November 2007 Archives
Today's Coxbag marks a new low for DC Talk. After spending the majority of his replies talking about the dysfunctional mess that is MLSE, he then bashes Quinn at the end for not being able to get along with them. He used to just flip-flop from column to column, now he can't stay on message for even one whole mailbag. To be fair, though, siding with MLSE or Quinn is like Sophie's Choice in reverse for Damien.
I was impressed Steve Simmons managed to write today's mea culpa for MLSE with Richard Peddie's hand somewhere around his ribcage. You may snicker, but how else is he going to get insider info like last summer's blockbuster about Sundin's career-ending hip problem? BTW, Mats has 12 goals and 18 helpers in 25 games. And Steve still has a job. Anyway, the piece itself is some nonsense about how no one's ever interfered with Brylcreem Jr's decisions - except mandating that his rebuilding plan included making the playoffs every year. The headlines for Steve-O's last two efforts? "Leafs Problems Go All The Way To The Top," and "GM Blew It, Not The Board." I'm so confused! And hey, whatever happened to Landon Wilson?
The Ottawa Shitizen doesn't do 180s, thankfully. Their sports reporting comes in only one flavour: wrong. Here's the take from definitely-not-a-porn-pseudonym Hugh Adami:
And as the 8-11-5 Leafs are flirting with last place in the NHL standings and their playoff hopes this season become an even bigger laugh, they're also without a major rebuilding tool. They're facing the June entry draft without a first-round pick in hand. Ferguson gave that pick away to the San Jose Sharks last June...
Which is when the Sharks used it, slaphead. The Leafs have a first in the upcoming draft. All the more reason to can Brylcreem now, cause if he has the keys much longer all we'll get from it is Yanic Perreault's 14th stint in Toronto. Wasn't Perreault Rick Vaive's linemate one year? I think the first time the Leafs dealt him was over stealing a bottle of CC from Punch Imlach's glove compartment.
Also notable: the article's lede is about how JFJ's dead father would feel about this mess. Classy!
Finally, Bobby Holik is laughing at the Leafs:
As for the panic in Toronto, Holik chuckled. Again.
"There always is a situation up there,"Actually Bobby's an expert on how stupid GMs can be - after all, he was signed to the worst contract in NHL history. Imagine a bigger Matt Stajan making 9M per. Oh, stop it, you're killing me! Now watch him score a hat trick tonight. And remember, we're one game closer to something or other. Go Leafs Go!
-Revelation 3:3
Another week, another blanking by Richard Griffin. I know most of our questions are pretty dumb, but when you look at the caliber of the queries that usually appear in the Lamebag, well...let's just say that I hope we're not the only idiots out there pranking Mr. Griffin.
Not too much to complain about in today's mailbag. My only quibble is with an unnecessary "more" when Griffin refers to Marco Scutaro as Johnny Mac with "more pop", but really, that is it. In fact, Griffin actually wrote one of the best paragraph's I've seen in Toronto sports section since...well...since...maybe ever:
While Springsteen's Born to Run may have been the anthem for the Expos, it seems David Bowie's Station to Station is the opus of choice for the Jays' stagnant offence. Of course during the Station recording sessions Bowie was all coked up, so maybe both albums can be claimed by the Expos of that era, back in the daze.
A little forced, and quite dated, but excellent nonetheless.
My theory to explain the lack of craziness in today's mailbag is that Griffin is just too depressed right now to claim that Moneyball is racist, or that Moneyball created steroids, or that Moneyball causes global warming, or that Moneyball relegated Pluto from planet to plain old cold rock. It must be hard for Griffin - knowing that his six year quest to get JP shit-canned has failed - to have to stand in the Press Club buffet line-up and listen to a giddy Steve Simmons crow about the imminent dismissal of JFJ. The betting here says that Griffin owes Simmons a few bags of skittles.
Yep, it definitely looks like Simmons is getting his Christmas present early this year. Or maybe late. Sometime before next June, surely (which would actually make it an early Christmas present for next year). Brylcreem Jr's days are numbered, but what that number is, we don't have a clue. As Jesus said to Matthew, no man knows the day or the hour. I thought he would be fired on Monday, but there he was last night, muttering to himself in the rafters at the ACC. He seems to have survived today. Maybe the axe falls after the Leafs get burned in Atlanta on Thursday? Regardless of when it comes, Fergie's day of reckoning is approaching.
