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!

Invitation: The 2009-2010 Maple Leafs End of Season Banquet

Look what I found lying around yesterday…

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March 25, 2010

Dear Valued Employee:

As a Toronto Maple Leaf player, you are invited to attend the annual Toronto Maple Leafs end-of-season banquet and awards ceremony.  This year, the banquet will be held on Saturday April 17th, 2010 at Jack Astor’s, unless of course we make the playoffs.  Ha ha, just kidding!  Seriously, though, the banquet is on the 17th at 7 p.m. sharp.

I’m not including a map to (or the address of) the specific Jack Astor’s restaurant we’re going to because it’s important that we keep the location of our team shindig confidential, to avoid having any unwanted guests.  In unrelated news, I’ve told Rickard Wallin (through a Swedish interpreter, he doesn’t read English) that we’ll be at Wendel Clark’s Classic Grille in Oakville.  He has been instructed to arrive early, demand to speak with the owner, and threaten him with trouble if we don’t enjoy our evening (which I have booked under the name “Fetisov”).  Don’t spoil the surprise for Ricky – remember how many stitches it took to close up the wound in Jason Blake’s face last year?  Oh, right, almost none of you were here for that.  Well trust me, it was good times.

The dinner menu at the actual, non-fake, banquet location includes: beef.  If you do not want to eat beef, or if you are a vegetarian or have other incorrect desires, let me just say that Edmonton gets pretty cold in the winter and – as incredible as it may sound – the Oilers are less likely than even us to win anything anytime soon. Jonas Gustavsson can have pickled herring, but only because he has a couple of doctor’s notes and I don’t like to get covered in exploding heart blood.  Remember, for this meal, the “Wellwood Rule” is in effect so portions will be limited to six servings of 48 oz. each.

After dinner of course, we’ll be handing out the end of season awards.  By tradition, your Master of Ceremonies will be the longest serving Leaf player, Tomas Kaberle.  As you know, also by tradition, the M.C. is ineligible to win any of the awards.  We offered to move Kabby out of that spot, but he insisted that he isn’t concerned about winning and wanted to stay (why does this sound familiar?);  in fact, he would like to MC both this year and next.  I can say that we’re prepared to meet him halfway on that one.

Awards to be presented this year include:

  • the David Williams Memorial “Mister Congeniality” Plaque (2010 recipient: Colton Orr – has anybody else noticed no one has disagreed with Colton about anything since he dummied Matt Carkner?);
  • the Wendel Clark “Most Valuable Player” Trophy (2010 recipient: Jeff Finger – shhh, don’t say anything, I’m talking trade with someone whose name rhymes with “Errol Flutter” and this MVP thing may get us Jarome Iginla and a pick); and
  • the Gary Leeman “Best Teammate” Prize (2010 recipient: former Leaf Vesa Toskala, in honour of the unremitting dedication to his craft he displayed.  He doesn’t know it yet, but Vesa will be in attendance at the Banquet courtesy of a burlap sack, some duct tape and the trunk of Jay Rosehill’s car.  Please note that this award will be presented posthumously and as soon as possible:  bring your own blunt object.)

After the awards ceremony, though it’ll be tough to top that last award, we’ll be moving to the entertainment portion of the evening.  Right now, the plan is for Phil Kessel, Nikolai Kulemin and Tyler Bozak to come up with something to dazzle us all. The rest of us will have to hope that’s enough.  So it’s pretty much business as usual.

Since he ought to contribute something to the team this year, Garnet Exelby will be responsible for bringing the beer.  When he screws that up, we’ll just buy some from the bar.  Please note that in view of the numerous unfortunate incidents resulting in so much broken glass at the goaltenders’ table last year, players are asked not to toss bottles to one another at any time.

Remember that while in attendance at this function, you are representing Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Be pleasant and respectful to the wait staff, bartenders and busboys, especially Boyd Devereaux and Justin Pogge.

Stay as late as you like, and enjoy yourself.  Our next meeting as a team will be in Los Angeles on draft day.  Maybe we can go to the zoo or something, we’ll have plenty of time on our hands.

Yours truly,

fake brian burke signature

Happy Trails, Indeed: Francois Beauchemin is a Maple Leaf

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Francois Beauchmin Introduced at MLSE Press Conference

The Maple Leafs signed defenceman Francois Beauchemin, late of the Anaheim Ducks, to a 4 year deal today.  The deal brings an annual cap hit of about $3.8 million.

