HiR:tb Toots (@warwalker)
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By junior on December 3, 2008, at 10:01 pm I will have more to say about this in the very near future, but for the time being, let me say that I am very upset that the Prime Minister of Canada is lying to the people of this country about the way our system of government works.
In our system of parliamentary democracy, a government is formed by the leader of the party that can command the confidence of the elected legislature – traditionally, the leader of the party with the highest number of seats following an election. In situations where the government is formed by a party with a plurality – but not a majority – of the available seats, we have a minority government. Minority governments depend upon the support of others for their continued existence; should the government lose a vote on a “matter of confidence” (typically, but not always, a vote concerning money), the government is defeated because it has lost the confidence of the House.
If this happens in a time period shortly after an election, the Governor General has a responsibility to the country and to the elected House to see if someone else – another leader – can form a government that will command the confidence of the House.
That is precisely the situation that is unfolding in Canada this week. Stephen Harper is telling Canadians that there is something anti-democratic, unconstitutional and un-Canadian going on here. He is wrong and he knows it. It is shameful that a sitting Prime Minister would stoop to such despicable tactics in a naked attempt to hold on to power for power’s sake. He has shown himself to be an ideologue who cannot be trusted to act with integrity and respect for our system of government and its traditions.
He has to go. Resign, Mr. Harper. Now.
By junior on November 27, 2008, at 4:00 pm  I only have a few moments to weigh in a bit on Bleak House: I took the day off work yesterday as i wasn’t feeling entirely well, and I had visions of spending most of my afternoon curled up with the book. Alas, I instead got to thinking and writing about Brian Burke; several hours and 3000 words later, I had piffled away most of my reading time.
The story has advanced but slightly in this small segment of the book; we have learned that Esther’s suitor is Dr. Allan Woodcourt, a young surgeon who took care of Miss Flite, the deranged woman who loiters about Chancery speculating comically about what is to come on the Day of Judgement. We have learned also that one of Esther’s charges, Richard Carstone is not terribly interested in pursuing a career in medicine, and arrangements are made instead to have him withdraw from that with a view to pursuing articles of law.
Chapter 16 is entirely concerned with Lady Dedlock’s mysterious visit to London to find out more about the law copyist who died alone of an overdose (in an earlier chapter). This chapter, like all of the chapters concerning the Dedlocks to date, is recounted in the present tense. I suppose that Dickens chose to use this device for a reason, perhaps to heighten the tension and suspense in an otherwise lackadaisical narrative. These chapters are also recounted from the perspective of an omniscient narrator who refers almost familiarly to the Dedlocks. By contrast, the chapters about Esther allow the reader into Esther’s thoughts, in the manner of an ongoing confessional, and are recounted in the past tense. I am finding the constant shifting between perspectives and tenses to be somewhat jarring, and I suspect that Dickens himself was ultimately less than satisfied with the result, which (to my mind) heightens the reader’s awareness of the artifice surrounding the book and thus distances him or her from it.
My favourite passage from this section occurs in Chapter 15. Esther’s guardian Mr. Jarndyce is gently challenging Skimpole (the carefree freeloader) about Skimpole’s unorthodox economic theories. In particular, Skimpole has expressed the belief that meaning to disburse funds ought to be as satisfactory to their intended recipient as the actual transfer of coin; Jarndyce points out that things would not go well for Skimpole if, following the same logic, the butcher were to simply intend to give him meat. Skimpole responds:
“My dear Jarndyce,” he returned, “you surprise me. You take the butcher’s position. A butcher I once dealt with occupied that very ground. Says he, ‘Sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound?’ ‘Why did I eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound, my honest friend?’ said I, naturally amazed by the question. ‘I like spring lamb!’ This was so far convincing. ‘Well, sir,’ says he, ‘I wish I had meant the lamb as you mean the money!’ ‘My good fellow,’ said I, ‘pray let us reason like intellectual beings. How could that be? It was impossible. You HAD got the lamb, and I have NOT got the money. You couldn’t really mean the lamb without sending it in, whereas I can, and do, really mean the money without paying it!’ He had not a word. There was an end of the subject.”
There is an absurdist humour underlying this passage that must be part of a genetic bequest to English authors, as it could just as easily be drawn straight from the pages of a Douglas Adams novel.
New characters are still being introduced, making me wish I had taken Mike’s suggestion and started drawing up a chart to keep track of the dramatis personae; I am still managing to keep everybody straight, but only barely. I really hope Dickens starts killing a few folk off if he plans on introducing any more walk-ons.
