October 2007 Archives
Dear Richard, Love reading your thoughts on the Jays and baseball. Watching the World Series this week, I was struck by a thought on JP Ricciardi. Eric Hinske, Royce Clayton, and Bobby Kielty - all players JP acquired for the Jays - were contributors for the World Series champions. Perhaps the problem is not talent, but how it's deployed? How did he give up on these guys? |
Will we finally get our moment in the sun? (Or Star, more accurately) Find out tomorrow!
COX: Give up the Bloc, or we will deliver the ultimate punishment....
JORN: Do your worst, slaphead!
COX: Very well - Simmons!
SIMMONS: Snarf, snarf!
COX: Put them..... in the studio audience!!!!!
(SCREAMS)
Actually, the real reason for our absence is much more prosaic. We got arrested again for loitering in the bushes outside Al Strachan's house. They do give you the papers in jail, so we stayed mostly up to date on what has been a pretty quiet week, all things considered. Here are some quick thoughts about last week's material, and some site news. We will not be commenting on the John Tavares situation unless there's more news, cause it's pretty much a non-starter. Besides, I don't write about Oshawa if I can help it - I'm a bloccer, not a war correspondent. Kudos anyways to Cheap Shoalts for breaking the story and Brylcreem Jr for getting the press to write about something else than how he's getting canned for a couple days.
Other notes:
Steve Simmons Sunday brainsqueeze: If you don't think fighting in hockey can hurt somebody, take another look at Zdeno Chara's pounding of Chicago's David Koci and see if that doesn't change your mind.
Getting punched in the face hurts? Who knew? Of course, if Chara really wanted to punish Koci, he would have held him down and read Simmons' column to him.
Rick Westhead at the Star got some deserved plaudits for breaking a story that the Leafs have a vast, vast, vast fortune. Vast. However, the Tyee received much less notice for digging up a tidbit that wasn't, you know, obvious to everyone. They reported that the Peddie/Tanenbaum Axis of Evil isn't the only dictatorship supported by the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan: They also invest heavily in Burma. Andrew Raycroft. Cultural exchange. Make it happen, Teachers!
Also in Saturday's TorStar Leafs fest was UofT dean Richard Powers' pretentious bullshit (talking about the 'market's natural competitive forces' as if the NHL wasn't a monopoly - ask Jim Balsillie) on why Leafs fans are to blame for the Leafs sucking. Apparently they should be boycotting games (ask Pirates fans how that one went) or trying to get Hamilton an NHL team, when many nights it looks like Toronto needs one too. Powers manages to demonstrate he understands economics about as well as he does hockey. The teams owners need to "step up and invest in the business of hockey" - yet the Leafs are continually at the top of the league in payroll. The problem isn't being cheap, it's being dumb. The Sabres, who reached 100 points last year with a payroll half the size, demonstrate the idiocy of Powers' argument.
Well, that about wraps it up. If we missed anything else, send it along. We've noticed that we've seen a spike in readership over the last few weeks, and we'd like to hear from you. In the spirit of Griffin and Cox, we'd like to announce our first ever COX BLOC MAILBAG! Any question about the Canadian sports media, sports, how Julianne Moore ruined Jurassic Park: The Lost World (trust me, Jorn'll bend yer ear about it) is welcome. We're also putting up links soon, so suggestions for good sites are also appreciated.
Keep watching the skies.
Six million. One to screw it in, the rest to walk around marveling at what a world-class event it is.
This hoary old chestnut came to my mind when sorting through the reactions to the Buffalo Bills announcement that they intend to play one preseason NFL game in Hogtown next year, followed by another, and a regular season matchup, the following season.
Two writers, at diametrically opposite poles of the ability spectrum, took on the issue, demonstrating emphatically that this stuff should be left to the professionals. Or in our case, the really snarky amateurs.
First Steve Simmons weighed in during his Sunday brainsqueeze. After no doubt wiping the egg off his face having written, just two weeks ago, that BC Lions prez Bobby Ackles's "Chicken Little scream about the NFL coming to Toronto and the CFL dying in the process is pure over-reaction. A) the NFL isn't coming to Toronto so fast," Simmons now had to address the news that the NFL was coming to the Rogers Centre much faster than anyone, especially him, had predicted. Woopsy-doodle! (Fun fact: Paul Godfrey, president of the Rogers Centre, is Simmons' old boss. Nice reporting, Scoop!)
So on Sunday, Simmons delves into some serious analysis about the economics of the respective leagues, the possibilities of a lawsuit from the City of Buffalo.. Fooled you! Actually no, I didn't fool any of you, did I? The man is shameless. Simmons instead dusted off the "Chicken Little" insult (BURN! MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!) in a column headlined "Hand-wringers off deep end on Toronto NFL talk" After getting off to a blinding start by calling Canadians alarmist and backwards, he offers this take:
It is so Canadian, so alarmist, and so backwards to listen to the Chicken Little over-reaction of Canadian Football League people to the possibility of the Buffalo Bills playing a regular-season game in Toronto.
The chief small-thinker himself, David Braley, owner of the B.C. Lions, went so far as to threaten there would be a backlash against Rogers products should Ted Rogers be part of a group that brings an NFL franchise to Toronto.
First off, there will be a pre-season game in Toronto and anyone who has ever seen pre-season football knows this can't be a good thing.
Secondly, there may be a regular-season game at the Rogers Centre, which is a sure sell-out. How does that impact the CFL? At different prices, with a different audience, at a different time of year, how does a single regular-season game factor with all the CFL hand-wringing?
The third factor is that the Bills will be up for sale when owner Ralph Wilson passes on. The estate will be mandated by law to sell to the highest bidder. The NFL will have to approve the sale and the possible movement.Who is to say the Toronto people will outbid anyone else for the team, and who is to say the league will approve it? For what now appears to be nothing more than a pre-season game and the possibility of a regular-season game in Canada, there sure are a lot nervous people out there.
