Maple Leafs would be ecstatic but for that whole September 18th trade. While alarm bells shouldn’t be sounding after 5 games (they should be blarring) the fact that the Maple Leafs have no where to go but up should be music to us Maple Leaf fans. I mean so many times we have been told the only way to improve is to shit the bed- literally- finish dead last and get the top pick. Problem is, we never had the right person at the top to assemble the right combination of talent to get us to the bottom. Cliff and Brian did too well last year and we didn’t get to the bottom. Like many years prior bad simply wasn’t bad enough.

Now, however, 5 games in Leaf fans it looks like we may just have the right group. These guys are, without a doubt the worst group the Leafs have assembled in a long time. No, 5 games does not a season make. However these first 5 have been preeeeeeeeeeety telling. Let’s see, the forwards can’t score, and they can’t come back to take a pass or help the d. The d, they, for lack of a better word Ssssssssuck. No really, they suck. Ian friggin White is the best of a bad bunch right now. In net?????? baaaaaaaaaaaaah The bright side is that this could be a good draft year…

What?????

We did what with our first round pack????????

So, what’s a coach and GM to do? I mean where do you turn?????

Cox suggested demoting Toskala and Blake to save some big $. Ok, let’s say for a second we are going to do that. Who or what are you going to spend that money on???? Personally I don’t think Blake has been in the bottom half of the forwards in terms of performance. I know Wilson benched him tonight, but he appears to be the only guy forechecking. Who do you bring up from the Marlies???? Those offense powerhouses Hanson and Bozak??????? They are kids. The answers have to lie in that locker room. The coaches have to find a way to reach this guys. There really is no other way. Unless there are some real hidden gems who have yet to be signed that I am not aware of this group is it. Burke has dealt the first round picks for this year and next. The young kids aren’t worth moving. The answer is currently on a plane likely freaking out. It’s a long season and Burke and Wilson should support the bunch they went with. If this continues for long then, as a friend used to say- throw a bomb in to the room.

It is amazing though how are perspective has changed due to one day when one trade was made. If Burke doesn’t make that deal the level of panic is dialed way down- except at all the local media outlets where wait till next year wouldn’t be good for ratings. With the picks gone, the negative tone of the media will continue to carry the day. Wait for all the i told you so’s in the paper tomorrow.

TSM

So Tie Domi was on Hockey Central At Noon the other day. Here is a recap (the interview is below). it’s pretty funny and for the Sundin Lover in You, you will love it. Tie rips Bill Watters and takes lots of jabs at John Ferguson Jr. and even one at Howard Berger…

Tie Domi: wow does that guy still have the city fooled (Bill Watters)

Was very very close to Mats Sundin- Sundin used to buy dinner for Domi for taking care of him on the ice. Domi last speaker at the wedding. Took the high road, he made everyone feel comfortable from top to bottom, treated everyone the same, wanted to have family atmosphere like Messier did in New York. Sundin’s stats speak for themselves. We had good teams but we didn’t have the luck. Mats is going to live in Sweden so retiring in Toronto not as important to him. Thinks have to change here with the whole culture, Burke is going to do that. Why was it Mat’s job to fix the disaster that John Ferguson Jr. did here? People could have protected Mats better and I think Burke would have done it better. Mats Sundin’s wedding was the best wedding I have ever been to. It was UNBELIEVABLE. Sundin “crushed” that Kaberle didn’t come to the wedding.(likely kidding).. No head table at the wedding, his parents and his wife’s parents sitting together with him and the bride. 140 people at a golf course. When Roberts and Nieuendyk came to Toronto they changed his career, how they prepared and acted, when they left he was crushed. If there was ever a day he wanted to run over John Ferguson that was the day. New guys they brought in are all character guys. It’s been tough watching this team for a long time. Having guys being accountable. Colton Orr had dinner with Tie Domi, they have become friends, he is a good kid. “Berger couldn’t scoop ice cream berger”