I’ll read more after tonight’s edition of the Battle of Ontario: Toronto at Ottawa.
By junior on November 27, 2008, at 11:05 am From an article in today’s Globe by Tim Wharnsby:
One of Burke’s first items on his to-do list will be to contact free-agent centre Mats Sundin, and garner his interest in returning to the Leafs next month. With the addition of Lee Stempniak, Sundin could play on a line with the newcomer and right winger Nik Antropov.
My initial reaction was one of excitement. I am wondering if that is appropriate or not, keeping in mind that any icetime distributed to Sundin is TOI that’s not going to one of the younger kids. No doubt, Mats would eat up a lot of quality, important game-situation minutes. Players we’re trying to develop need those minutes sooner or later.
If we can’t win this year by adding Sundin – and we can’t – then why delay the development of the others?
And why do I still have my fingers crossed for his return?
Update: Damien Cox has his Thursday mailbag at the Star’s site:
Q: Hi Damien,
If Brian Burke becomes the GM, would he go and sign Sundin? Who you think he will make the team’s captain? Thanks.
Kirupa Kathir, Brampton
A: It would make no sense to sign Sundin from a variety of standpoints, and I can’t imagine Burke would pursue that strategy. What would be the point? As far as team captain, unless it’s Luke Schenn somewhere down the road, the Leafs probably don’t own a player capable of wearing the “C” right now.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s Wharnsby v. Cox, down in the mud at the Silverdome (-ilverdome, -ilverdome). We’ll sell you the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge!
By junior on November 26, 2008, at 6:07 pm As much as I hate the suits at MLSE with the white hot burning heat of a thousand suns, I can’t quarrel too much with their deliberate pace on this hiring decision to date. It’s a tough decision, and one that will have far-reaching consequences for the future of the organization. The reason that I despise the current board is, of course, its abject failure to avoid meddling with the affairs of the hockey team over the last few years, coupled with its failure to install a chief executive  with sufficient vision and experience to plan for success in the post-lockout environment. That having been said, it would appear that the board has, since the firing of John Ferguson Jr., made the right decision: to correct its mistake in that regard and hire a top-quality chief executive to whom control over the hockey operations will be ceded. In other words, MLSE has decided that maybe they ought not to do this job themselves. I congratulate them for making the right call at this critical first step of the decision-making process; it is so obviously the right decision, it’s kind of like congratulating your kid for deciding (for the third day this week!) not to eat a jar of paste while at school, but it’s important to celebrate even modest successes with those who have intellectual challenges and to positively re-inforce behaviour we want to encourage. So yay, MLSE!
Step two of the hiring process was to find the right person to replace John Ferguson Jr. Apparently unable to locate a person with the right credentials on a permanent basis last spring, the club turned to Cliff Fletcher and asked him to act as steward of the club’s fortunes during the initial stages of the rebuilding process. In doing so, the Leafs successfully managed to put one foot in front of the other. (Again, yay!) Fletcher has, it must be said, acquitted himself quite well since his appointment: he made a deal on draft day that got the Leafs into position to pick up Luke Schenn; he signed Niklas Hagman and Jeff Finger; for every questionable acquisition (Ryan Hollweg), there has been a great pickup (I’m looking at you, Mikhail Grabovski); for every Jamal Mayers, a Mike Van Ryn. It is too early to say whether these players, and others (such as recently acquired Lee Stempniak ) constitute the necessary pieces of the puzzle, though it is unlikely that they form the core of a Cup winning team. To get there, some of these assets will have to be moved elsewhere, and fresh talent added to the basic building blocks at a later date. At this stage, as we’ve been told by team officials, it’s not about wins and losses: it’s about changing a culture of entitlement that had settled over the dressing room – a debilitating malaise that somehow begun interfering with the players’ performance. At step two, Cliff Fletcher earns the MLSE another passing grade. Click here to continue reading Brian Burke: Is You Is Or Is You Isn’t?
By junior on November 22, 2008, at 4:16 pm  Wendel Clark is having his jersey number honoured by the Toronto Maple Leafs in a special pre-game ceremony tonight at the Air Canada Centre. I have to mark the occasion here, because anyone who knows me knows that Wendel was by far and away my favourite Leaf (which means my favourite hockey player) of all time.
