Ok Sports fans, here is your homework. It’s not very often that I insist you read something, but Michael Farber’s article in Sports Ilustrated is must reading. The story on Brian Burke is fantastic. Talk about a story that “captures the spirit of thing”:

“A few days after Brendan came out to his father, in late December 2007, Brian told him, “You know the best part? I don’t have to take anything back.” Burke says he never told his children there was anything wrong with homosexuality. But when he really rummages through his memory, he concedes there are smudges on his otherwise clean conscience. When he played in the American Hockey League in the late 1970s—he was a stay-at-home defenseman whose skills fast-tracked him to Harvard Law School—he spoke in the lingua franca of the locker room. “Yeah, I used those slurs,” he says. “I’m embarrassed by it. It was an accepted part of the [hockey] culture, and it still is. But not on my teams. It’s a big part of trash talking, and that’s got to change.”

That’s just one piece of Farber’s story that caputures much of the Brian Burke that we don’t get to see or hear about..

“”Last summer I said something [nasty] about Kevin Lowe, and Brendan asked, ‘How can you stay mad at someone?’” Burke says. “I said, ‘It’s easy.’ He said, ‘No, it’s not. He used to be your friend. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t approve.’”
When Lowe, now the Oilers’ president, learned of Brendan’s passing, he e-mailed Brian, referring to their shattered relationship while offering his sympathies. Burke immediately called Edmonton G.M. Steve Tambellini, with whom he had worked in Vancouver, and asked him to tell Lowe that this is one broken fence he wants to mend.
And so Burke and Lowe began the healing process last week at Canada Hockey Place. In their best moments, the Olympics can be as much about peace and friendship as about rivalries. Five nights before the U.S. beat Canada 5–3, the grieving father walked over to Lowe, a Team Canada executive, and offered his hand. Burke says an awkward sort of half man-hug accompanied the handshake. ”

Fantastic stuff Michael, a great story on a Burke. It becomes easier to become a fan of Burke with each passing day. While he portrays himself as the big truculent type, you can tell there is a softer side that is probably driving the bus more often than not. That’s good to see.

Sports Illustrated’s Michael Farber’s excellent article on Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke can be read here.

Dust off those Edmonton Oiler jersey’s, Pat Quinn has a new gig, as head coach of the Edmonton Oilers. Wow what a staff too, he has Tom Renney as an assistant!

Press conference will be later today. Count me as a HUGE Pat Quinn fan. The guy has it all, character and class. I do have one large knock on him and many may disagree, but I truly believe that he allowed the Maple Leafs to become a country club, unaccountable group. I think much of what Fletcher and Wilson and now, Wilson and Burke had to clean up was the atmosphere that Quinn, if nothing else allowed to exist here in Toronto. Having said that I like the guy, the coach and will root for the Oilers.

By the way, it says here that in some time, Quinn will be the GM and Renney the coach, but that’s putting the wagon before the horse. I know Lowe is higher then GM, as Tambellini has that role right now, but these types of situations seem to follow Pat around.

Good luck and congrats to Pat Quinn- I will be at the Leafs Oilers first home game!

TSM

Not sure everyone out there is familiar with Twitter. Twitter is a tad bit like an instant messenger except that it has broadcast capabilities so instead of sending your chosen ones messages you can send out to the world. These message are also searchable, so that for example you can see what everyone on twitter is saying about a certain topic. For example if you went to search.twitter.com you could enter maple leafs and see everything within the twitter network about the maple leafs. Unlike an instant messenger you don’t have buddies, rather you “follow” people and you in turn have your own “followers”. Every time someone sends a message, a “tweet”, those who follow that person will see the message. Oh, and by the way, each message, or “tweet” is limited to 140 characters.

Ok… anyhow, there is no magic in signing up for an account. You go to twitter.com, you register for an account, call your self anything you want and provide a valid email address and off you go. It is not very hard to get a name, as long as if the one you choose isn’t taken, it will be yours. Torontosportsmedia was too long so I went with yyzsportsmedia (whereas yyz is the toronto airport code- pretty shifty eh?!) You can follow me by going to http://twitter.com/yyzsportsmedia

Chris Bosh, the Raptor player was featured in the Toronto Star last week for “twittering”. I found that interesting in that it confirmed that it was actually him. Lots of other “famous” folks allegedly have twitter accounts. In the NHL Alex Ovechkin is the top player that I know of who is twittering. Now there is some pretty funny shit out there on twitter. Just this minute as I am writing this I got an email that Alexander Semin is following me. There is a David Poile account and a Bob Gainey account too. Pierre McGuire is on twitter and a lot of teams have very active (including the league itself) twitter members. As a hockey fan who works in the tech industry I am blown away at just how tech savy the NHL and their respective teams are.

Anyways, there is a Brian Burke account on twitter. Here are a couple of gems from that account:

brianburke: Wade Redden looks disinterested, worn down and flat out terrible against the Leafs tonight. Or, as he calls it, “playoff form”.
brianburke: That Battle of Alberta game last night was great. I wish there was a second NHL team in Ontario for us to play against.
brianburke: Returns are tough. Sundin looks like he has butterflies in his stomach tonight. Wellwood just looks like he has butter in his stomach.
brianburke: They’re not booing. They’re saying “October through Juuuuuuuuuunnne”.
brianburke: Just ran into Kyle Wellwood arriving at the ACC. He seemed kind of depressed. Told him to keep his chins up.
brianburke: Just saw Sundin at the Toronto airport, waiting in line for the shuttle bus. Guess he doesn’t believe in rentals.

