The good folks at the Fan 590 summed this one up pretty good today, with respect to the Maple Leafs, there’s nothing left to say. 20 games in and we all know the score. We all know where they stand. We all know what they face ahead. The reality is, this team with 62 games to go are in SALVATION MODE. Yes, it has already come to that. The season is now about small moral victories and good god, positive signs. It’s still only November!!!

Not sure if you heard Barry Melrose on the Fan this morning, but the most recent coaching success of your, Tampa Bay Lightning, forecasted a long, hard, cold winter in Leafs land. He talked about how hard it is to manage and coach teams in February when they are out of the hunt that early…STOP LAUGHING! He basically said that Wilson and Burke are going to want to off themselves.

Meanwhile, Damien checks in with his own commentary on the newless Leafs:

“Two things seem abundantly clear this morning.

One, this notion that sending big-money Leafs to the minors — Jason Blake is the most obvious target — will somehow fix what ails the club is just wrong. Blake may not be much use this season, but unless he is clearly a detrimental figure in the dressing room, just getting rid of him is essentially pointless and probably just symbolic.

Unless you have a replacement, dumping a player isn’t much of an answer.

Two, whatever is wrong with this team, Ron Wilson seems powerless to fix it.

The Leafs were the worst defensive team in the NHL last season and the worst penalty killing team. Today, they are the NHL’s worst defensive team and worst penalty killing team.

Faces have changed. Bodies have left town, others have been brought in. The blueline was rebuilt.”

Them’s fighting words, but true nonetheless. Now, in fairness, new faces doesn’t necessarily mean better faces does it. I mean look at the guys brought it. None have exactly been, ummm, effective save for Phil Kessel. Maybe the problem is Wilson’s assistants. I can think of one for example who has been around along time, and never seen a winning moment as an assistant coach…

“The off-season is when important change is made. Not November.

So Leaf fans can scream all they want, and they have good reason to scream.

But that won’t change much. In terms of the playing roster, the options are almost non-existent.”

Well, in that case, let’s go cancel our subscription to the Toronto Star. If the season’s as over as he alludes to, and there is nothing left to do until the off-season, then why bother reading the paper?

While on the topic of not reading or buying, check out this load of utter crap that Berger has, in all places, the National Post. No really, it’s the Seinfeld sports column, the one about nothing! As Steve Martin says to John Candy in Planes Trains and Automobiles, next time you tell a story, here’s an idea- HAVE A POINT! It makes it so much more interesting for the listener. What they hell kind of crap is this? Hell, it’s more readable when you call Leafs fans morons for listening to the Fan 590 and supporting their advertisers. This isn’t even fluff, it’s total and utter crap. Here’s what the guys at the post don’t get, for every great Bruce Arthur piece, there is utter crap from one Stay At Home Berger.

What a night, 2 paper subscriptions canceled. We are a Gary Loewen column away from a weekend of big savings. If I lower my Rogers bill to the point where I don’t have to get Leafs TV I may be able to afford Directv and get some good old US television. As a recent road warrior, I have to tell you that the US verison of the History Channel kicks the Canadian’s ass.

Tomorrow (today now) is the littlest TSM’s 5th birthday. Hard to believe but 5 years ago my little one was born in Royal Oak Michigan and my family was complete. Almost more amazing is the fact that it has been a little less than 5 years since I relocated the clan to Toronto.

Time flies….

TSM

@yyzsportsmedia

here is Melrosebarrymelrose-ms-20091120

Listen to the Chat here

It has taken a long time, but word out to Tampa Bay tonight is that, once again the wagging tongues have been right and those denying the stories may have been full of coyote shit. John Romano has an excellent piece on just how ugly it has become in Tampa, in direct contrast to what all the parties have said publicly of late. Here’s a sample:

“There is unrest in the ownership group. There is dissension in the ranks. And, almost one year to the day after OK Hockey took control of the franchise, the possibility of a messy divorce between bickering owners is a real possibility. Oren Koules and Len Barrie are scheduled to have a meeting today with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to determine which one of them will have the authority to make decisions for the franchise. In essence, the commissioner is determining custody of a hockey team.”