I remember well his first year or two in the league, the way he played with fearless abandon, launching a smaller man’s body at the opposition, causing big-man’s devastation, fighting any who dared challenge him, and scoring goal after goal with a laser beam wrist shot. Add on top of that the fact that he was an aw-shucks farm boy from Kelvington, Saskatchewan who seemed genuinely thrilled to be playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and it was no contest: Wendel was my man.
I wasn’t alone, either. There was something about Wendel. He just seemed to fit with the Leafs and to make things right. That is saying an awful lot when you keep in mind that the Leafs of the late ’80s were, to put it mildly, a dysfunctional lot, being the plaything of an egocentric, spiteful millionaire who wanted people to love him as much as they loved his sad-sack joke of a team.
Hear me out on this. In those days, pretty much every telecast of a Leafs home game included the obligatory shot of “The Bunker”, a concrete block box with a glassless window in one corner of the Gardens where Ballard and his long-time companion King Clancy could be seen watching the game, eating popcorn and generally yukking it up. That little scene encapsulates, in so many ways, what it meant to be a Leaf fan then: watching the sacred being profaned, looking on as a historically powerful franchise endured a series of indignities in the present. There was the hated and hateful Ballard rubbing elbows with a living Leaf legend, one of the greatest players of the early NHL, a guy who was seen by many as the original heart and soul of the franchise, maybe even the entire league. In 1976, Stan Obodiac’s book The Leafs: The First 50 Years, described Clancy as follows:
Had a horse named Rare Jewel not won a certain 1930 race, Clancy might never have become a Leaf. The horse was owned by Conn Smythe, who won a bet on Rare Jewel and used the money as part of a $35,000 and several player package to acquire Clancy from the Ottawa Senators, where he was making $800 a season.
A small, aggressive defenceman, Clancy was the leader of the mightly Leaf teams of the 1930s, a three-time All-Star who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1958. He was a top NHL referee for several years, a coach at Cleveland and Pittsburgh, and the Leaf coacch from 1953 to 1956. When Imlach came to the Leafs, he moved Clancy up to the front office, where he’s been ever since.
Clancy was colourful; he was a living hockey connection to the glory days that had begun in earnest when Conn Smythe raised a barn at the corner of Carlton and Church and thereafter put his indelible managerial stamp on the team; Clancy was grit, determination, history, class and humour all in the form of one craggy-faced, impossibly frail but enduringly optimistic gentleman. He had an unforgettable smile, and an almost cartoonishly cliched Irish gleam in his eye. And here’s the thing: Clancy loved Wendel Clark. I can remember seeing a large photograph in the window of Doug Laurie Sports (the store inside Maple Leaf Gardens) probably in early 1986, that showed Clancy hugging Clark from behind, arms wrapped around Clark’s neck. Both men smiled broadly and very obviously genuinely. Clancy told the papers that Clark was the best Leafs rookie in 50 years. There were so many appalling things going on with the franchise at this time – we were in the middle of the Gerry McNamara era, but with the Clark-Clancy connection, it seemed as though in this one small way that things were right within the world of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Small victories and minor blessings were what we lived for in those days; it’s all we ever got, and precious few of them at that. (Update: Since I wrote this, the NHL network has posted Mike Ulmer’s interview with Wendel; during part 2, he discusses his relationship with Clancy).
In the fall of 1986, Clancy fell ill; he had his gallbladder removed and began suffering from an infection following the surgery. On November 10, 1986, he died at age 83. It was the end of a historic era at Maple Leaf Gardens, but also the beginning of a period of hope; Clark had begun his second season with the Leafs, and all indications at the time were that Toronto had acquired a remarkable hockey talent. The torch had been passed, whether Toronto knew it or not. The heart and soul of the Blue and White now wore #17 and was skating on the left wing, regularly thundering larger opponents to the ice with his cataclysmic bodychecks or with his fists of fury.