Kypreos thinks Sundin is bitter on how things ended here. “wait till maclean is on in the 2nd hour…that guy doesn’t shut up” Colton Orr loooooves to fight..he reminds me of Tie- a little koo-koo.

tiedomi-hc-20090930

Listen to the Chat here

I am confused. I thought Toronto was a crappy baseball town where no one want to play because the fans are so un-knowledgeable and don’t come out to support them? What, I guess is the question makes a good baseball town vs. a bad one. I clearly don’t know. In my mind, fans know what they know. They smell a rat when they see one and when someone doesn’t perform up to expectations they let him, or her know about it. I don’t think there has to be this unbridled support for a team win or lose. If a team sucks for a LONG time I see where fans don’t go out to the park anymore. There is too much competition for the entertainment dollar that I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t support a loser. Before you go talking about the Leafs, ask yourself this, would anyone blame a fan for not believing any more? Seriously, if people stopped going to a Leafs game people would be saying it’s about time. Hell they do say it all the time. Many a sportswriter in this town call fans idiots, or some similar term for our devotion to the blue and white. Fans who go to games when they stink are loyal and passionate. Not all of them but a good chunk. Fans who are there and boo or rip certain players when they don’t perform are the same. The usually care too much and pay top dollar and are letting under-performing players know it.

Why the minor rant? Well, Richard Griffin has an a piece about the “hell” Vernon Wells has lived in this Blue Jays season:

“Entering last night, Wells’ average with runners in scoring position stood at .197. His average at the Rogers Centre was .211. Worse, the abuse from the stands at home has been mean-spirited and relentless. At age 30, his critics are writing him off as washed up”

I am sorry, mean-spirited and relentless?? What is this cribbage? To quote the Tom Hanks baseball movie, there is no crying in baseball. Hey Vernon, go to REAL baseball market and suck as badly as you have this year and see what happens. With all do respect, what the hell was the guy expecting???? Vernon Vernon he’s our guy if he can’t do it no one can???? This is MLB. He is making big money. He is paid to do one thing, perform. When he can’t, people aren’t supposed to give him the warm and fuzzies, they are supposed to be let down. When you get hero money you are supposed to perform like a hero. And no, it isn’t his fault that he got the money. I hate that argument. The reality is he signed the deal that was put in front of him. As long as he is cashing the cheques, he is on the hook.

“It’s been a shock, obviously, to see the reaction from people that you’ve kind of grown up with throughout your career,” Wells said. “You kind of get a true understanding of how some people are. Some people will jump on a bandwagon either way. The same people who are choosing to get on me now are the same people that will jump on when things are going better next year and back to normal.”

Vernon, that is what fans do. It’s why we are fans. We always love a villain and a goat as much as we do heroes. We need to blame someone. Strike out 5 times, when you come to bat the 6th, you will get booed. Hit a walkoff homerun on that 6th appearance and you are a hero. That is the world of professional sports. If Jeter or Arod sucked as bad as Vernon has at home, there would be security needed for them. This team is drawing 11k fans. Go to a big city and underperfom and just wait to see what you get.

“The thing that bothers me the most from the players’ side, you’re dealing with a tremendous human being that plays every day, that plays as hard as he can every day, that runs the bases hard, busts his butt down the line,” veteran Kevin Millar said. “A fan has a right to boo or say whatever he wants to because he paid for the tickets, but I think sometimes the ignorance comes out if you don’t know the game of baseball. But we get so caught up in this day and age with salaries that dictate jealousy, that dictate whatever in a person. Vernon Wells has never showed a lack of effort. Has never showed a lack of caring and is having an awful year. The last seven years he’s been among the best centre fielders. He’s allowed to have an off year.”

