Tag: Hockey

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

I don't think whales smile like that, either.
Attention Mr. Cole: Eight birds might not actually be able to lift a whale out of the ocean.

Cam Cole wrote a ridiculous article today about social media and the National Hockey League trade deadline.

Cole mentions that during the intense discussions surrounding today’s NHL trade deadline, many people availed themselves of the opportunity to have a little fun;  some folk decided to create Twitter accounts that appeared to emanate from real hockey media personalities.  Down Goes Brown decided to spice up a dull morning by using the new media to organize the 21st century (ahem) grownup equivalent of a class clown prank.  Following the lead of an old high school classic, the  “co-ordinated, math-class-derailing pre-arranged 11:45 coughing fit”, DGB suggested that at 12:50, everyone should send the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Joffrey Lupul (@JLupul) a tweet that appeared to refer to his “trade” to Long Island (that trade being, of course, an entirely fictitious event which had not occurred).  The tweets were sent en masse.  Lupul appears to have played along with the gag, tweeting shortly afterwards that he was “Long Island bound. So I hear…”

I didn’t see it, but apparently the “Lupul trade” was, for a time, being reported by some as an actual event.  I saw some Tweets indicating that it was briefly posted on the Philadelphia Flyers’ website, and – according to Cole’s article – Gord Miller and TSN briefly fell for it too, relaying the information to unsuspecting viewers watching their Trade Deadline Special.

At first, Cole’s article reads like a more or less good-natured look at these virtual hijinks in the social context within which they occurred.  The first two thirds of the article, at times, read a bit like a barely concealed admiration for the inherent hunour in the Lupul prank in particular:

Fake Twitter accounts impersonating hockey reporters moved April Fool’s Day ahead by a month and pranked the National Hockey League’s massively over-hyped trade deadline, briefly duping both those trying so feverishly to be first with the news and those hungering to get it — and, in the process, greatly enlivening a day of sparse activity and mostly minor deals.

Got it?  The Twitterers “pranked” the NHL and lampooned the “over-hyped” deadline, “greatly enlivening” the day.  Pretty good stuff, huh?

In the end, though, Cole ends up clucking his tongue at those involved like a disapproving schoolmaster:

The actual Bob McKenzie (TSNBobMcKenzie) has 114,000 followers. BMcKenzieTSN and TSN—BobMcKenzie? They have fooled 957 and 549 gullible followers, respectively, by attaching McKenzie’s photo to their Twitter accounts, and yes, there ought to be a law against that.

But there isn’t. So they are free to live in their parents’ basements, plotting to bring the world to its knees with their cleverness, nibbling away at the social network’s credibility — as if it cared — one little white lie at a time.

Really?  Is there really a need for either (a) another “blogger in the basement” joke or (b) a law prohibiting the creation of  spoof Twitter accounts?
I don’t wish to position myself as a defender of mendacity, but if Mr. Cole and the rest of the world can’t stomach the thought of people lying to one another over the Internet, I sincerely hope he never has occasion to be made aware of Internet dating sites.  Also, he would be well advised to avoid taking up fishing for sport, as the ability to spin a tall tale, though far from rare, is very much a quality to be nurtured and developed among anglers.  Maybe it would be best to stay out of the “fiction” section of the library, and the cinema too, just to be safe.

Now, I’m not here to tell you that I understand why some people would get their jollies concocting fake trades to whirl around the Internet, and I’m not suggesting that DGB’s little prank is the comic equivalent of Newton’s contribution to calculus;  I can tell you, however, that people discussing things amongst each other, having fun, and taking the piss out of one another is probably nothing to be terribly alarmed about.  It’s been happening wherever people have gathered socially for thousands of years.  I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn that somewhere, deep in an unexplored cave in northern Europe, there is a cave painting that is now difficult to comprehend, but which – back on the day it was first splattered on the rock – was the functional equivalent of a Star Wars Kid mashup.

My point is not that I think “fake Twitter accounts” are desirable and necessary, but rather that social media platforms represent a meeting place, not just another broadcast medium.  Twitter is a conversation;  the content may be partly based in the news, but it is wholly about entertainment.  Journalists who choose to rely on it and rebroadcast it unfiltered and without any value (such as fact-checking) added – in my opinion – do their readers or viewers a disservice.

Lastly, the final point about “nibbling away at the social network’s credibility” is so astonishing I honestly don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.  It’s Twitter; it HAS NO CREDIBILITY in the first place.