The fake garybettman evey got into the act:
garybettman: @brianburke That literally made me LOL. I love you Leafs. Now quite calling my office asking me to suspend Hollweg. Doesn’t he play for you?
brianburke: @BryanMurray: Next time you want to trade a first round pick for a bag of crap, give me a call. I have several bags available.
brianburke: Just saw who we’re playing next. Note to self: Stop by Home Depot, pick up torches, pitchforks.
brianburke: @BobGainey: I used to be a lawyer. Let me know how I can help.
brianburke: Can we just pull our goalie for an extra attacker during the shootout?

There is a fake Darrylsutter too:
DarrylSutter: @brianburke Looking to add a little veteran leadership for the Poffs. Are you guys gonna be choked if I Nieuwendyk/Gilmour it up?
and a Steve Tambellini:
SteveTambellini: @brianburke: How about Blake for Cole? Blake is pale enough to blend in around here.
brianburke: Really looking forward to the Blue Jackets coming to town. We can show Rick Nash where his locker will be in 2010.

and of course a JFJ:
johnfergusonjr: @brianburke Thanks for the kind words buddy but how come you snickered after you said it?

These two are my personal favorites:

brianburke: @JasonBlake: You know, there are some really nice tanning salons in Toronto. Even an hour or two a week can work wonders. Just saying.
brianburke: Thinking about following Gainey’s lead and telling the underachievers to just stay home. Would we be allowed to only dress Schenn next game?

Ok…enough you say, you get the picture…

Now, get a load of what is in the Globe and mail this eve/morning:

“The Internet world is giving the Toronto Maple Leafs more grief.

Leaf president and general manager Brian Burke is the wounded party this time, as someone has been impersonating him on Twitter, a social-networking and mini-blogging service. Twitter allows its users to send and read short posts, functioning as a message board for those who think, for some unfathomable reason, their random thoughts need to be inflicted on others.

Someone signed up with Twitter under Burke’s name and posted a number of remarks insulting to other people in the hockey world. Burke said in an e-mail message on Sunday night that he had nothing to do with the messages and the Leafs have issued a complaint to Twitter about the imposter.”

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? INSULTING TO THOSE IN THE HOCKEY WORLD??!! IF THERE IS ANYONE WHO IS INSULTED BY ANY OF THAT, AND THEY THINK IT IS LEGIT, THEY ARE TOTAL MORONS! No one, and I mean no one think that is legit! This is funny, harmless shit. I can’t believe it is in the paper. I really can’t believe that there is a complaint. Give me a break. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me this isn’t true SERENITY NOW!

you can read burke on twitter here
you can follow me on twitter here
you can read Shoalts here…

Just got back from a quick trip to Detroit. In reading the two local dailies it was hard to get beyond the scandal that is the mayoral situation there. The Lions and Tigers (and beard oh my) were on the front cover of the sports pages. The Tigers for trading Pudge, the Lions as they start training camp. The Wings were buried later in the paper as the news of Scotty’s departure was discussed. One paper explained the move as one out of compassion. Scotty’s son, who works for the Blackhawks is unwell and the article urged fans to view the move as exemplary, a father wanting to live and work closer to his ailing son.

On the 4 hour drive back to the big smoke, it occurred to me that as teams around the NHL try to follow the Red Wings front office model how difficult it will be to accomplish that. It was hard not to find it a tad ironic when i read John MacKinnon’s article in the National Post:

“By design or not, the Oilers front-office begins to resemble the gold standard, that of the Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings.

In Detroit, single owner Mike Ilitch has an all-star hockey department, led by GM Ken Holland, assistant GM Jim Nill, vice-president and GM-in-training Steve Yzerman, with longtime hockey man Jim Devellano in the mix as senior vice-president.”

As the Oilers add Steve Tambellini as GM and move Kevin Lowe to the President’s office it will be very interesting to watch this from a far. The Red Wings model, in my opinion will be very difficult to replicate. You had a very experienced senior adviser in Scotty Bowman, the ex coach. You also have the very senior ex Jimmy Devilano, who has been there for decades. You then have Ken Holland the GM and Jill Nill his assistant. Lastly you have Steve Yzerman the face of the franchise for the last couple of decades as a newly groomed exec. What all of these guys have in common is longevity with the Red Wings.

it won’t be hard for the Oilers, the Leafs or anyone else for that matter, to add in layers of experience in building a hockey department in attempt to replicate the Red Wing model. It will be very difficult to replicate its functionality because of the lack of synergies and years of working together. It wasn’t so long ago that the Leafs had Mike Smith, Ken Dryden and Pat Quinn as an executive team. We all know how well that worked. The solution is not just putting together a list of guys with experience. Rather it is putting together a TEAM that can and will work together. That is not easy to do. Detroit works because, with the exception of Yzerman, who played his entire career for the DRW, all of the guys have worked together forever too. Holland as a scout, Scotty (even though he is gone) as a coach, Jimmy D as a life long exec and so on.

Keep in mind that the Wings haven’t always been the success that they are today. There were some pretty dark years there to. When Illitch first bought the team times were pretty lean. In the early 90’s before becoming hockeytown, they lost in the playoffs to the Leafs and the Sharks in playoff disapointments. However, by putting the right pieces in place, and building a foundation they became the definitive model for the rest to try to replicate.

This is not going to be easy given all the different egos, as you try to build the foundation. Kudos to the Oilers new owner for trying. Hopefully the Leafs too will get there. For neither team will it come easy.