though Stalberg, the third forward on that line, did impress me);
• Andrew Engelage (former goaltender for the Memorial Cup Champion Windsor Spitfires) unfortunately didn’t do much to increase his chances of landing and keeping a big league deal – the Leafs had scored to make it 2-1 and were coming on in a big way and threatening to tie the game midway through the 3rd when Engelage coughed up a Raycroftian hairball and whiffed on Robert Bortuzzo’s weak shot for the 3rd Penguin goal, effectively extinguishing the Maple Leaf comeback attempt.   Too bad for Andrew, I’d like to see him get a shot somewhere.

Here’s a quick mashup of some video I shot at the game.  There are no fancy transitions, ’cause I haven’t figured out how to use that part of my new video editing software yet.  Shown in this video are:

1. A picture of the teams lined up for the national anthems;
2. The Leafs skating out on to the ice for the 3rd period;
3. The Penguins first goal, the one iPhone and I combined to describe on Twitter as a “Quasimodo breakaway” – you gotta love “autocorrect”.  And yes, those people in front of me DO have rather large heads, and yes, I should have used the “zoom” feature.  Thanks for your help;
4. The fight between Slaney and Bortuzzo.  Bombs away, this is truculence;
5. A bit of the play – featuring Bozak, Hanson and Stalberg, if I recall correctly; and
6. Kid Kadri doing some stuff, and then unfortunately getting drilled – he’s the guy taking the draw and wearing number 43.

I’ll take a little closer look at the footage I’ve got on Friday night and see if I can’t cobble together a little something better than this.  In the meantime, enjoy.

Coming Soon to This Corner - NHL Hockey?

James Mirtle’s work following the Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy matter as it has unfolded has made for a fascinating read.  If you ignore for a moment the fact that this corporate soap opera is a passion play wreaking havoc with the emotions of fellow hockey fans – fans  who are loyal, hardy and dedicated enough to (in the middle of a desert, mind you) root for a perenially underachieving and brutally mismanaged team that has so often been an unwanted afterthought for its own owners – it’s been an entertaining diversion, and a way to fill the days in an off-season locally short on summer weather.   At some point in the next few days Judge Redfield T. Baum will deliver a ruling as to whether Jim Balsillie’s company, PSE, is a bidder qualified to participate in the upcoming auction of the team.  Many other consequences will flow from that ruling for the Coyotes and their fans;  depending upon the identity of the successful bidder, a greater or lesser likelihood that the team will leave town.  Whatever the result, appeals and further litigation remain a distinct possibility.  For the Coyotes, all that is presently certain is that there will be uncertainty surrounding the future of the team.

Regardless of Mr. Balsillie’s status upon delivery of that ruling, however – whether he’s declared a qualified bidder or not -Balsillie’s desert offensive is likely to have far-reaching implications for fans of NHL hockey in southern Ontario.  Specifically, it now seems very probable that at some point, someone will bring another NHL team to southern Ontario.  If and when that happens, fans settling into their seats before the faceoff will have Balsillie and his attorneys to thank for it.

Balsillie’s choice to force his showdown with the NHL into the public arena via the courts has, for the NHL and the Toronto Maple Leafs in particular, opened a kind of Pandora’s Box.  As a result of the public nature of this dispute, we now know the following things about the business of hockey in southern Ontario:

• There is potful of money to be earned by anyone who puts an NHL franchise in Hamilton.  Through Dr. Andrew Zimbalist’s declaration on the relocation fee issue, we learned that PSE was estimating (in its pro formas) first-year revenues for the Hamilton club at almost $73 million dollars – in relative terms, more than 12 other NHL clubs, and “within five million dollars” of another four (see Zimbalist’s declaration, paragraph 12).  According to Zimbalist’s declaration, PSE believes that revenues would increase by a little more than 9 per cent annually in each of the first four years, as renovations to Copps Coliseum are completed and the capacity of the building to earn some bank for its corporate masters is suitably tricked out. Common sense tells us that Balsillie’s expert analysis, advanced in a situation in which (by relocating into a market) he may well be required to compensate the league for the theoretical value of a lost expansion opportunity, would have a tendency to quantify the value of that lost opportunity somewhat conservatively.  Seventy-three million bones coming in the door starting in year one is likely to get the attention of sports-minded capitalists everywhere.
• Did I mention that there is a potful of money to be earned by anyone who puts an NHL franchise in Hamilton?  The NHL responded to Zimbalist’s declaration with two reports of its own:  The first estimated the value of a team in Hamilton as between $261.8 million and $279.8 million.   The second estimated the value of a team in Hamilton as approximately $315 million. By comparison, the same reports suggest the value of a team in Phoenix somewhere in the range of $120 million to $176 million dollars.
• The Toronto Maple Leafs don’t have a “veto” that would allow them to prevent another team from moving into the area.  The commonly accepted wisdom is that the Leafs have been the driving force behind the league’s historical refusal to place a team in Hamilton.  In view of the almost papal level of secrecy surrounding NHL Board of Governors meetings, it is difficult to know the truth of the matter on that issue, but it does seem clear that – at least as recently as 2006 – the Leafs have behaved as though they do have a veto over such a relocation.  Forced into the courts by the Coyotes bankruptcy, however, and facing certain immutable facts of life in terms of the applicable antitrust law, the NHL sees the writing on the wall and cannot espouse the untenable position that one of its member clubs could unilaterally prevent the relocation of another into its home territory.   Backed into a corner in the courts, the NHL has had no alternative but to publicly align itself with the “no Leaf veto” theory.   Whatever the secret and private reality of the arrangement between the Leafs and the NHL in the past on the issue of the veto,  the league has now been forced to publicly espouse the view that relocation of a member club into the territory of another may be approved by a majority vote of the Board.
• We also know that quite apart from the Coyotes, there are already a number of other NHL franchises in failing financial health.

So let me do the math for you:  quite a few NHL teams are losing money in their current market.   The market in southern Ontario has been identified as undoubtedly superior to many such existing markets.  It seems likely that a team relocating to that market would quickly become one of the more valuable properties in the league.

And all it takes is a majority vote of the Board to get you there.

It’s one thing for the NHL to clandestinely or surreptitiously enforce a Maple Leafs veto by denying entry into the league for someone wishing to avail themselves of the Hamilton opportunity (perhaps by rejecting the prospective owner on the grounds of his purported lack of “character” or “integrity”;  such a thing might easily be accomplished when the votes are taken behind closed doors by folks who are already members of the fraternity.  It’s quite another for the league to be able to preserve unanimity on this issue in perpetuity among its existing members.  Sooner or later, one of the have not franchises – already admitted into the league, present for the discussion and votes on all league issues, able to avoid any backroom chicanery – will seize the southern Ontario opportunity for itself.

How long will it be before a club wanting to seize such an opportunity would have the votes necessary to achieve the result?  Teams struggling in their own markets and receiving financial assistance from their richer brethren might want to see one of their fellow have nots stop taking funds from the revenue sharing pool – and likely start paying a substantial amount into the fund instead.