As always, cheap smarm and invective substitute for actually investigating the situation. I could smack down the lack of facts or analysis here, but why do it myself when Stephen Brunt can show Simmons how it's done: HIT IT!
Brunt, by the heroic act of apparently doing some research and thinking about the subject longer than fifteen seconds, points out that, among other things:
1. Buffalo sees Ontario as part of its territory
2. The CFL was given no notice of this plan
3. MLSE CEO Larry (Chas) Tannenbaum has long been interested in an NFL team and is friendly with Bills owner Ralph Wilson
4. The franchise will be up for grabs soon, as Wilson is 89
5. The NFL seems "quietly on board," and given that Toronto is defined as Bills territory, leaguewide approval for a move is perhaps not even necessary
Brunt, having first done some reporting and analysis, concludes that the CFL and Argos should be seriously worried. See what order that came in, Simmons? Neat-o, huh? How the hell Simmons, lead sports columnist at a paper built around sports, tits, and crime, gets away with his half-assery week after week is beyond me. Of course, I don't understand why more people don't listen to Steely Dan, so maybe I'm in the minority, especially in a province that just re-elected Dalton McGuinty.
Brunt is far more realistic about what this all means than Simmons (sorry for the John Madden level of obviousness there). Nevertheless, Brunt does conclude with an optimism about the CFL I can't share:
The NFL could have worked on neutralizing any potential resistance by cutting a deal that would be beneficial to all. Maybe they don't think it matters, and maybe, in Toronto at least, it won't.
But there have been other times in history when American interlopers
expected to be greeted with a scattering of rose petals, and instead
were met with a nasty surprise.
This would not be one of those times. Toronto craves the big, the world-class, the heard-of-it-in-New-York. That's why the CFL doesn't really matter here, not nearly the way it does in Montreal or Vancouver, let alone Saskatchewan. Thousands of Ontarians already hold season tickets in Buffalo now. The team would sell out in a heartbeat if it moved. The only thing that could stop it would be government intervention on either side of the border, which only seems likely for Buffalo to pursue, or a well-heeled local owner outbidding a Toronto group. Again, unlikely.
Stephen, I love the sentiment, but that's just not how it would go down. Forget it Brunt, it's Hogtown.Hiya Richard,
In last week's mailbag you mentioned that you aren't a fan of the DH rule and said that watching a pitcher get a key hit or laying down a bunt is surely more fun than watching a one-dimensional guy like Frank Thomas run from first to third. I personally think that David Ortiz hitting home runs is surely more exciting than watching John Maine strike out 28 times in 55 at bats. Do you think I've proved that I'm correct because I cherry-picked stats and situations that support my argument while scoring cheap points off of people who disagree with my position?
Looking forward to your answer,
Kim
Will it work? Is this the week? Probably not, but stay tuned...
Boston is a tough, tough media town, and these two teams get most of the attention, the same type of attention that goes to high-profile teams in other markets - say, Toronto and the Maple Leafs - and is used as an excuse as to why those teams aren't successful.
The Boston media, or more specifically, the newspaper writers, hounded Ted Williams for years and years. It's an unrelenting media pressure that Boston applies, yet the Pats and Bosox seem to flourish within it.
Talk about small sample size. I wonder why Cox didn't use any of the following to prove his completely invalid point:
The Boston Red Sox (1918-2003)
The New England Patriots (1959-2000)
The New York Yankees
The New York Mets
The New York Knickerbockers
The New York Giants
The New York Jets
The New York Rangers
The Chicago Cubs
The Los Angeles Lakers
The Washington Generals
Iron Mike Sharpe
So many things wrong with this. It's like the Shockmaster of sports-writing. Never mind that no Leaf player (in my recollection) has ever blamed the forty-year-and-counting failure of the Leafs on the self-important media. Never mind the fact that Ted Williams never won a World Series. Never mind the fact that every year Manny Ramirez is good for 35 HR, 120 RBI, and a trade demand in December because he is sick of the media attention in Boston. Never mind that the Red Sox missed the playoffs last year and lost in the first round the year before. Never mind that the Red Sox have a massive payroll advantage over every team but one in their sport. Never mind that the Red Sox GM is smart, builds from positions of strength, drafts well, nurtures prospects, and that our GM is John Ferguson Jr. Never mind that there is no way to prove that teams perform in certain ways due to, regardless of, or in spite of media pressure. Never mind that Cox creates a straw-man argument and uses it to bash the Leafs for saying something they've never actually said. And never mind that nobody uses the word baloney once they learn how to curse, unless they are as drunk as Jake the Snake.
Never mind any of these things because anything goes in Cox's lifelong no-holds-barred grudge match against the tag team of the Leafs and common sense.
McCabe has handled the situation well. He didn't shy away from questions Wednesday. What this illustrates, though, is that Canada isn't hockey crazy -- it's deranged, at least when it comes to Leafs fans.
For as proud as Leafs fans are, Toronto hasn't won a Stanley Cup since 1967. Its image is inflated, and its fans are fickle and irrational. And the media feeds that.
Ah yes, the fickle Leafs fans who have sold out the building to watch a mostly mediocre team for decades. The irrational fans who publish front-page flagellations of underperforming players. How exactly is the Maple Leafs' image inflated again? Because they are heavily reported on in their own market? I don't recall Andrew Raycroft's Exploding Glove making the front page of the New York TImes lately. Is it surprising that they are big news league-wide considering it is their revenues and profile that keep teams like, I don't know... Florida in business?