Your wrong Kevin. I will speak for anyone who yaps at VW or anyone else at a game, idiot or otherwise. The crap that comes out of their mouths are to do 2 things, one, get the attention of the athlete and two the audience around them. As a professional athlete you are paid to ignore them. The best athletes do. They know the game. Ignorance of the game is letting an “ignorant” fan get to you. I am sorry, your right, I don’t know what it’s like. Pay me what they are paying VW and I will find a way to deal with it. You have to. The numbers, Kevin don’t lie. It’s the one nice thing about sports. Here’s the harsh reality. Vernon Wells sucks right now. Will he suck next year? No clue. Right now he sucks. Does he deserve to be called every name in the book and have everything yelled at him? Probably not. The reality is, it’s a stupid game. Having said that he has to bigger than this. Look at guys on the Maple Leafs who have gotten way worse than anything VW has. Most recently, Mccabe and Blake. Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t ever remember reading anything like these quote from those guys. In this town, do you think Wells gets recognized ever where he goes like Mccabe or Blake does?? I don’t. Guys who have gotten it from the Leafs fans can’t hide here.

“One thing about players, when they do have bad years they learn a lot of things,” former major-league outfielder Dwayne Murphy said, arguing Wells is far from done. “They learn themselves better. All of a sudden things mentally happen and you tend to work a little harder in the off-season. You tend to make a lot more things different because of the year.”

Agreed. Good players rise above. It’s that plain and simple.

“I don’t expect my life to be miserable at that point,” Wells said. “If it is, I don’t think money is important enough in life to be miserable at the same time. But, like I said, I view this year as one year out of my career – a lost season. Looking back at my past you earmark it, because you don’t want to have to go through this again.”

This isn’t personal Vernon. You don’t cure cancer. You play a game. You’ve made enough money in your life that your great grand kids won’t have to work. Your right, no one should be miserable. The best of people learn and grow stronger. We will see the type of character Well’s is next year.

Read Griffin here

I love reading all the theories of why the interest in hockey across Canada, Ontario and Toronto is on the steep decline. I especially love when the blame is put on the Maple Leafs for their losing ways. The reality is there are a lot of reasons why interest is down, but it says here none of them has anything to do with our loveable losers. I suggest that interest in the Maple Leafs may be down but there is no correlation between that and the decline in hockey.

Let’s take the easiest answers first. Hockey is expensive. The equipment, the ice time, the leagues all cost a fortune. This is not buying a pair of soccer shoes or basketball shoes or even a tennis racket. There are a ton of barriers to playing hockey that don’t exist in the other sports. After economics, there is the simple answer of time. Learning to play the game isn’t as simple as basketball, soccer or other sports. You have to teach a kid to skate, and that takes a long time. There are hockey skills and all that comes with learning the game. Parents don’t have the time it takes to deal with school and all the other programs that go on, there isn’t enough time to spend multiple hours at the arena.

So you take an expensive sport, two parent working homes with little time and then you have a larger foreign population in our backyard and you can quickly see how interest in the game is on the decline.

Now having said that I can tell you this. Little TSM is about to turn 7. If we don’t register him for hockey and related programs within 24 hours after registration begins for the programs we want, we won’t get in. There are four or five leagues in our area and they are all the same. There are a dozen or so skills programs around us too and they are all the same, jam packed within hours of registration being open.

Now, where the Leafs get killed in my opinion and I have said this before is that young kids, at least those I know, have no interest in the Maple Leaf players. Little TSM loves Crosby and Ovechkin. One of his cousins told me this passed weekend that his favorite players is Tavares and Sharp. The Maple Leafs failures on ice don’t matter nearly as much as their inability to produce or attract players that capture the minds or attentions of our youth. Little TSM wouldn’t want any one Maple Leaf jersey. Not one!

So as we try and figure out how to build the sport in Canada and Toronto I think we need to keep perspective of the world around us. When I was a kid we came home from school and played road hockey for hours. Today kids play on their DS, xbox or ps3. More parents are working and have less time to spend with their kids. We are in a bad spot economically and hockey is expensive. All the other reason are noise in my opinion.

TSM