WOW- that doesn’t sound like the harmony we have been fed for months on end does it? The today, by the way is in reference to Tuesday….but wait, there is more:

“And so the humiliation of an ownership group reaches a new crescendo. If you thought it was bad when Dan Boyle called them liars, or John Tortorella described them as cowboys or Barry Melrose accused them of being meddlers, then this is worse. This makes them look like complete incompetents. Which, hopefully, is the message Bettman delivers.”

Recall, if you will, it was Bettman that allowed these two guys to buy into his league, the same league he won’t let that damn renegade Balsillie into…

“They tell stories of various indiscretions, some minor and some serious, in the offices of the St. Pete Times Forum. They hint at money woes and personality clashes. They suggest this is a franchise in disarray, and one whose brand is being devalued in the eyes of fans and sponsors.”

What, inquiring minds want to know is a serious indiscretion in this instance????

So who should get the reins of this derailed freight train?

“This should be the moment that Bettman hands control to Barrie. Please, do not misconstrue that as a vote of confidence in Barrie. This is, after all, the guy who predicted the Lightning would win the division when, in reality, Tampa Bay won fewer games than any team in the NHL. He is the guy who has had public squabbles with Tortorella and Melrose. And he has, along with Koules, fibbed every step of the way. But his shortcomings as the day-to-day boss are only suspected. Koules’ have been confirmed.”

It’s amazing that these guys actually have a team left at all…

“Too many people have said too many unkind things to not wonder about Koules’ management style. To say there is unrest in the front office is to put it mildly. Koules has made the majority of the day-to-day decisions for the past year, and it’s getting harder than ever to have any faith when he stands before you now. Admittedly, this is nasty business, trying to figure out who should be in control. Both men have heavy financial investments in the team, and both obviously want to see the Lightning succeed. But, today, the fissure seems wide. The talk is that Koules wants to keep Lawton as GM, wants to trade Lecavalier to get out from under his $85 million contract and wants to pare the payroll to the low $40 million range. Barrie is not as solidly behind Lawton, wants to build around Lecavalier and is in favor of signing some free agents to get the payroll closer to $50 million.”

And there in the middle is Bettman, like Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Guy, “Please disburse, there is nothing to see here…”

One wonders just how long it will be before some of this stuff starts to stick to the commish? I mean the days of the Stanley Cup Finals he is in bankruptcy court, then, just days before the draft he is mediating a battle between two of his most recently approved owners. I guess the good news, for now anyways is that neither of these guys has been charged with fraud or anything along those lines…. This story will be everywhere tonight and tomorrow- for one I want to hear Glen Healy talk on a subject! Can you imagine, for one second the calls Bettman has to make or take every time one of these stories breaks…the guy is out there trying to sell a few franchises and this shit keeps popping up! Talk about a bad month!

You can read the story here

Skydome turns 20 this year, and The Star’s Garth Woolsey has written a nice summary of the building’s pros and cons. Yes, there is plenty of history, but many other cities have built beautiful outdoor ballparks in recent years, and the dome may have lost some appeal with many fans in Toronto. From Woolsey’s article:

“The Rolling Stones and the Backstreet Boys played there, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama spoke there, folks mourned Princess Diana and egged on Hulk Hogan there, the Jays won a pair of World Series (“touch ‘em all Joe”), the Argos had Grey Cup-winning seasons, and consenting adults did unmentionable things in the hotel rooms overlooking the outfield, teenagers had first dates and/or beers, friendships were forged, marriages were proposed and accepted.

It really is something unique to behold, the place corporately called the Rogers Centre but still good, old SkyDome underneath, an engineering marvel, as much machine as building.

But two decades on, the place is also showing signs of advancing age, if not structurally so much as in the public imagination. Its vastness and greyness can give it the feel and sound of a mausoleum, the sterility of a hospital operating theatre. Its bells and whistles can’t hide its oh-so 1989 feel – that’s the year the Berlin Wall came down and Driving Miss Daisy won the best picture Oscar.

Once a must-attend, it has also gradually slipped down the list of best places to watch baseball: ESPN rated all 30 ballparks in 2006 and the SkyDome came in at No.23, exactly the same rating Forbes.com gave it last month in a more recent set of rankings.