I am a huge fan of this signing, for several reasons:

  1. It will be hilarious to watch Montreal’s Lollipop Guild of Cammalleri, Gomez and Gionta spontaneously pee their tiny little pantses when the Leaf defence pairings stomp on to the ice this year.   Seriously, the Leafs have more beef on the back end than Oprah, J-Lo and Tomas Holmstrom combined.
  2. The move gives Burke options.  He can trade Tomas Kaberle for Jesus Christ and a (top five) first round draft choice or he can move some of the surplus second-tier blueliners now milling about the halls of the ACC, bumping into each other and the walls (such as Stralman, Van Ryn, Finger, Oreskovic, etc.) for more urgently required spare parts:  “depth” (i.e. “crappy”) forwards or draft picks.
  3. Whatever the fate of Kaberle, adding a bona fide fearsome defender like Beauchemin on top of the earlier Mike Komisarek signing, the addition of Garnet Exelby (via trade with Atlanta) and the continuing threat of Luke “The Human Eraser” Schenn ensures that no one will come within approximately sixty feet of the Maple Leafs’ crease next season.
  4. This last fact ought to help in the “Monster” derby, the race to sign Swedish goaltender Jonas Gustavsson, which ought to help bring some depth to the goaltending position.  This is a polite way of saying that the Leafs’ goaltending sucked donkey balls last year.  I love Curtis Joseph dearly, but he did not play well, and an injured Vesa Toskala also turned in a performance best described as “weaksauce”.  Why does the signing of Happy Trails Frankie help out in this regard?   Ask yourself: if you were a young Swedish lad considering which team to join in order to make your NHL debut, wouldn’t you kind of want to go to a club where the defencemen treat attackers like Godzilla treats Japanese public transportation vehicles?
  5. It’s back to the future, man.  Back in the day, when the Leafs were the shit instead of just being “shit”, their style of play was always defined by hard-nosed defence.  The Leafs of the 50s and 60s were more about Horton and Stanley than they were about any fancypants offence.  It’s how we do things in the Blue & White:  crushing hip checks; solid positional play; gutsy shot blocks;  pick and shovel, physical defence with a soupçon of elbows, facewashes and general bad-assery.  Leaf fans have always been especially taken with the lunchpail brigade, but we are especially enamoured by players who patrol the blueline this way.  It has been this way since of Red Horner and Bucko McDonald, through the Horton and Stanley era and more recently to guys like Sylvain Lefebvre, Dmitri Yushkevich and Danny Markov.  This tradition is why Luke Schenn will be the captain of your Toronto Maple Leafs by 2012.
  6. I am really looking forward to seeing Beauchemin use his breath weapon to destroy Daniel Alfredsson.

Attaboy Burkie.  I see the plan, and I like it.  Watching the reaction to the Beauchemin and Komisarek signings in the twitterverse these past few days, I can tell you that your fanbase is definitely loving it too.  (Side note:  It was absolutely fascinating watching the Beauchemin signing in particular unfold via Twitter today;  I saw a tweet that reported the signing, was able to confirm it via Sportsnet, then tweeted about the signing myself and watched as the news spread from person to person via re-tweets.  Enjoying the salty tears of disappointment shed by Habs fans despairing of a lost opportunity was especially enjoyable when experienced in real-time.  In all seriousness, though, the revolution has come.  This is the way we’re going to get our information about things from now on.)

If the Leafs can’t land an elite scoring forward or two through trades this year (most likely immediate candidate for dispatch in this regard:  Tomas Kaberle;  dark horse trade bait:  a rejuvenated and repaired Vesa Toskala), I am content to watch the young forwards like Tlusty, Grabovski, Bozak and Hanson try to make their way in the league.  Some, if not most, of them will struggle and/or fail, and the team will similarly struggle to score goals.  We may continue to lose games, and lose them often.

But I’m going to really enjoy watching this team play this year.  There will be no easy nights for the Leafs’ opposition.  Better still, I can see the foundation of the team being built and I can really foresee now, for the first time in a long time (since JFJ got his mitts on the controls, really) a time in the not-too-distant future when this team will be demanding that it be reckoned with as a legitimate Cup contender.

Setting the Market: Brian Burke and the NHL Trade Deadline 2009

Nb:  I am cross-posting this article to both my own site and Pension Plan Puppets;  I spent a lot of time working on this, and it occurred to me that if Jammies or Sexypants accidentally pushed the wrong “deletify” button over there at PPP, I might lose the whole thing.  So here ’tis:

Here’s the lowdown on the must-see command performance of the season:  Brian Burke goes to work at the trade deadline.

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Artist’s rendering:  Burke demonstrating how to do a proper hernia exam.

This year, for Leaf fans, there is one command performance that we are all waiting to see.  Strangely, the exhibition we’re awaiting will not be given by any skater dashing up the ice with stick and puck.  Rather, the demonstration of skill and excellence we await will be accomplished in an office using phone, fax and email.

Our angry Irish overlord is the only truly high-priced, blue-chip quality talent that we have in Maple Leaf blue and white this year.  In truth, everything that has happened with the players on the ice to date this NHL season is but prelude to that which is about to unfold before our eyes.  Burke’s handling of Pogge, his resolution of the Sundin situation, the acquisition of Brad May, the waivers of Stralman and Bell – all of these matters were mere preparation for the Bellicose One.

The eyes of Leaf Nation are upon Brian Burke at the trade deadline.