The logic is so confused in this article, it’s honestly difficult to follow Cole’s reasoning as to why he feels that the legislative process needs to be invoked.  It’s very hard, however, to escape the general feeling that the Cam Cole No Pissing Around on Twitter Law is necessary solely to protect lazy journalists who are in such a breakneck rush to report the news that they’re basically just reading their Twitter feed directly into the camera without doing some basic fact-checking first.

Evidently, the Damien Cox example didn’t take. You remember the Toronto Star (now also Sportsnet) columnist who broke news of former coach Pat Burns’s death in September, two months before it happened, because of an honest mistake? Oh, the copycats who leaped on the story that day and spread it without making sure it was true were duly apologetic at the time, and a little cautious for a while afterward, but that was more than five months ago.

…

All kinds of highly respected, earnest reporters were duped, if only for a matter of minutes, and a lot of effort was wasted trying to chase down the truth, revealing the mean-spirited side of the pranks, which all had one thing in common: none originated with mainstream media, but rather with those trying to make the MSM chase its own tail.

Do you follow that?  Damien Cox made an “honest mistake” when he wrongly reported Pat Burns’ death, but “highly respected” and “earnest reporters” were “duped” when they failed to do the minimal checks necessary to make sure @ForREELZESPN_LeBrun – the account reporting the trade of a puck moving defenceman for a bag of doughnuts – is actually related to the hockey journalist in question.  To review: Damien Cox makes an honest mistake, those engaged in that line of work fail to learn from it, and – by breathlessly reporting gossip overheard in a virtual barroom as fact – are victims of  “mean-spirited” and socially destructive users of the Internet.  Heads I win, tails you lose.

The part I have a very difficult time understanding is how Cole misses the point.  He actually points out, in the middle portion of the article, how easy it is in most cases to spot a fake Gord Miller Twitter account merely by reading the contents of the page on which the tweets appear (Gord Miller’s Twitter account has probably been around for more than two hours, likely contains more than eight tweets, and it’s highly likely the real Gord Miller has more than 52 followers).  In other words, Cole identifies the ease with which these “frauds” can be discovered, but swerves right past the legitimate target – so-called reporters relying on random stuff posted on the Internet for Christ’s sake as accurate – and instead delivers a confusing, poorly reasoned and somewhat startling conclusion generally indicting humans for just fucking around.

Good luck putting a stop to that.

Happy Thanksgiving

No slacking off at work, or Wendel will punch my blood out.
Office Wendel Oversees My Productivity at Work. Imagine how little I'd get done if he weren't threre threatening to punch my blood out?

Wendel (well, actually my framed autographed picture of him – that is, the one I keep in my office, not the one I keep at home) wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving.

Know what goes great with turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy? Four points in the “W” column, my friends. All of them earned against either dirty, dirty Habs or ridiculous Senator types. Enjoy your celebratory repast, my Canadian friends; and don’t worry, McMericans, your (wrongly scheduled) Thanksgiving and its attendant turkey will come soon enough.

Maple Leafs 2010-2011: Game On(e)!

Watched the Leafs’ home opener last night; originally scheduled to be at a prenatal class, my plans changed when Spouse came down with a cold. Because of work thingys, I ended up getting home a little late, which was fine because we could PVR the game. It rocks skipping over commercials, and my timing was pretty awesome because I ended up catching up to real time right in the middle of the second intermission, so I could watch the end of the game with my virtual peeps at PPP.

From scanning the Interwebs earlier today, there seems to be a lot of angst out there about the opening ceremonies before last night’s game.  Whatever, I zoomed over most of the malarkey before the game.  Was happy to see the 48th Highlanders still a part of opening night tradition, and I stopped fast forwarding (that’s a verb, right?) when I got to the part with the water from all the ponds being collected and used to make the Leafs’ ice.

Say what you will; yes, it’s corny and cheesy, but I liked it.  I liked that the whole ice surface got turned into water by the lighting effect.  I liked it (among other reasons) because Spouse pointed out that water douses fire, and the Habs do that thing where Brian Gionta a much larger child skates around with the torch before a game, then touches it down at centre ice and sets the ice “aflame”.  Water douses fire, as sure as paper beats rock.  Eat it, Habs.