I say “whether Toronto knew it or not” because a lot of people forget that the City’s love affair with Wendel went off the tracks for a while. The kid risked his own health every game; hell, that’s inaccurate. There was no “risk” involved, he actually sacrificed his own health on virtually every shift he played because of the way he played, but there was a time when – with the back woes chronically nagging him and keeping him out of the lineup for large portions of entire seasons – there were those who doubted Clark’s commitment and drive. My own personal admiration for Wendel was solidified more than ever in this period of time – I remember one night in the late 80s going to a game at the Gardens when Clark hit a New York Rangers defenceman by the name of Bruce Bell very hard behind the net; I think this is the same Bruce Bell that Clark almost killed a couple of years earlier when Bell played with St. Louis. The night I saw Clark hit bell, both men tumbled to the ice behind the Ranger net, and it was obvious that Bell wanted to fight when they arose. Bad decision. I happened to be taping the game that night, and somewhere in my collection of VHS tapes, I have the clip that shows (with the assistance of slow motion) the very instant that Bell realizes he is about to have the geometry of his face re-arranged as a result of this subpar decision-making. One other moment in particular that I remember is the day that Clark nearly killed New Jersey’s Slava Fetisov because Fetisov had taken out Clark’s knee. if you watch the clip, Wendel crumples to the ice from the Russian’s low bridge. What we didn’t know at the time is that the Russian had torn a ligament in Clark’s knee. Despite the injury, Clark rises to his skates, grabs Fetisov, and attempts to execute him with a single punch, the force of which nearly propelled the Russian downwards into a common grave with whatever other mysterious corpses may lie buried under the Meadowlands.
I met Wendel at the Madison, a pub near the University of Toronto one night in 1986 or 1987. I was alarmingly intoxicated and, emboldened by drink, I wandered over and slurred something incoherent about how I respected his style of play and offering to buy him a beer. He laughed and – I know this sounds difficult to believe, but he did say it kindly – told me to “beat it, kid.” It wasn’t until several years later that it struck me how funny this was: I am older than Wendel Clark.
By the time 1993 rolled around, Wendel was finally recovered from his injuries and he seemed – at last – to be reaching his potential as he entered the prime of his career. Sean at Down Goes Brown has done an excellent job of chronicling Clark’s career in this period, especially the 1993 playoffs. There was Game 7 against the Blues in the Division Final (when Wendel’s wrist shot nearly decapitates Curtis Joseph); there was Game 6 against the Kings in the Conference Final, when Wendel scored a hat-trick to lead the Leafs back from a 4-1 deficit (I happened to be driving home from my own hockey game that night, down Carlton St. and past Maple Leaf Gardens when Clark scored to tie it – there was an instant roar audible in the city, people were hooting and hollering in the bars and jumping up and down on the streetcars). I was lucky enough to be there to watch Wendel play one of the greatest games I ever saw a man play in Game 7; Clark took the team on his back in that game and – but for an unlucky goal that Gretzky banked in off Dave Ellett’s skate, I am sure that Wendel would have lead the Leafs to glory in the Final.
There were signs that my devotion to Wendel was unhealthily strong. I knew his parents were Les and Alma. I celebrated his birthday every October 25th. I knew he had a dog named Kylie.
I was as shocked as everyone when Wendel got traded before the ’94-’95 season. I held that against Mats Sundin for a long time. I was at the Gardens the night he came back to town as a member of the Islanders, and privately mourned the indignity of #17 wearing that ugly Captain Highliner atrocity that the Long Island crew were sporitng at the time. I defended the trade that brought him back to Toronto, and cheered the night he returned and scored a goal. I was saddened when he later ended up in Tampa, Detroit (ugh) and Chicago. I remember the night of the final ovation at the Air Canada Centre, when it had become clear to everyone that Wendel’s body had given out on him long before his heart ever did, and that as a result he would soon be sitting in the seats with us, an alumni member waving to the crowd as “Welcome Back” plays over the p.a.
A couple of years ago, my in-laws managed to pull off a major coup for me. My father-in-law is an accomplished coach, and had some connections to Wendel’s old Notre Dame coaches. He managed, through that connection, to get it arranged that he could meet Wendel and bring him a jersey to autograph – they then gave me the signed jersey as a Christmas gift. As an aside, in order to accomplish this task, my father-in-law was provided with Clark’s phone number and had to call him to arrange their meeting. The signed jersey is one of my most treasured possessions, and I am very jealous of my brother-in-law (a dirty, dirty Habs fan, of all things) who went along with my father-in-law to meet Clark and get the jersey signed.
I read in the Toronto Star this morning that the Leafs are passing out fake fu manchu mustaches to all the fans attending tonight’s game, and encouraging them to wear the ‘staches during the banner ceremony. What a great touch, something light-hearted and cheerful in honour of the greatest Leaf I ever had the pleasure to watch. I wish very much that I could be there tonight, but I can’t. I’ll be recording the game for posterity on my PVR, and though I plan to wear my autographed jersey as I watch the ceremony, I need to be careful. I have a feeling at some point during the tribute, there might be a bit of dust in my eye, and I don’t want the ink on the autograph to run.