So why are the Leafs putting him through this?
Mr. Till and I sat a few rows in front of Fergie at a Peterborough Petes game during the lockout, but didn't speak to him because we were too busy trying to convince a Phoenix scout that the Coyotes should take Darryl Flowers with their first round draft pick. While we didn't get a chance to meet him, pretty much everyone else at the game did. JFJ shook hands and spoke with every single person who approached him. This may have been a display of skills better suited to being a WalMart greeter rather than a hockey executive, but he clearly struck me as a decent person. A crap GM, but a decent person.
Fergie has made some horrible decisions that are going to set this team back for years. The roll call is depressing: Belfour, Domi, McCabe, Kubina, Raycroft, Lindros, Allison, Blake, the continued presence of Wozniewski on the roster and draft pick after draft pick tossed away. You can make a good argument that these weren't all Fergie's mistakes, and that he was put in an impossible position by the Peddie-philes and Tanenbaumenites at MLSE, but where the blame lies doesn't really matter any more.
The Leafs are in more trouble than Joe Klein at a truth-telling contest, and Fergie is going to pay the price. Is it too much to ask for him to be able to retain his dignity? Working Class Howard continued his fight for the downtrodden today, advising Fergie to make sure that he doesn't have his self-esteem destroyed by both his enemies and his frienemies at MLSE. Surely, when your biggest supporter calls your hiring a mistake, your self-worth is bound to take a beating. Unfortunately, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen have yet to release their Chicken Soup for the Totally Fucked NHL GMs Soul.
So, why not get it over with and hire an interim GM for the rest of the season? Couldn't Gord Stellick do this job? If the GM is simply a figurehead with no power, it shouldn't matter who has the title. The Leafs need to do the decent thing and put Fergie out of his misery so that he can go on with his life, we can go on with ours, and Richard Griffin can get back on track with his campaign to rid us of Toronto's other incompetent but immaculately-coiffed GM.
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-Macbeth, Act V
Kind of sums it all up, doesn't it? Except "idiot" should probably be pluralized in our case. Of course, Macbeth is one of the English language's greatest tragedies. Someone once said that tragedy the second time is farce; seeing as this is about the seventh franchise meltdown over the last forty years (the amount of time it's been since the Leafs won the Cup - I think maybe Damien Cox has mentioned it?) it's comforting to know that yep, it's still farce. The sound and fury is cranked to 11 today, but absolutely nothing of substance is happening.
The most embarrassing moment of the young week was provided by Richard Peddie. The Teacher's Pet popped his head up to admit that hiring Brylcreem Jr was a "mistake." So he's getting fired then? Oh, you're stepping down for failing at the fundamental hockey task that was your charge? Oh, neither. Thanks for coming out!
The board will apparently attend tonight's game en masse, for some reason. I hope they sit with JFJ. The inevitable 50 000 gondola shots will be more entertaining then the game.
In other news, someone has started a "Fire JFJ" site. I'm torn on this one. While it's nice to see Larry Tanenbaum using technology to reach out to the fans, it's troubling that he can't spell "cheering" properly. I'm sure he's got no problems with "boo," however.
What of the mittenstringers? At least most have got the central illness diagnosed - that the structure is fucked from top to bottom. Hell, even Simmons wrote a column I mostly agreed with today. That Simmons can mostly figure it out is a sign of just how obviously dysfunctional this structure is, coming from a man who would probably pin the OJ murders on Marcus Allen.
What most writers, especially LeBrun and Shoalts get wrong, however, is their assertion that if the very best isn't available, they need to keep Fergie around till year-end. What point does that serve? The Leafs need picks, prospects, and cap room yesterday. Brylcreem has no motivation to do this - in fact, he's in just the opposite postion. Furthermore, if he does try to make a deal, what motivation do other GMs have to offer him anything half-decent? JFJ has about as much juice around the league right now as Corey Haim does in Hollywood. Would you let Corey Haim try to get value from a Sundin trade? Varry Galk noted yesterday that the Leafs need to bring in an Embry to calm things down and mastermind the search for the next guy. I really think that's the way it needs to go. Or hell, they could just fire Fergie and bring in a four-headed committee of dynamos consisting of Messier, Healy, Kurvers, and Cox. I feel like Jon Stewart on the eve of the 04 election: either I'll get what I want, or it's gonna be real easy to make jokes for the next few years. Right now, that's as good as it gets for Leafs fans. A tragedy, indeed.