Thoughts about the game:  Gunnarsson was bad.  Schenn looked shaky at times, as did Beauchemin in the early going (though I thought Francois turned it around later in the game, with one notable exception I’ll talk about in a minute).  Komisarek was awful.  Kaberle was excellent, showing on a couple of smooth solo forays up the ice the apparently effortless way he can dart somehow calmly up ice past all (or at least most) defenders in a flash.  Terrific.  Phaneuf had a solid first game as Captain, I thought.

At forward, there was less that was remarkable.  Nice to see Tim Brent notch a goal to start this season;  it would be nice if that were some sort of omen about this mostly under-talented team adopting a lunchpail mentality and chipping in with a concerted effort to score by committee as and where it becomes necessary.  Kessel looked very good and sincerely happy to be back playing games that count.  Versteeg had some nice moments on the Power Play.  Kulemin played a solid two-way game and continues to get better.  Nice goal from Clark MacArthur; more worrisome was the somewhat underwhelming performance down the middle from Bozak and Grabovski, though neither made enormous glaring mistakes of any consequence.

More than anything, the story of that game was the steadiness of J.S. Giguere.  The Leafs were up to their old tricks, taking a late penalty and then brutally brain-cramping in the closing minute of the game.  Our defensive coverage for the final eighty or ninety seconds of that game looked as though it was planned as an homage to everybody’s carnival favourite,  the Tilt-a-Whirl, with Leaf players orbiting one another, spinning and lurching around unevenly and generally making one feel nauseous.  Francois Beauchemin in particular looked bad during this final sequence, weakly attempting to clear the puck at one point on a backhand to the right point that instead made the shallow carom off the boards and failed to clear the zone, setting the scene for one final frenetic scramble in front of Jiggy and a game-saving stop that mercifully prevented yet another Habs OT game.  That stop – it had a reassuring and cathartic quality to it, as Bruce Arthur noted in his column today.  Begone, ghost of Vesa Toskala.

One game, and one game only.  Two points under the W column, and cue the chorus of clucking MSM journalists who take time out from their shrill blizzard of sage columns pedantically warning Leaf fans (unspecified, figurative, mostly non-existent outside of talk radio) not to obsess, despair and overreact about the future of Nazem Kadri, to write a shrill blizzard of sage columns pedantically warning Leaf fans (unspecified, figurative, mostly non-existent outside of talke radio) not to obsess, celebrate and overreact about a single win in an 82-game season.

Only one game, but I’m glad hockey is back.

Stop the Internets, I Want to Get Off

I can’t stop laughing about this comment, a delectable treat appurtenant to another brilliant piece in today’s National Post by Sean McIndoe of Down Goes Brown fame.

DGB is always funny, and his piece in today’s Post is no exception.  Understand that I mean this when I tell you that notwithstanding DGB’s brilliance, the biggest and best laugh for me came after I happened to glance at the comments section (something I normally wouldn’t do at a newspaper site, for fear of having stupidity burrow through my eyes into my brain and turn me into a Hamilton City Councillor).

I’ve transcribed it here because I’m afraid the National Post will do a disservice to the history of humour in this country and consign this most excellent piece of humour writing to the digital dustbin.  In the piece, DGB sets out the good, the bad and the prognosis for ten currently unsigned free agents.  It features predictions that Darcy Tucker will sign with “Sami Kapanen’s sweat drenched nightmares” and opines that Anti Niemi was the “most over-rated Stanley Cup winning goalie in the entire league last year”.  Beneath DGB’s estimable roster of jokes, though, some ingenious wag has written:

“the most over-rated Stanley Cup winning goalie in the entire league last year.”

Now, I pride myself on knowing more than just a little about hockey having spent the last nearly 50 years involved in the sport….but please, educate me….how many other Stanley Cup winning goalies WERE there in the league last year?? I’m not arguing he was over-rated as surely this was just another example of a goalie getting hot at just the right time but please, this statement makes NO sense what-so-ever.

