I take it you are starting to see a pattern when following the Leafs. Period of high hopes, perhaps some overachieving... followed by some mediocre results and then the proverbial "18 wheeler off a cliff" section that wipes most of the hope for the season off the board.
You get the media all witty and negative and the talk turns to how to "blow up the team". It's important to note that last time they blew up the team for the sake of blowing up the team they gave away Alex Steen, who seems to be a pretty decent player for the St. Louis Blues... cause they had to blow up the team... right.
Always a tough spot for the management... pressure to make moves makes one easy prey when the frenzy comes. Now there are a few players, if the right return were to come back, i would say do it... but you can't trade as a result of pressure. Some say trade and bomb and get a chance to get one of the top upcoming prospects (which are very good this year), but i never understood this logic. We are bombing just fine as we are... why risk changing a promising vector. Simple physics right?
Now you have probably heard about this "jerseygate"... fool fans with more money to waste than brains to access. First of all can we knock off this "gate" bullshit. Watergate was a crime who's wake might have altered the course of America for the worse, not some chuckle head throwing a $300 hunk of blue polyester on the ice. The real thing that i don't see mentioned a lot is that this time some idiot threw the jersey on the ice WHILE THE PLAY WAS GOING ON. There is a big fucking difference between throwing a sweater (as we call it in Canada, unless you are in TO you call it a jersey for some reason) on the ice while the play is going on. If you step on that while skating in the play you could get seriously hurt. Why our clever and alert media is not hammering that point is beyond me.
A sweater is like a flag... it shouldn't touch the ground, so yes it is disrespectful. But you can throw hats on the ice as part of a tradition if somebody were to score a hat trick... AFTER THE PLAY. If you are in Detroit in a playoff game an octopus might end up on the ice... and that is a good omen apparently. Clearly i don't have to sell Omens to you JK... you know what time it is.
Throwing a sweater on the ice is classless they say... people are always telling others that they have no class and it's this big insult. Humanity has so much class right... use to mean you were perceived to be higher than somebody else and therefore had a greater worth in society and were allowed more social graces... now if you feel you have been wronged you tell your opponent that they lack class.
Lets face it; Humans are a classy civilization... we rape the planet that gives us life and stomp on the necks of those that try to get in the way. People who's life work is to bring awareness to the dangers of the Planets declining ability to sustain life, are labelled terrorists by classy politicians who run commercials paid for by the people, all while espousing "working family values" in the commercials of HOCKEY GAMES. Yes Yes, we had to get back to hockey sooner or later... right after the propaganda piece we need a couple of alpha male sportscasters standing in suits against glittering backdrops yelling over each other on the virtues of class and what Leaf player should be run out of town for a bag of pucks.
Sports to me is a "hometown" gig... Dad taught me that one. When it was time for the Grey Cup, he would cheer for the team that was geographically the closest... unless of course it was a team in Quebec where the byline was that Quebec got more Federal tax money on account that they were threatening to separate which sort of put a burr in the side of the people in my parents generation generating an anti-Quebec sentiment, which was probably a well played hand by those leading the separatist movement. Anyhoo, my point earlier was that the way they market the NHL now is that everybody in the family is free to cheer for their favourite team and of course they can watch all their games on their own viewing devices... which is kind of odd, because Hockey Night in Canada was what use to bring us together. But since that swine bastard undermined the CBC cutting the funding so they they couldn't retain the rights (which will further impair them... good political move for sure) we have to put up with this glossy standing version where everybody can follow their favourite team.
I delivered Mail with a guy who grew up in Edmonton but was a Calgary Flames fan... i asked him "How did that happen?"... he said my Dad was a Flames fan so you follow that... it made total sense to me. What kind of a family pulls for different teams? Is that Classy? Maybe the NHL gets more money so they push that, but i would like to quote Burning Spear "My roots i never forget, i always remember the road i traveled"... cause that's class baby.