You would think, coming from a market where hockey's profile probably amounts to Nathan Horton doing an autograph signing at the local Publix, Gorten would appreciate a town where the team was so passionately loved and debated. The Panthers are at home to Nashville this Saturday. Good seats still available!
Why didn't Toskala start after his solid effort against Florida?
Why are there four offensive defensemen playing?
Are Kronwall or even Stralman really worse than Wozniewski?
Why was Poni given so many minutes throughout the game despite his obvious rust?
Why are there so many guys (Tucker and Pohl come to mind) being used in roles that don't fit?
Of course, given that these are questions about the team on the ice, I won't be surprised if they are shunted aside by the usual suspects in favour of columns bashing people's character, effort, and "desire" (you know, things you don't have to back up with analysis or actually watching the game). Either way, we're nine games in, with an inconsistent team, high-priced underachievers, a lame-duck, widely-loathed GM, and a coach who seems unsure how to plug any leaks. A few more losses like this and the season could turn into a no-holds-barred Toronto media bloodbath- Berger and Simmons knee-deep in entrails, a grinning Mike Zeisberger's mullet festooned with gore, Damien Cox holding JFJ's gleaming skull aloft before drinking deep from the gunk within.... the horror.
Be careful out there.
Well, despite a week of open bloodlust that would have made Billy Martin drink himself into a quivering coma, Bryan McCabe's return to Toronto went about as well as it could have. After being burned on Florida's second goal, Buffalo's favourite Leaf rebounded with the rest of the team, scoring a goal in a 3-2 win. Fan reaction for McCabe was muted, the smattering of boos directed at McCabe in the first period proving either that Toronto fans aren't sheep easily led by the ink-stained executioners or that the prawn sandwich munching Bay Streeters who make up most of the good seats were still at the honour bar, or something in between. By the end of the game, boos had turned to cheers.
It's enough to make Steve Simmons wax philosophical. Recalling his boyhood hatred of Mike Pelyk, he reminds us, the little people, the poor benighted blue-and-white wearing children, that he was once like us, before he saw the light, before he became Canada's most-read sports columnist, before he learned that if you stick three dots between clauses you don't have to write with any kind of structure....
Where was I? Ah, yes. Simmons has learned. Now, we know what the players make, no wonder we boo them. It's all about the money. Back when Simmons was a lad, we didn't, so then we ...booed them? What the hell is your point here, Steve?
Anyways, Steve concludes that Bryan is booed mostly because of the contract, partly because the fans are frustrated with the team, and then happily toddles off to finish the Jumble. Does he have a point? Sure. But Steve, you sure you didn't miss anything?
That's the only reason McCabe is being booed?
It has nothing do with this?
I guess we've established that Steve doesn't even read his own paper. Puts him one up on Kim and I, I guess.
There is a better explanation, presented here in an oversimplified version, of how high salaries, and reporting on them, have changed the athlete-media dynamic. Back in the good old days, when kindhearted businessmen like Jim Norris could bust Ted Lindsay down to the minors for daring to talk union, writers and athletes rode the same trains, stayed in the same hotels, drank in the same bars. Players finally getting a fairer share of the wealth they created changed all that. Sportswriters were now distanced from the athletes. Frustrated, the dirt, previously swept under the carpet, made it into the papers. Players, feeling betrayed, shut sportswriters out and a vicious cycle was created, one escalated by the spiraling dollar amounts involved. But thinking about things like this requires self-examination and accountability. It means you don't get to crucify a guy for a week and then wonder where the nails came from.
Oh, and In tribute to the outstanding Sun cover above, I've compiled a list of other front page headlines the Sun can clip n save, and later use depending on who the scapegoat of the week is:
"JASON FAKE"
"ALEXEI PAININTHEASSKY"
"MATT SATAN"
"IAN SHITE"
"DARCY.. actually, you've probably got this one covered.
"CHAD BABYKILLER"
"ANDREW RAYCROFT"
You can make the check out to the usual address.
In his "Leafs have no identity" piece this week, he does a bit of historical whitewashing that would do Orwell proud:
Generally speaking, when the Leafs have had blips of meaningful success over the past 40 years - the 1967 Stanley Cup championship, the 1978 run to the semifinals, the 1993 push to within one victory of a return to the Cup final - it has been with grit, goaltending and defence under coaches like Punch Imlach, Roger Neilson and Pat Burns.
Missing - one red-faced Irishman who took the Leafs to the semifinals twice, racked up 3 100-point seasons when it still meant something, and demolished the Senators in the playoffs like Mickey Mantle tearing into an open bar.
More to the point, his teams had an identity: run and gun hockey, a willingness to mix it up, defence optional, and great goaltending. Sure it was often frustrating to watch, especially at the end of his tenure, but at its best it was exhilarating, passionate hockey, well-recognized enough for people like Reporters member and full-time Habs homer Michael Farber to dub the Leafs "The Most Hated Team In Hockey." The adjective "most hated" usually means you're doing things pretty well - look at the Yankees. Did it win the Cup? Hell no, but Quinn's teams achieved as much or more as Burns' and Neilson, and DC Talk should know better.
No doubt energized by the familiar rush of pure hatred through his veins, TEH COX took another run at Quinn in his weekly Leafs mailbag:
A: First, I want to comment on your Quinn-related remarks. He was most resourceful in his first year of coaching, but after that benefited by having Mats Sundin in his prime, excellent goaltending (particularly in the regular season) from Curtis Joseph and Ed Belfour and the ability to spend and spend to whatever level the team wanted.
Classic. Apparently Pat Quinn's accomplishments are meaningless cause he had a few good players. Quinn woulda had to take a beer league team to the semis to earn Cox's respect. (note: Quinn's firing shattered one of my fondest dreams: reading the Star the day after a Leafs Cup win and seeing how Cox would still manage to bash him. And yes, as a dream this was only slightly more realistic than my childhood ambition of playing SS for the Detroit Tigers) Also, Pat Burns's success had nothing to do with Potvin, Andreychuk, or having the world's best all-around player his first two years in town. It was all about the mustache.
