Phil Kessel – Heroes in Rehab: the blog

Let There Be Music – And Some Wins, Please

I mentioned on Twitter the other day that I was working on something special in my secret lair. Here it is, in honour of the 2010-2011 Toronto Maple Leafs’ season: The Toronto Maple Leafs Song. (Update 1:12 a.m.: I’ve been trying on and off all night to post a link to the .mp3 file on this blog, but WordPress wants me to learn new swear words instead. So here’s a link to my Tumblr, which apparently has somewhat more delicate ears. )

I can’t believe I have spent as much time as I did over the last few days working on this thing. With Furious G on the way in about eight weeks’ time now, and a busy early 2011 ahead of me work-wise, I have a feeling that the fooling-about time I’ve managed to scrape together over the past couple of evenings may well be the last opportunity I’ll have for a while to focus on ridiculous projects, but I hope everybody in the Barilkosphere enjoys it. If nothing else, have sympathy for the brave men of The Execrables – my PPP Phantasy Puck Team sacrificed their season in the name of this little project. I just couldn’t drag myself away from the production process long enough to pay any attention at all to the fantasy draft, and the autodrafter ended up selecting such luminaries for me as “Marc Savard and his head full of Jell-O”.

Anyway, it all started when I was fooling around, rhyming “Caputi” with “Verbeauty” (the nickname some folks at Pension Plan Puppets have for Kris Versteeg). Before too long, I ended up going Adam Sandler on the Leafs’ lineup.

Enjoy, I hope it gives you a laugh or two.

Here are the lyrics, in case anyone is interested:

THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS SONG

Toronto is the centre of the world
Maybe not, but it’s where the Leaf flag gets unfurled
Our teams have missed the playoffs for many, many years
But this group of Leaf players is tops with the Barilkosphere.

‘Cause we’ve got filthy Phil Kessel, he’s Tyler Bozak’s wing
Kulie and Grabbo just keep on attacking
Monster and Jiggy will prove your offence lacking
While Colton Orr and Komisarek will give you a shellacking
Colby Armstrong has a job cause Matt Stajan was sent packing
Let’s hope we’ll all be cheering wins instead of Prozac-ing

We might not still be playing, when May turns into June
But that’s okay we’ll draft our way to the top
(Wait, what?) Too soon!

Tomas Kaberle makes cross-ice pass like you won’t believe
Still some folks dream of draft picks that we might receive
But I say to keep him, he’s talented and handsome
He better be – he’s passing to John Mitchell and Christian Hanson!
Francois Beauchemin, Luca Caputi
Nobody dangles like Kadri and Verbeauty!
Dion Phaneuf will do his Captain’s duty
And ladies tell me that Luke Schenn looks good in a suit-y
Mueller, Blacker and Aulie all seem like good recruitys
Ian White’s moustache is gone now but we’ve got Mike Brown’s fu manchu-ty

It might not be so bad, now that Toskala’s gone
Forget about the last few years, and help me sing this song:

I like Gunnarson’s acuity, hope Sjostrom stays here too-ity
Jeff Finger’s large annuity makes him a Marlie in perpetuity.
Let there be no ambiguity, show the Leafs that you are true-ity
Habs fans have no clue-ity, and Sens fans are sniffing glue-ity
Support your Toronto Maple Leafs, with all your ingenuity
Engage in promiscuity, if you can find someone who’ll do it-y
Just be sure there’s continuity, in your support for white and blue-ity.

Put on your white and blue
Make some noise and ballyhoo
Even if you speak Urdu
And haven’t watched hockey hitherto
Plan to use a big kazoo
Just be sure you follow through
Bang a chair with a wooden shoe
Make some noise for the white and blue
And
Go
Leafs
Go!

What Bryan Did < What Brian Did

Okay, Leafs fans, admit it – it was tough to see Tyler Seguin pulling on that Bruins jersey earlier tonight when the Beantowners picked him with the Leafs’ first rounder, courtesy of the Phil Kessel trade.

I tweeted about this earlier today, though. Boston fans got to watch one highlight today that Leaf fans find a little galling. We got to watch 30 highlights last season from Mr. Kessel, with many more to come down the road.

For a while, I thought that was the only way I could console myself about the Leafs’ uninvolvement in this draft. Then I watched as Ottawa GM Bryan Murray crapped the bed. With several highly ranked prospects still undrafted, he traded his pick to St. Louis for David Rundblad. Who?

Well, exactly. No doubt Senators fans – the few that have learned to read, and the rest who’ve heard about this from a friend – are spending the evening with their tiny little heads in the oven. Don’t worry, in a few hours they’ll realize they have electric appliances.

In the end, Burkie’s “nothing” was vastly superior to that bit of Ottawa bedshittery.

Home Opener Eve

Uncle Henry, don’t be dumb,
Liquor up your youngest son!
For he represents the royal army’s
Chances in the war.
Say hello to him for me
Ask him if his dog predicts
That the Maple Leafs are gonna beat Detroit
For the Stanley Cup!

…with apologies to Mike (a Red Wings fan that I like despite this obvious character flaw).

No, the above passage from the fine Rheostatics song “Uncle Henry/Cephalus Worm” does not represent my season preview in the form of song; I don’t really think the Leafs are going to be among the teams in the building when Lord Stanley’s mug gets handed out sometime in June of 2010. I am, however, much more excited about this year’s version of the Leafs than I have been in a long, long time.

Phil Kessel: The True Story

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

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.