So congratulations, Wendel, on the occasion of this banner-raising. I’m still willing to buy you that beer some time. Call me – through my father-in-law, you’ve got the number – and we’ll hang for a bit.
By junior on November 16, 2008, at 4:04 pm The story has begun to unfold and gather some steam. It seems to concern the burgeoning romantic relationship between Richard and Ada (the wards in the interminable lawsuit known as Jarndyce). There is another narrative thread that appears to centre on the aristocratic and comedically pompous Dedlock clan.
As with all of Dickens’ novels that I’ve previously read, there are layers of mystery and a certain suspense throughout, but I would hazard a guess that one of the more central mysteries of the book has begun to unfold in this latter thread. Chapters X and XI, “The Law Writer” and “Our Dear Brother” had to do with the demise of an anonymous (or nearly so, as he is known as “Nemo”, Latin for “no one”) copyist or “law-writer” whose corpse is discovered inside his paltry lodgings by the Dedlock family lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn. It is evident that Nemo was an opium user and Dickens takes time to recount at some detail the proceedings of the Coroner’s inquest that decides, upon the barest of evidence, that Nemo’s squalid end was precipitated by an accidental overdose. Here, it seems to me that Dickens engages in a little literary sleight of hand; he focusses the reader’s attention on the mindless buffoonery of the inquest and the melodramatic sadness of Nemo’s lonely passing, but I would hazard a guess that these are intended to distract the reader from those questions more central to the unfolding narrative, such as the nature of Tulkinghorn’s mysterious interest in the copyist and of his purpose for seeking out Nemo’s lodgings in the first place. In chapter XI, there are numerous references to both Tulkinghorn and Krook (Nemo’s eccentric packrat of a landlord) skulking around the deceased man’s “portmanteau” (which I am given to understand is a large travelling case of some kind). These odd circumstances, coupled with a later curious exchange beween Tulkinghorn and Lady Dedlock concerning the circumstances of the copyist’s death, augmented by Dickens’ constant reminder that Tulkinghorn is a walking repository of secrets, are surefire signs that there is more than meets the eye going on here.
It goes without saying that there are many things that make Dickens’ work immediately identifiable: his gentle, but fondly rendered satire of those inhabiting a low station in life (such as, so far, Esther’s unwelcome suitor Mr. Guppy); his far less fondly rendered satire of the self-important and tediously wrong-minded rich (such as Lord Dedlock); and the masterful ease with which he summons an element of pathos (usually in reference to children, such as the rejected witness at the inquest, Nemo’s only known friend “Jo”). One more characteristic of Dickens’ writing that is very much in evidence in this portion of the novel is the author’s ability to irreparably savage, in the space of a sentence or two, the entire character of those he intends to depict as mean-spirited and selfish, and to do so in a light-hearted comic tone that cloaks, but does not diminish, the devastating effect of his judgements upon the reputation of those so off-handedly attacked. Consider the passage about Mrs. Snagsby, the law-stationers wife – moments after introducing her, for the first time and noting in passing her nose to be sharp and frosty at the tip, Dickens tell us:
Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are not only one bone and one flesh, but, to the neighbours’ thinking, one voice too. That voice, appearing to proceed from Mrs. Snagsby alone, is heard in Cook’s Court very often. Mr. Snagsby, otherwise than as he finds expression through these dulcet tones, is rarely heard.
Little more than a pargraph later, Dickens mentions that:
Mr. Snagsby refers everything not in the practical mysteries of the business to Mrs. Snagsby. She manages the money, reproaches the tax-gatherers, appoints the times and places of devotion on Sundays, licenses Mr. Snagsby’s entertainments, and acknowledges no responsibility as to what she thinks fit to provide for dinner, insomuch that she is the high standard of comparison among the neighbouring wives a long way down Chancery Lane on both sides, and even out in Holborn, who in any domestic passages of arms habitually call upon their husbands to look at the difference between their (the wives’) position and Mrs. Snagsby’s, and their (the husbands’) behaviour and Mr. Snagsby’s. Rumour, always flying bat-like about Cook’s Court and skimming in and out at everybody’s windows, does say that Mrs. Snagsby is jealous and inquisitive and that Mr. Snagsby is sometimes worried out of house and home, and that if he had the spirit of a mouse he wouldn’t stand it.