Well, this has been a fun stroll down memory lane, hasn't it? Something about old Paddy really brings out the worst in Cox. Let's hope he gets that Atlanta job.
Breaking news.... a sharp eyed correspondent found this in the garbage bin outside CBC's Toronto offices today and passed it along. It was headed "CC Large Print Teleprompter Notes First Draft"
So this kid Boulerice, sounds French so no surprise, is suspended, his career's probably over, and everybody and his mom is crying about it, poor Kesler. Give me a break! Let's look at the clip again, and BAM! the stick snaps right in Kesler's face!! You see, guys today there using these graphite sticks made in Chinastan or something, probably where Bowlofrice picked it up, they break if you breathe on 'em wrong!!! I remember when I was coaching, Terry O'Reilly could beat a fan to death in the parking lot with his Koho, and then still use it to score a goal and spear Jean Ratelle the next night! You kids out there, buy something with some muscle!!!
Whatever can it all mean?
"Toronto Falls On Own Goal"
Hell, if they had done that, McCabe wouldn't have been able to bury the winner. Put a shadow on him, Maurice!
Well, Shoalts gives us a peek behind the curtain today to show us the titanium echo chamber in which Leafs coverage is generated:
Two nights later, the New York Islanders were the visitors, and this time it was the Leafs making tracks in the offensive zone with an 8-1 win. When your agent was rather restrained in his praise for the victors, several e-mailers took umbrage. How could you dump all over them after the loss to the Hurricanes and then not praise them to the skies for waxing the Islanders?
Well, it was rather easy. The Hurricanes are an elite Eastern Conference team that was playing at the top of its game. That exposed the Leafs' flaws and showed how far they have to go to be a contender.
The Islanders are one of the Eastern dregs and they played one of
their worst games. So what was learned is that if the Leafs defence'
has an opponent it can handle, the forwards can score some goals if
they stick to their forechecking and the opposing goaltender is awful.
First, hats off to Shoalts for not blaming Leafs fans for writing the wrong headline this time. Given his opinion of Leafs fans' general savagery and hysteria, I bet he hasn't made it into the Globe parking lot yet. Make sure and slide some Kraft Singles under the door, Duhatschek!! The rest of this insane bullshit I'll have to break down scientifically, like the Nature Boy going to work on Ronnie Garvin:
1. The Hurricanes are an "elite team" that finished three points behind the Leafs last year, 11th in the East. They may have won the Cup two years ago, but I think we can agree Shoalts is jumping the gun here a bit in crowning them as one of the teams to beat.
2. The game showed "how far the Leafs have to go to be a contender." Actually, Bryan McCabe's 20 minutes a game do that on a night in, night out basis. No one thinks this year's Leafs are a contender. NO ONE. Yet Shoalts continues to bash this straw man three times a week. Give it a rest. If you got Brylcreem Jr on a five-day meth binge, the best he'd tell you was that this year's team would deal Raycroft, win a playoff round, and give him one more year of ownership trying to hire someone else behind his back while leaking misinformation about him to Steve Simmons' Etch-A -Sketch.
3. The Islanders suck. Well, no arguments there.
The truly laughable part is Cheap Shoalts' need to defend his hatchet work mid-column, a pretty solid sign that he knows he's full of it. After the Carolina-Toronto game, veteran Canes forward and Peterborough native Cory Stillman pointed out that Carolina wasn't 7-1 good, and the Leafs weren't 7-1 bad. If only Shoalts could give us that kind of perspective, and follow the Leafs as a hockey team, without the endless drama club hair-pulling that has to accompany it, and the intellectually bankrupt dodge of pinning it on "Leafs Nation," who are in actuality just a loyal group of hockey fans who follow a struggling team and don't need to be pulled into the Dan Shaughnessy -style nonsense of the local hacks. The pity is again, this column shows that there is a decent hockey writer here once you strip away the shtick. David, just cover the damn games. Let the fans write the headlines.Dear Richard,
Love the mailbag, your insights into baseball always astound. I remember in your late season column on the Angels, I remember you saying that their successful real baseball would be copied by the rest of the AL.
Does the ALCS matchup of the Indians and Red Sox, two teams that pitch well, take walks, and hit home runs mean another season of fake baseball in the AL? I was hoping to see some more bunting next year. Thanks for reading!
Will he answer this one? Fingers crossed, Cox Blockers, and if you've sent in a question of your own, please post it here. I noticed while submitting my query that one of Griffin's queries referred to that classic problem of Blue Jays team speed. I'll save you Griffin's answer and instead share what one of baseball's greatest minds had to say about the subject (very, very NSFW). Enjoy.
If John Tory could keep the CFL alive at its grimmest moments, why couldn't he keep Ontario alive?
Good question Steve, and completely appropriate for a sports column! It looks like the shameless shilling for the Conservative Party isn't limited to the Sun's newsroom. To answer your question, Steve, it appears that the people of Ontario (or at least the few who bothered to vote) are willing to tolerate higher taxes if it means better health and education services. Or, they looked at Tory, saw what he had to offer, and still preferred a creepy, lying, animatronic Sens fan to lead them.
Your revolution is over Mr. Simmons. Condolences. The bums lost. My advice to you is to stay away from politics and stick to writing gibberish about sports. Like this:
A question to ponder: Mats Sundin, Hall of Famer or not?