Before I go, I wanted to highlight a couple things:
PPP has a great take on the MLSE clusterfuck, which I agree with almost totally (we're a bit split on where to go from here). He'll have a game thread up for tonight's completely counterproductive Leafs win. Let's stop by for tonight's game and enjoy some gondola Kremlinology together!
And Bitter Leaf has taken the opposite approach to the current madness - the sweet embrace of Leafs madness of years past! He has a wonderful trip down memory lane with the help of old programs, John Anderson Burger, and Cliff Fletcher's muttonchops. Both are must-reads.
Be careful out there.
Will Marco Scutaro put the Blue Jays over the top? We doubt it, but Richard Griffin is here to help make sense of it all. Send him your questions and check back for answers starting Wednesday, Nov. 28.
Hallelujah, our prayers have been answered. Griffin's mailbag is being resurrected. This is wonderful news because we get a brief respite from this disastrous Leafs season, easy content for the Bloc, and the continuation of the Great Grimace Mailbag Quest:
Dear Mr. Griffin,
I love reading your column and I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to see that your mailbag has returned after a much-too-long hiatus. With the release of the Mitchell report pending, it looks like many of baseball's brightest stars are going to have their names forever tarnished by performance enhancing drug allegations. Do you think it is fair that so many players are going to have their reputations destroyed while the man who invented steroids in baseball, Billy Beane, gets off unscathed?
Thanks in advance.
Yours in justice,
Kim Jorn
This one ain't getting in there, but I'm just getting back in the groove. Next week I'll be guaranteed a response when I make a case for JP still being the worst GM in Toronto (which could only be true if Brylcreem Jr is canned by then).
Saturday night, I was out and about with my brother, as we went shopping to make up some Saturday night gourmet shit. Once we'd gotten back to his house with some veal shanks that, beyond being delicious, had more toughness and versatility than half the Leafs blueline I switched on the Toronto-Phoenix tilt, against my better judgement. I don't know why I was surprised, but I still did a double-take when I saw the score. Halfway through the second, down 5-1 to a team picked by some to be historically bad, I had a beer, a smoke, and a bout of deja vu.
In Quinn's last year behind the bench, the Leafs mounted a late surge to put themselves on the brink of the playoffs. It came down to a crucial home-and-home with Montreal. Watching Toronto get waxed in the second game, I took the time to savour the team I was watching. It was the end of an era, the end of a team that had come close, and given me a lot of joy, but never ended our bitter time in the wilderness.
Four years later, and I have that end of an era feeling again, but without the good memories. It's all over now, white and blue. Yes, the frenzy is swirling, and the Leafs and their fans are about to be plunged into another whirlpool of doubt, blame, recrimination, speculation, rumours, lies, and horseshit that one stop until a body or two comes out of the ACC and someone else walks in. Tonight, next week, next April, it's gonna happen. There's blood in the water.
I don't have much to say about the media coverage of the past couple days. The Star seems to be hinting MLSE will stay the course. The Sun, on the other hand, has Simmons saying Brylcreem Jr tried to can Maurice (who looked close to bawling after the Phoenix game - a stark reminder of what the pressures of pro sports must do to people) but wasn't allowed to, and JFJ denying it. It's a measure of something that I actually believe Simmons on this one. As Milhouse Van Houten once said, we're through the looking glass here, people. Peddie says the Leafs won't do anything. Vote of confidence or kiss of death? Everyone, everyone, is mooting possible successors: Yzerman, Bowman, Quinn, Burns, Messier, Francis, Glen Healy, Craig Button, Neil Smith. Hell, John Brophy could use a job.