Columnist Jim Caple of ESPN.com: “SkyDome is like the rich kid in your neighbourhood who was the first to get a TV/ VCR/PlayStation/DVD player. He seemed incredibly cool for a while, but as soon as everyone else got something newer and better, no one wanted to visit him any more.”

But really, what can the Blue Jays and the city of Toronto do? Nothing much, as far as I can tell. When the city bid on the 2008 Olympics, there was a plan to build a new stadium, and redesign parts of downtown. At this point, in this economy, there is little chance of any changes in the near future, with no plans to build a new facility anytime soon.

Personally, I love the ability to avoid rainouts, and Toronto is mighty cold in April. Still, how nice would it be to have a beautiful ballpark like so many cities have built in recent years? When Skydome (I still refuse to call it Rogers Centre) has at least 30,000 fans, it’s great, but it has absolutely no feel when the fans don’t show up. Clearly it’s a huge upgrade from old Exhibition Stadium, but many fans are less than enthused. What are your thoughts on the building, 20 years later?

-DL

Woolsey is here.

Don’t shoot the messenger right? Sometimes, though the messenger needs to think about the message he delivers before delivering it.

I was intrigued to see that the Bolts are contemplating legal action against Melrose as Dreger is reporting this evening. I was thinking about whether they could avoid paying him something owed to The Mulett by his disparaging the team this past week. Usually when an employee is terminated as The Mullet was, and they want to keep getting paid, there is an anti-disparagement provision. They are usually pretty hard to enforce as how do you prove what an employee says about the employer in private. You see, the terminated worker isn’t usually dumb enough to go on the radio and bash the crap out of the employer as the Mullet did on both the Fan590 and Xm radio.

Dreger, however claims that the Bolts aren’t contemplating the legal action for that. No they are contemplating legal action on the basis of the Mullet bashing Steven Stamkos and the effect it may have on their ability to market the phenom.

“The dispute remains in the discussion stage and the team has not filed for breach of contract with the National Hockey League.”

It will remain in the discussion stage too. This is beyond stupid. In order to actually win this case, you see, the Bolts would have to successfully convince a jury or a judge that they have been damaged. That is going to be nearly impossible to do. First, they entire management team and the other coaches have all come to the rescue of Stamkos and the team doing little more then bad mouthing the Mullet, also discrediting him. They are then going to have to show actual damages. That would be showing a potential client or an existing client who either reduced or refused to go through with a marketing spend based solely on The Mullet’s statement. Good luck with that. I mean, the fact that the economy is completely in the crapper would have nothing to do with a decrease in revenue to the Bolts marketing department. Then there is the fact that coaches still employed with teams say things not too dissimilar about guys on their team all the time and they are fired for breach of contract. A couple of coaches benched certain Bolt players over the years doing much more detrimental harm to the ability to sell tickets or dasher boards then this did. The slippery slope this would create would be un friggin believable. Lastly on this, if The Mullet is the moron that they have been painting him to be, why would his opinion (and that what this is folks opinion not fact, unless of course the Bolts want to argue that it is fact ) cause any harm to them in a marketing fashion?????

It’s funny how the story being leaked wasn’t for defamation or slander. I mean the Mullet had some pretty pointed words about the actual owners themselves. The only reason I can think this to be the case is that the ultimate defense to those actions is the truth. That is the Bolts owners wouldn’t be able to make the case if the Mullet could prove the statements to be true. Hmmmmmmm, one wonders eh?

you can read the article here

“He doesn’t have a point yet, so all of Canada is in an uproar,” Lightning coach Barry Melrose said. “But every game he’s getting better. He’s playing well in his own end, and he’s getting his chances. Steven will be fine, and people just need to relax. He’s 18 years old, and as soon as the first one goes in he’ll start scoring consistently. I have no doubt about that.”

Don’t know anyone who is in an uproar over Steven Stamkos. The only roar I am hearing is the laughter at the Lightning early season performance under Melrose. A brutal player (especially with the buds) an average coach and even worse a poor man’s Don Cherry on TV…Melrose should worry about what the fans in Tampa think and not those of us up here. We aren’t the ones who are, or aren’t going to buy tickets to bolts games.

As for Melrose’s predictions, lets hope Stamkos is going to be “fine”. When was the last #1 overall pick who was a bust?