It took me less time to ponder this than it did to finish reading the question. The answer is yes. Slam-dunk, no-doubt, 100%, absodubadably, yes. Two reasons:
1. We're not talking Cooperstown here. When Mats gets into the Hall, he will be joining the likes of Clark Gillies, Bernie Federko, and Pat LaFontaine. Good players all, but definitely not the game's elite. Two of them are Islanders, for crying out loud. Dick Duff is going in this year. Mats is a lock.
2. Mats Sundin is a very good hockey player. He has averaged over a point per game. He has over 500 goals and 1000 points. He will, in all likelihood, finish his career in the top 20 all time for points and goals. All time. Those are Hall of Fame numbers.
The only way Mats doesn't get in is if people like Simmons get to vote.
Simmons also discussed Mats' record breaking week on The Reporters today:
My thumb is up to Mats Sundin of the Toronto Maple Leafs who this week became the all-time leading goals and points getter in franchise history. A great accomplishment for a guy who's had an understated career playing on a team that he had to carry for virtually every one of his 13 seasons in Toronto.
Good work Steve. Very classy, and I like that you acknowledged how Sundin has carried the Leafs for the last 13 years. Perfect. So just stop there, stare at the camera, and don't say anything stupid. You're done. Or...you're not done? Really? Steve? Steve? Don't....
Now, the Sundin number, as good as it is in Toronto, doesn't really pass the test of Original Six franchises for all-time goals or points. He's 300 behind Gordie Howe, about 300 behind Bobby Hull, way behind Johnny Bucyk and he'd be sixth all-time on the Montreal Canadiens scoring list. So, it's a long way to go still for Mats Sundin amongst the Original Six.
How come no one on the Reporters ever cuts Simmons off halfway through his rant to make sure that the audience knows they think he's a moron? I had this little fantasy while watching the show this morning.
Dave Hodge: (Flings pencil at Simmons) Come on Steve. Gordie Howe played for 24 freaking seasons. Of course he has way more points than Sundin. Did you know that Gordie Howe averaged 1.1 points per game? Do you know who else has averaged 1.1 points per game? Yes, Steve, it is Mats Sundin. It is incredibly misleading and disingenuous to compare Mats to players who racked up points totals for one team in an era when players rarely switched teams. Not to mention the fact that Sundin played the bulk of his career in one of the lowest scoring eras in the history of the NHL. What is your point, exactly. You know, this show is called the Reporters with Dave Hodge. When you start flapping your gums like this, you make me look bad. It is embarrassing.
Dave Feschuk: I'm new here, and I'm mostly a basketball guy, but these numbers don't seem to make any sense. By my calculations, Sundin would be fifth on the Habs list, and he'll probably pass Maurice and Henri Richard by the end of next season. I doubt he'll catch Beliveau and his 1219 points, but then again, Beliveau played for 20 seasons. What the hell are you trying to prove, Simmons?
Dave Naylor: My thumb is down to Steve Simmons. Week after week we are subjected to his selective and often completely fabricated stats. Mats Sundin now has 1253 career points, including his time with the Nordiques. Guy LaFleur, the Habs all time scoring leader, scored exactly 100 more points in his career, which also included stints with the Rangers and Nordiques. It is possible that by the end of next season, Sundin will have more points to his name than any Habs player who ever played the game. If Mats had played his whole career for Toronto, things would be much different. Of course, all of these comparisons don't really mean anything since we're comparing different eras and lengths of careers, but I just think it is important for people to realize that Simmons has no clue what he is talking about.
Dave Hodge: And my god Simmons! What are you wearing? A black shirt with a yellow tie? Are you flying to a wedding in New Jersey when we're done taping? For the Reporters, I'm Dave Hodge (cue canned Jazz/Funk music).
Of course, that will never happen. But a man can dream...
Mr Jorn has done an admirable job pointing out the idiocy of this blinkered view, so I won't belabor the point. However, permit me to second his observation that a stage in the season where Paul Stastny is second in points, Sidney Crosby goalless, Nik Antropov the NHL plus-minus leader (hell, Nik Antropov healthy) while Roberto Luongo straggles along with a Mark LaForest-like 4.22 GAA, is not a stage in which we can draw any definite conclusions about the quality of NHL clubs. Well, Phoenix definitely sucks.
All of this is an overlong way of introducing the delicious dilemma facing Toronto sportsmaroons tonight. Having already written off the entire Leafs season based on the 7-1 drubbing by the Carolina Carpetbaggers, how do they spin the new shit that has come to light, namely the Leafs hammering of the Islanders 8-1. I wish I could go to bed comfortable in the knowledge that the collective backpedaling would exert sufficient gravitational force to move the GTA somewhere outside of Sudbury, but I know that's just not how we get down in the 416.
Like any good Stalinist, they know any troubling or inconvenient information, whether widespread famines in Georgia or Andrew Raycroft stopping 30 of 31 shots must somehow be shoehorned into the Master Narrative. So tonight I'm gonna go out on a limb and get all Early Edition on you. These are tomorrow's talking points.... RIGHT NOW:
"Leafs maybe not as bad as they looked against Carolina, but certainly not as good as they looked last night"
"Goaltending controversy resurfaces"
"Big night for offence, but why didn't Blake score against former mates?"
"Sundin alltime goals and points leader, still not as good as Steve Shutt or Stephane Richer"
"My cat's breath smells like cat food"
(Note: last two are Simmons-only)
If one of the big guns admits they may have been a little hasty and hysterical the last couple days, I'll definitely post a mea culpa here. But I'm feeling confident enough to suggest you skip buying your rag of choice tomorrow and treat yourself to a Coffee Crisp. If you've made it this far, you've definitely earned it.
Rock bottom, and with Halloween still three weeks away.
If you are going to hit rock bottom, wouldn't four games into the season be the best time to do it? Things can only get better, right? Lots of time to work on problems and get the team sorted out. I would think that hitting rock bottom in April would be much worse. (Or game one of the Stanley Cup finals, eh Sens fans).