In the space of little more than three or four paragraphs, then, Dickens has established, without a shadow of a doubt, that Mrs. Snagsby is one miserable piece of work. He does so without really ever seeming to be uncharitable towards her – making reference, somewhat comically, to the opinions of neighbours and “rumour” rather than resorting to an outright and direct disparagement of her character. The effect is both enduring – no reader would ever thereafter react warmly, sympathetically or favourably to Mrs. Snagsby – and endearing – as though we, the readers, share with the amiable author a secret wisdom, flowing only from mean gossip engaged in by others, about the laughable foibles of the caricatured Mrs. Snagsby.
I’ve said it before, but this is Dickens at his best; no doubt the story is intended to have relevance as a social and political commentary, but the timeless quality of Dickens is firmly rooted in these deft depicitions of humanity; in all its pomposity, its absurdity and venality. Mike has called these exercises “character lessons“, and the term is apt. The essential truth of them, I would suggest, is underscored by the fact that Dickens’ villains are recognizably human, even to a modern observer, and he holds them up to sometimes viscious ridicule in much the same way as, for example, a television show like The Office satirizes the everyday “villains” among us: even as the characters are lampooned as asinine, wrong-headed and verging on malevolent, they are still essentially human, more to be pitied than hated, and comically endearing.
As far as Dickens’ commentary on bureaucracy, I took note of the following quote from Chapter V::
My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could possibly be either.
-Richard Carstone wonders about the machinations in court.
By junior on November 13, 2008, at 12:01 am Mike, I haven’t abandoned the project. There’s something going on at work this week that demands my full attention. I probably won’t have an update until Friday night/Saturday morning.
Hang in there. Meantime, get ready for the Brian Burke era in Toronto by reading this excellent review of Brian Burke’s resume to date. Can’t spare the time to read it? Here’s a hint about the thesis: “Canucks” and “Ducks” both rhyme with “sucks”.
By junior on November 11, 2008, at 6:45 pm
| All-time world champion non sequitur (in that, in addition to being unrelated to the topic, it “follows” nothing): My Dad, who seems to be working hard to secure a position as worldwide press agent for HiR:tb, tells me that there’s an army of people out there reading the blog and enjoying what I write. That’s terrific to hear – and I’d love it, if you’re one of those folks, if you’d leave a comment on the site so I can prove to my wife that all this time spent tippy-tapping away on the keyboard is worthwhile in somebody’s opinion. |
PPP has sought some help answering a series of five questions directed his way by certain mischievous Oiler fans. Here are the five questions, with my proposed answers.
1. What is the consensus amongst Leaf fans about the Sundin situation?
Divided. Those who advocate staying the course worry that Sundin’s return would provide little benefit (as far as team success) and delay or derail entirely the development of young forwards gobbling up prime minutes in important situations. Those who don’t see the team obtaining a top five draft pick anyway want him back to teach the youngsters the way. Those who are cannibals think he looks delicious.
2. What is the worst deal in the past 5 years that the Leafs have done? What has been the best?
The worst on-ice deal has to be Red Light Raycroft. Colorado Avalanche fans (both of them) are by now learning that with “Razor” (cough) in net, the “scoring area” now includes all four corners of the rink, most washrooms on the mezzanine level of the arena, and a substantial portion of the state of Colorado. There are no guarantees that Tuuka Rask (who the Leafs traded to get Raycrap) will ever be Martin Brodeur v. 2.0, but that deal perfectly symbolizes the ineptness of the JFJ management regime: JFJ evidently failed to foresee that Ed Belfour would age, because he failed to have a suitable successor ready to take over from within the organization; he then badly overpaid for Raycrap (both by way of trade and by way of mammoth contract), a goalie whose “talent” he over-estimated; to fix his own mistakes in that regard, the Leafs were then required to trade for Vesa Toskala. The best deal may well be Cliff’s most recent Risebrough: a 2nd-rounder for Mikhail Grabovski.
3. How does it feel knowing that the last Stanley Cup that the Leafs won was when there were 6 teams in the league?
How did it feel when Chris Pronger and his wife basically hocked a loogie on the statue of Gretz out front of the Rexall Place/Skyreach Centre/Edmonton Coliseum/Northlands Coliseum? How did it feel when Roli the Goalie got steamrollered in Game 1 of the ‘06 Final, following which the Oil coughed up a three-goal lead and went on to lose the series in 7 games? That’s gotta hurt. Anyway, take those feelings, transplant them on a fan base that actually keeps coming to the games when the team doesn’t have a freakish run of success, and you get the idea. Laugh it up out there, Oiler fans – at least our team never lost the Cup to a bunch of itinerant hillbillies.