I love this comment as an exercise in humour writing.  It strikes the perfect balance of comic indignance, arrogance and full-throated idiocy.  Displaying a masterful talent,  the author delivers his belly laugh by crafting the comment in such a way that the “commenter” supposedly takes issue with the quality of analysis inherent in only one of DGB’s  jokes.  In this way, the author reveals indirectly that the commenter has  entirely missed the point, greatly enhancing the general comedic effect. The reader is left with the mental image of an arrogant and angry man who is prepared to accept that Mirsolav Satan was an “alternate on the NHL’s milennial all-Miroslav team” and that Jose Theodore tells “made up” stories about winning the Hart Trophy, but who will not let the Niemi analysis pass without an angry outburst.  Like I said, DGB’s piece had some great jokes in it, but this…this is something else.  It’s a masterpiece.  Only a talent of Leacockian proportions could concoct such a tremendous jest and then nestle it modestly and unceremoniously beneath the article, a comic delicacy awaiting your discovery as a hilarious and preposterous surprise.
It is made up, right?  No one actually mistook DGB’s piece for a regular sports article, right?
Right?

Team Canada Loses to Ryan Miller and the Yanks

I’ve been holding my breath ever since about the first period of Game Two vs. Switzerland.   Team Canada looked disorganized and got outworked by a highly motivated Swiss team;  the hosts were lucky to win in a shootout.

Tonight, Team Canada worked harder but lost to a team with a better goaltender and – it must be said – a little bit of puck luck. Minor criticisms can be made – Pronger and Niedermayer both looked weak, Marleau and Thornton made all Canadians understand the frustration of Sharks fans as they completely disappeared inside an important game – but this game came down to some bad play by Martin Brodeur.  Bob McKenzie of TSN said it best on the CTV telecast: switch the goalies and tell me the result wouldn’t have been different.  Marty got us that gold in 2002, but he sure didn’t look like the same goaltender tonight.   Expect Roberto Luongo to play for Canada from here to the conclusion of this tournament.

Lots of people are busy working out the permutations of who Canada will play in the medal round, but hear this:  a win against Germany is by no means guaranteed.  If the Germans play Canada like the Swiss did, and if Canada fails to adjust in the same fashion, there is a good chance that Canada’s tournament ends right away.  I wouldn’t bet on it, but our team needs not to look past that game.  You can bet the Germans aren’t.

In the meantime, here’s an idea for the next Visa Olympics related commercial. Morgan Freeman does the voiceover, of course.  “Hear that sound?  It’s the sound of an entire nation saying ‘FUCK RYAN MILLER’ – all at the same time!”

Phil Kessel: The True Story

Imagine, if you will, Brian Burke sitting at his desk in the MLSE offices today.   Any GM

Clancy is an intimidating ghost
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.

Continue reading Phil Kessel: The True Story

Rookie Tournament: Leafs 1 at Penguins 4

Spouse and I did make the drive down to Kitchener last night (earlier this evening, actually) to watch the Leafs rookies vs. the Penguins rookies.  I’ll have more to say about the game later – right now it’s late and I need to get to bed if I’m going to be a productive member of society tomorrow – but here are some preliminary thoughts:

  • 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 from America: Why the Maple Leafs Will Sooner or Later Have Neighbours

Copps Coliseum Panorama_0122
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.

For Maple Leafs Annual Buyers: A Welcome

maple leafs annual cover
Maple Street Press' Maple Leafs Annual 2009-2010

I am told that the Maple Leafs Annual is now available in many Chapters Indigo stores.  My Dad picked up his copy in a store in Burlington today.  Other reports via Twitter suggest that copies have been found in places like Wal-Mart elsewhere in the province.

If you’re someone who has already bought a copy of the magazine and you’re a new visitor dropping by this site because you followed the link at the end of my article, thanks for your interest.  PLEASE do me the favour of taking the time to drop me a message in the comments, even if just to let me know you were here.  I’d prefer it, of course, if you wrote a few hundred words about how my article is the best thing since somebody froze up a piece of poo and started whacking it around the frozen pond with a crooked branch, but feel free to berate me instead for whatever flaws you have identified in my article.  I really would like to have a discussion with the readers and get your impressions of what I wrote (even if you don’t do impressions :-), thank you very much, don’t forget to tip your waitress, be sure to try the veal and I’m here all week).  Like many of the contributors to the magazine, I haven’t done this sort of thing before and I am (some would say pathetically so) desperate for feedback on the results.

If you’re interested, you can read other things I’ve written on this site about the Leafs by clicking on this link (well, at least the ones I remembered to tag properly).  I also write about some other things, mostly my life in small-town southern Ontario on a piece of property I call “Juniorvania”.  One of my favourite posts, for example, has to do with the time my riding lawnmower tried to kill me.

Continue reading For Maple Leafs Annual Buyers: A Welcome