By my count, the Leafs still have 78 games to play. No need to freak out and call the season a failure.
Losing 7-1 in humiliating fashion to the Hurricanes in the third home game of the season was a stunning pratfall for the Leafs, a group of athletes who once again had a lot of promises going into the season. Just more talk. Barely a bodycheck thrown last night, folks.
Okay, I was wrong. Move along people. Seasons over. Nothing to see here.
This was a club, from management through coaching through the player ranks, that vowed to use improved defence as a means to again qualify for post-season play.
The result after four games? Already 17 goals allowed, tied with Anaheim for the most in the NHL, with the champion Ducks having played one more game.
That total of 17 goals, you may have noticed, includes last night's 7-1 loss. Those of us who don't screech about the sky falling on the day following a big loss refer to these kind of things as an aberration. In four games, the Leafs have allowed 4,3,3, and 7 goals. One of those numbers sticks out like a sore thumb.
Of course, you could completely overreact to the one big score and write the Leafs obituary in the second week of October, or you could put the pen down and think this one through. Most teams, many of them quite good, get blown out at least once a year. If the Leafs give up 70 goals in their next ten games, then we can talk. We are talking about one game here. One game.
Only Buffalo and Florida, both winless, have a worse goals-against average than the Leaf tandem of Vesa Toskala and Andrew Raycroft, who own a combined .865 save percentage.
It seems that Damien Cox clearly hasn't learned from Steve Simmons' grand folly; namely that - with the exception of free porno and baseballreference.com, obviously - the greatest thing about the internet is that you can type a reporters name into google and within seconds come up with an old article which you can use to bury said reporter. For example, there is this ESPN.com column that Cox wrote in November 2005:
In recent years, the wisest of the wise have decided that, like size, it isn't G.A.A. that matters most. After all, if a goalie faces five shots per game and lets in two, a flashy G.A.A. of 2.00 might not be telling you all you need to know.
Instead, save percentage, something those of us who watched the game before the Original 30 never even knew existed, has become the sexy measuring stick for goaltenders.
Like on-base percentage in baseball, save percentage has come to be seen as the true measure of what a goaltender is accomplishing every night.
The problem with this number, of course, is that it doesn't take into account the quality or difficulty of shots a goalie faces. Just how many he stops out of how many he faces.
Cox then rants on like a vulcanized-rubber version of Dick Griffin about how wins are what matters and stats are for nerds and whatever. The point is, Cox criticizes Toskala by using a stat that he himself thinks is bogus. Where is the acknowledgment of the quality and difficulty of the shots faced by Toskala last night? Since Cox clearly hasn't worked out the formula for his Awesome Shots per Save stat (or AS/S, if you will), he could have made his point by simply pointing out that Toskala lost, and therefore isn't very good. Because that would make just as much sense as anything else he has written here so far.As coach Paul Maurice spoke to the media after the game, you could tell he was ready to explode as he squeezed out curt answers that really weren't answers at all.
When I was eight, my atom hockey team lost every single game we played. Season, tournaments, playoffs, you name it, we lost it. Thing is, coach never got upset with us. He knew we were terrible and there was nothing he could do about it. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Maurice was so pissed off because he knew the Leafs can play much better than they did last night. He seems to have expected some effort from his players, and he sure as hell didn't get it last night. All of which leads me to believe that he doesn't believe that ONE REALLY BAD GAME will be indicative of the season as a whole.
"We expect to see it Thursday since we didn't have any tonight," he muttered when asked how his team could play with so little emotion in only the fourth game of the season.
Fourth game of the season. One game. 78 more to go.
How could it have gone this bad so soon?
So far the Leafs have outplayed Ottawa twice (but ended up losing), beaten the Habs, and then got blown away by the Hurricanes. So, in that small sample size, you could determine Leafs actually looked okay. Not great, but okay - even though four games is way too little to make any judgments for the entire season. Better than just using one game, though.
Well, since the majority of prognosticators in the hockey universe picked the Leafs to miss the playoffs, this is probably about where this team is going to be, hoping to be in the annual mud wrestle for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff berth.
Funny, what I've read in this column so far leads me to believe that the Leafs will be lucky to not be relegated to the Bolivian Second Division next year. A chance at eighth spot? Even though they are on pace to give up 3,321 goals (or something like that) this year? Really?
The team's top paid players - Mats Sundin (two goals in his last 24 games), Bryan McCabe, Tomas Kaberle, Darcy Tucker (pointless, minus-5 already) - have been inconsistent or mediocre so far. McCabe, who did score last night, seems to otherwise be in a complete fog as though he's uninterested in even trying to stand out.
So far. Four games. Small sample size. Cox. Ugh.
He's just puzzling to watch. A defenceman that big, that strong, that skilled and that well paid ($7.15 million U.S., tops on the team) should grab your attention now and then, but when McCabe does, it's often for all the wrong reasons. Indeed, he had the locals hooting in derision in the third period when, while trying to circle around his own net with the puck with his team on the power play, he inadvertently tripped over the back of the net and sent himself sprawling to the ice.
He's absolutely right about McCabe. Even Cox can't be wrong all the time.
Earlier, in the first period, he made it safely going the other way around, but mishandled the puck and then took a slashing penalty to put the Leafs a man down with only 1:45 played.
Mishandled the puck and took a stupid penalty...he only needed the breakaway pass to an opposing player to complete the patented Bryan McCabe hat-trick.
If this team is waiting for the 36-year-old Sundin to lead it every night again, it is headed for major trouble.
And that seems to be the case.
Classic. We're going to have to tackle Marty York tomorrow if we want to top this one.