4. Rumor has it that Cliff Fletcher is 612 years old. Is this a concern for Leafs fans?
It is true that Cliff Fletcher is so old, he was once a contestant on a game show where the big prize was “fire”. Nevertheless, the front office is one place where the “wily veteran with a track record of success” is much preferred over the “promising but unproven talent”: see the entry in Failopedia for “Ferguson, John Jr.”. By the way, hope that Steve Tambellini thing works out for you guys. Really.
5. Do you hold out hope for Brian Burke coming to town?
I personally want Brian Burke to come town about as much as Kevin Lowe would like to carpool with the guy. Burke’s record – both as it relates to the draft and his ability to assemble a well-rounded team (or even one NHL calibre starting goalie) is doubtful, as I’m sure the seven time Stanley Cup Champion Vancouver Canucks would agree. His record with the Ducks raises questions about his ability to manage the cap, though Niedermayer and Selanne have to bear some of the blame for that. It would, however, be fun to watch Burkie berate the local mittenstringers like a drill sergeant with PMS on a daily basis. Put me down for “meh.”
By junior on November 8, 2008, at 7:27 pm The General and Norte have both written about Maple Leaf Gardens recently; meanwhile Sean is in the middle of a series consisting of a Clark¹ of posts concerning the greatness that was the Man from Kelvington. A discussion has been raging over at PPP about the proper placement of Mats Sundin in the Maple Leaf pantheon. My own view on this last issue is that the most obvious historical parallel to Sundin is Frank Mahovlich, another great player Leaf fans were famously hesitant to fully embrace – both were (relatively speaking) large men with long strides that many people wrongly perceived as slow, uninvolved or lazy; both had plenty of drive, offensive talent and finish around the net; and both men were men of class and character, quiet leaders who were not prone to dropping the gloves.
Right now, I am not liking Mats Sundin or Frank Mahovlich very much, because they are both getting in the way of my own Maple Leaf Gardens story. So here it is: I played hockey at Maple Leaf Gardens – once. Click here to continue reading Blood on the Dasher: My Gardens Moment
By junior on November 7, 2008, at 1:06 am Tonight, over at Pension Plan Puppets, in the Leafs/Bruins live game thread, mf37 posted some numbers about Jason Blake’s shooting percentage. Essentially, the stats indicated that, between 2003 and 2007 (i.e. during his final seasons with the Islanders), Blake’s shooting percentage doubled (and in ’07 nearly tripled) over his then current career average. Since joining the Leafs (and signing a hefty five-year contract – curse you, JFJ!) his shooting percentage has dropped to a number so low, you’d think it was expressing a person’s chance of getting hit by lightning while winning the lottery, being abducted by our alien overlords and riding a three-legged dog backwards to a nineteen length Triple Crown victory.
It got me thinking…
Observed phenomenon: Jason Blake takes a lot of shots from “the perimeter”, which is a polite way of saying that he was standing in the parking lot and unable to directly observe his intended target at the time of launching.
Known facts, and important (but blindingly obvious) inference to be drawn from them: NHL goalies (with the lamentable and all-too obvious exception of Andrew Raycroft) are not blind. Most of them (again, except for Raycroft) have the ability to exert some amount of control over the movement of their extremities. As a result, NHL goaltenders only infrequently whiff on shots taken from different continents. Shooting from long distances is not, therefore, an effective strategy of scoring goals.
Statistical evidence:
This is what hockey-reference.com has to say about what Jason Blake has done in his career, in terms of offensive performance:
| Season |
Team |
GP |
SOG/G |
S Pct. |
AVG TOI |
| 1998-99 |
Los Angeles Kings |
1 |
5 |
20 |
17:13 |
| 1999-00 |
Los Angeles Kings |
64 |
2.05 |
3.8 |
11:17 |
| 2000-01 |
L.A./NY Islanders. |
47 |
2.13 |
5 |
13:40 |
| 2001-02 |
New York Islanders |
82 |
1.66 |
5.9 |
12:54 |
| 2002-03 |
New York Islanders |
81 |
3.12 |
9.9 |
17:38 |
| 2003-04 |
New York Islanders |
75 |
3.24 |
9.1 |
18:49 |
| 2005-06 |
New York Islanders |
76 |
4 |
9.2 |
18:47 |
| 2006-07 |
New York Islanders |
82 |
3.72 |
13.1 |
18:09 |
| 2007-08 |
Toronto Maple Leafs |
82 |
4.05 |
4.5 |
17:49 |
| 2008-09 |
Toronto Maple Leafs |
13 |
4.07 |
3.8 |
16:35 |
| Career |
|
|
3.08 |
8.1 |
16:22 |
Legend: GP = Games Played, SOG/G=Shots on Goal per game, S Pct.=Shooting Percentage, AVG TOI=Average time on ice.
Throw out the ’98-99 season (small sample size) and this year (small sample, incomplete data), and you’re left with 8 (more or less) complete seasons to consider. Here’s what I noticed: beginning in 2002, Blake’s average time on the ice per game goes way up – increasing by almost 40% from about 13 minutes a game in ’01/’02 to almost 18 minutes a game in ’02-’03. Also in 2002, the goals start to bang home for Jason, as his shooting percentage jumps to 9.9%; prior to that, Blake was lighting the lamp at something like a 4 to 6% clip. Blake’s average ice time stays pretty steady, from then on, in the 18-19 minutes per game region.
Now look at what happens to his shots on goal per game. That figure jumps from a career low 1.66 per game in ’01-’02 to 3.12 per game the very next season – the same season his average icetime increases by 40% per game.
What the numbers show is that beginning in 2002/03, Blake was spending about 40% more time on the ice than he had before, but he began shooting the puck about twice as often as in the past. That’s a lot of extra shots, proportionally, to fit into the extra ice time. For a few years with the Islanders, it seems to have worked out because he was scoring goals roughly twice as often too, at the 9 – 13% clip.
Consider these numbers in the context of a hypothesis: a tired skater is more likely to shoot the puck from a long distance. Rather than skate and drive towards the net, a fatigued player will – more often than not – elect to shoot from where he is when he receives the puck.
Blake is playing about just a bit less now than he did in his final years with the Islanders (the years of 9-13% shooting success). He is shooting the puck about the same number of times, on average, if not a little bit more. We have observed that – since he’s been in Toronto, anyway – he frequently shoots the puck from long distances. It is unlikely that Blake was shooting from these distances while in Long Island; it simply beggars belief that they’d be going in as frequently as they did for him; it would take a major league marathon of sustained and repeated whiffage by a series of goaltenders, over a period of four years, for that to be true. The key point is this – the long shots we’ve seen Blake take as a Leaf aren’t being taken in addition to the blasts he habitually took when he was an Islander.
Rather, I think the data suggest that Blake is currently replacing shots from closer in to the net (i.e the quality shots he took as an Islander) with long distance bombs that have little or no chance of success. One obvious explanation for that phenomenon is related to the “tired players take long shots” theory. In short, the numbers suggest that – now in his mid 30s, and with well-documented health concerns – Blake may well not be up to the challenge physically, and that fatigue or lack of conditioning is preventing him from scoring at the rate he previously did.
Discuss. Am I missing something?
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Stephen Harper Must Go.
I will have more to say about this in the very near future, but for the time being, let me say that I am very upset that the Prime Minister of Canada is lying to the people of this country about the way our system of government works.
In our system of parliamentary democracy, a government is formed by the leader of the party that can command the confidence of the elected legislature – traditionally, the leader of the party with the highest number of seats following an election. In situations where the government is formed by a party with a plurality – but not a majority – of the available seats, we have a minority government. Minority governments depend upon the support of others for their continued existence; should the government lose a vote on a “matter of confidence” (typically, but not always, a vote concerning money), the government is defeated because it has lost the confidence of the House.
If this happens in a time period shortly after an election, the Governor General has a responsibility to the country and to the elected House to see if someone else – another leader – can form a government that will command the confidence of the House.
That is precisely the situation that is unfolding in Canada this week. Stephen Harper is telling Canadians that there is something anti-democratic, unconstitutional and un-Canadian going on here. He is wrong and he knows it. It is shameful that a sitting Prime Minister would stoop to such despicable tactics in a naked attempt to hold on to power for power’s sake. He has shown himself to be an ideologue who cannot be trusted to act with integrity and respect for our system of government and its traditions.
He has to go. Resign, Mr. Harper. Now.