-Sonny Liston
Do you remember Barry Bonds' infamous "next question...because it was stupid" interview after the Giants lost game 7 of the 2002 World Series? Media types reference it quite a bit to show what a jerk Barry Bonds is, but imagine if you had to deal with sports reporters every day of your life. It would probably make you so angry that your head would swell with rage, your hair would fall out, and small boils would break out all over your back.
Anyway, reader Pob Rearson sent us this gem from yesterday's Jason Blake news conference:
Was watching LEAFSTV today figuring they would have more info about the Jason Blake announcement. I watched with great interest as I had a sparkling, shining Twooney on the line with my father.
The bet....which whore/genius/"journalist" will be the first to ask Jason Blake how his family felt when they heard about his cancer, because clearly thats a question that needs to be answered...perhaps his family would have been happy or maybe disappointed/embarrassed in having a cancer patient in the family...please somebody get to the bottom of this mystery...oh he started to cry as he mentioned his kids...didn't see that coming........Thank you Howard Berger for the Thanksgiving Twooney.
Congrats on the win, Pob.
Amazingly, Howard Berger's query may not have been the stupidest question asked of Blake yesterday. Believe it or not, Sportsnet's Damien Goddard brought the douchebaggery to a whole new level, as David Shoalts reported in his blog today:
Goddard asked Blake if cancer put his "mini-slump" into perspective. Blake, who scored 40 goals for the New York Islanders last season, had yet to score in three games for the Leafs.
As jaws in the Leafs' media centre dropped, Blake looked incredulous.
"Mini-slump?" Blake said. "Is that what you guys call it here?"
Welcome to Toronto, Jason. If you thought dealing with Larry Brooks was a treat, wait 'till you've had a full season of Toronto's best and brightest hockey minds.
Props to Shoaltsy, though. I ragged on him a bit yesterday, but today he gets full credit for calling Goddard out publicly. We've criticized reporters here in the past for covering up for their cronies when they get caught lying or publishing irresponsible fantasies, so it is only fair that we acknowledge when someone breaks the code of silence.Hi Richard,
Long-time reader, first time writer. Your ideas about baseball are very interesting and I look forward to reading your thoughts on baseball every week in your mailbag column. Having watched the Red Sox somehow defeat the Angels in the ALDS, I am very confused. How did a bunch of guys who get on base all the time and hit a lot of home runs manage to beat the Angels three games in a row?
Thanks,
Kim Jorn
Calm down Leafs fans, you got your win
We can all thank Tomas Kaberle and Mats Sundin for helping us narrowly avoid panic in the streets.
Their work in overtime on Saturday gave the Toronto Maple Leafs their first win of the NHL season, a 4-3 come-from-behind victory over the Montreal Canadiens. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Thanksgiving dinners were saved from becoming nasty family brawls if the season had begun with three losses in a row.
Those crazy Leafs fans. Irrational and prone to riot and brawl because their team lost three games in a row. Remember those ugly Ballard years, when Toronto burned at night for 13 straight winters? There are families that still don't speak to each other because the Leafs lost an important Norris Division home-and-home with the Minnesota North Stars just before Christmas. I'm surprised they let us out of our cages from October to April.Leafs fans: we're hamsters.
Hey, don't laugh. It was already getting ugly out there. There was that headline in a Toronto newspaper after the Leafs lost two in a row to the Ottawa Senators - Wait 'Til Next Year.
a.) I'm not laughing.
b.) Shoaltsy should really know this, since he works for a newspaper and all, but Leafs fans don't actually write the headlines for the Sun. Or the Globe and Star for that matter. Headlines are, in fact, the responsibility of copy editors, who read stories by people like Shoalts, and then craft a headline to trick readers into reading said story. So, if Shoalts or Simmons or anyone else insist on writing their daily "Leafs are doomed" pieces, the headlines will reflect the stories.
Shoalts, by the way, is far from the only writer guilty of repeatedly pushing the panic button, and then writing about the supposed discontent in the streets of Toronto. The past few weeks have seen Simmons, Cox, Paul Hunter, Bill Lankhoff and others jump to very quick judgment about the Leafs prospects for the season, and then claim that Leafs fans are perched on some proverbial ledge.
As this was being written, it was hard to say exactly what the reaction of the local hockey nuts will be. For all we know, today's headline could proclaim, Cup Is In The Bag.
a.) Repeat after me: it is the monkeys at the newspapers who write the headlines, not Leafs fans. Hard to believe, but true.
b.) Due to geography and poor decision making skills, I became a Leafs fan when I was a kid. I am what Shoaltsy would call a "local hockey nut." I can name pretty much every player from those awful 80s teams, and I own a few Leafs jerseys, some pajamas, pens, notepaper, books, videos, playing cards, and whatever else those greedy bastards at MLSE can stamp a logo on. I am a sucker, but I am not, as Shoalts would have you believe, a total idiot.
Like most Leafs fans, I have a pretty good grasp of reality. I know the Leafs aren't going to win the Stanley Cup this year (or within the next four or five). I know we are in a battle just to make the playoffs. However, I do love my team and I enjoy watching them play hockey. Just because Shoalts and his cronies continually claim that Leafs fans believe the team will win the cup, and that fans are on suicide watch three games into the season, does not make it true.
Three games is a little thin as a base for conclusions about the rest of the season, but there are some things that are shifting into focus.
Three games? Shoaltsy based most of his conclusions on the pre-season.The most encouraging sign is goaltender Vesa Toskala. He looks nothing like the fellow who blundered his way through the exhibition season.
See!
The only people I noticed panicking about Toskala's pre-season form were actually sports writers. Most people who watch hockey know that pre-season is when the players work off the fat from a summer of drinking beer on the cottage dock, and that pre-season numbers bear little on the regular season, That is why Alexander Suglobov didn't lead the Leafs in regular season scoring last year. Unlike certain people, I was willing to give Toskala a few games before I made any judgments. So far so good, but I'm not willing to give him a passing grade until he's HOLDING THE CUP OVER HIS HEAD AT THE ACC THIS SPRING!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!! WE'RE GONNA WIN IT ALL!!!!!!!!
Oops...that just slipped out.
There are still a few too many warts on the Leafs' game to declare them bound for the postseason - the defence still needs to improve in its own end - but there is no reason to panic just yet.
Once again, no one panicking here. In fact, I was pretty happy with the first three games of the year. We outplayed Ottawa for six periods and still ended up losing both games. It sucked, but at least there were some positives there. We didn't look good against the Habs, but we still pulled one out, and Sundin played with a fire that I haven't seen in years. So, no panic. I think the team is good enough to finish as high as sixth, and has enough troublesome issues to make me think they could fall well out of the playoffs. That's why they play the games and don't just give us the Cup at the start of the season like we rightly deserve.
That can wait until later this week.
And I can't wait for you to tell me how I feel about it, Shoalts.In the spirit of the season, Steve's Sunday effort is a feast of idiocy with all the trimmings. He starts with a call for Walt Jocketty and La Russa to take over the Jays:
It says here the odds of the Jays getting to the post-season would increase dramatically with Jocketty and LaRussa running the Jays.
So it says here (where? Simmons bathroom mirror? The messages in his Alpha Bits? The code Mr Belvedere speaks to him that no one else understands?) that if the Jays hired these two, fresh off a 78-win season in baseball's worst division, Simmons is putting his Skittles back on the Jays pile. Hey, they built the worst World Series champion ever, so maybe he's on to something.
Truth in numbers: Sundin needed 65 more games to score the same number of goals Darryl Sittler managed with the Leafs. The total of 389 would put either of them sixth on the career Montreal Canadiens list behind Rocket Richard, Guy Lafleur, Jean Beliveau, Yvon Cournoyer and Steve Shutt .
This just in - Mats Sundin is not as good as Rocket Richard or Jean Beliveau. Reporting that's worth waiting a week for! Though I wonder how many goals Steve Shutt would have had playing his career with the 1970s equivalents of Jonas Hoglund and Derek King. This list made me think though - with all these great players, maybe the Canadiens have won a lot of Stanley Cups. Like, more than the Maple Leafs? Get back to us next Sunday, Steve!
This is how you know the Phoenix Coyotes want Steven Stamkos or Drew Doughty next June. Mikael Tellqvist is the starting goalie. The backups are Alex Auld and David Aebischer.
Oh, if the Coyotes are benching perennial Vezina candidates like Auld and Aebischer, they must be tanking! Or maybe better evidence is that the Coyotes are dressing 17 shitty forwards, 3 shitty defencemen, and yes 3 shitty goalies every night. Oh wait TELLQVIST SUCKS! HE WAS ON THE LEAFS! DERP!
Isiah Thomas wasn't into a whole lot of sexual harassment when he ran the Raptors but he was into making sure he had a lot of small bills in his pocket on most days .
Pardon?
According to every fantasy football expert in the world -- and honest, there are such people -- the obvious top picks this NFL season were LaDainian Tomlinson, Steven Jackson and Larry Jackson. So much for experts. All three are either hurt or having crummy seasons.
Idiot "experts," telling you to pick the league MVP who set records in TDs and points last year. Since the NFL season is over after four games, we all know he was a bust. I share Simmons' surprise that "Larry Jackson" was recommended so highly. He hasn't put up elite numbers since he won 24 games for the 1964 Cubs, and he's been dead almost twenty years. I guess I just don't understand football, though I agree that no matter what the sport, people who make stupid predictions deserve to be mocked a month into the season.
Norv Turner, a terrific offensive co-ordinator, has made a terrible mess of the San Diego Chargers as head coach, which is really nothing new. He did the same in Oakland and Washington in previous stints as a head coach.
Good point here. But wait! My God!!! That's STEVE SIMMONS'S music!!!
A quick Super Bowl pick: San Diego Chargers to beat the team that represents the NFC. This is the year Norv Turner figures it out as a head coach ...
Simmons Says, 28 short days ago.
Again, we really can't thank him enough.
It has become popular for both Cherry lovers and haters to assert than Don represents Canada, speaks to something in our national DNA. Nonsense. Cherry represents no country so much as Dubya's USA, using his bully pulpit to promote militarism, aggression, and "good local boys" over cultured play, turning the other cheek, and foreigners. Anne Coulter's views on gun control are a pretty good comp for his position on making visors mandatory.
It's Ron Maclean, signed today for seven more years who is the quintessential Canadian, the one who embodies the worst traits of our nation as he toadies up to Cherry's Big Man. Apologizing for Cherry's racism with jokes about drowning French Canadians, a referee who uses his platform to shit on his fellow officials (and then hilariously make the same calls when put in the line of fire), Maclean covers smarm and condescension with a patina of reverence for Gzowki's Canada, the white, middle-class rural enclave that occupies an inordinate amount of our mental real estate despite its irrelevance to the day-to-day lives of most Canadians. Along with Cherry, he has helped turn Coach's Corner into a platform for continued propaganda for our war in Afghanistan. But while Cherry would justify it by believing in the mission (and fuck you if you don't, buddy), one gets the sense that Maclean would only claim he was "supporting the troops," reflecting the same malevolent appeal to Canadians' best instincts that has characterized the Harper government's selling of the war.
Watching the two on Saturday nights, you know that Cherry believes in something. What does Maclean believe in, except sucking up to those bigger and stronger than you? As a wiser man than I once said, "Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."