Left with knowing, like Mr Jones, that something is happening but they don't know what it is, the locals have been flailing about throwing out names. Is there anything to it? I doubt it. If they had something, they'd narrow it down a little. Mirtle is opining that the Leafs are the most dysfunctional organization in hockey. Finally, something I can take to the bank.
I'm honestly at a loss here. Right now, we play the waiting game, which is much less fun than Hungry Hungry Hippos. We wait, and tot up the inevitable idiocy that will flow freely from the Toronto media. So, Constant Readers, what do you think? What do you want to see? When will the axe fall? What rumours have something, and what are just the sound of one hand typing? Where do the Leafs go from here? Unlike Cox or Simmons, I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers, except to say that this is a failed team, from Wozniewski all the way up to Peddie and Tanembaum. It needs changes at every level.
Montreal tomorrow night. The greatest rivalry in hockey. I'm almost hoping we lose, just to get it over with.
No matter what, this site is gonna have no shortage of material over the next few months.... "Come on down here and chum some of this shit."
High-five for that metaphor, too, except IT'S A GODDAM BUILDING, DAMIEN. You know like "built?" Like, "into the ground?" Of course it's not going anywhere...Much like the rest of your mailbag... Ooooh *+3 Analogies*...
And hey, whatever happened to Alexey Stakhanov?
With Simmons exiled to Grey Cup duty, we didn't get quite the mitten-stringer pile-on I predicted last night, but there's no shortage of idiocy on Toronto's sports pages today, much of it revolving around six-time Vezina Trophy winner Tuuka Rask. Wharnsby called both goals that eluded the love-child of Terry Sawchuk and Chuck Norris 'fluky,' saying of Mats's goal "The puck was on its edge and beat Rask on the stick side because it dipped at the last second." Mmm-hmm. And Komisarek only scored the winner on Raycroft last week because his five-hole opened bigger than Jeff O'Neill's pizza order at the last second. With that excuse-making ability, Wharnsby is ready for a job at MLSE.
This pales in comparison to Cox, a man who, to paraphrase the old Army saying, writes five illogical things before breakfast. Last night's loss, we are assured by DC Talk, shows us that all that injuries haven't hurt the Leafs, they just suck, cause now they're all healthy. Um, except two of their top four defencemen are injured. And Make-A-Wish Wozniewski isn't. Silence, we say! Excuses don't fly with Cox. Unless its yesterday, and he's not writing about the Leafs. I mean, he gave the Ducks a pass for their crappy start cause they apparently had jetlag that lasted a month. Also, trading a 2nd rounder for a guy who can't crack the Crapitals lineup is a great move. The Spin, indeed.
Much like the Buds he hates though, he waits till the last moment to really squeeze out the crap:
Something - anything - should be done. Atlanta has fired a coach, Dallas canned its GM, while the champion Ducks have dumped a goalie and acquired a new grinder.
Yet the Leafs preach patience, when in
reality meaningful patience, as represented by a lost prospect like
Rask and the first-round pick given up for Toskala, long ago went out
the window.
Funny stuff from a man who, two short weeks ago, was extolling Brylcreem Jr's blueprint:
Six of the Leaf draftees in the lineup tonight, meanwhile, will be 24 years of age or younger, and John Ferguson's group believes that it has two 21-year-old stars of the future in Marlie goalie Justin Pogge and Nikolai Kulemin, a 12-goal shooter in 24 Russian league games this season.
All in all, that's progress, or at the very least, an intelligent change of approach for the Leaf hockey department despite all ownership has done to undermine those hired to make hockey decisions in order to find a shortcut to even two or three games of playoff revenue and feed the 22 per cent profit margin monster.
Ottawa, clearly, has used a logical draft-and-develop blueprint to build the terrific team it now ices on a nightly basis.
So
maybe, to be fair, if they're geniuses in Ottawa - after all, they've
got one Stanley Cup final victory now to lord over all - they can't be
total dummies down south here in Ontario's second city of hockey.
So Damien, were you full of it then, or now? My money's on both. You're just that good.
I was hoping it was Johnny Pohl.
The lesson, as always - Facebook sucks. Or, you can pick your friends, but you probably shouldn't pick anyone.
One to grow on, indeed.
PS Howard - in future, could you put up all Leafs results an hour before the game? It'd really free up some time for me. Thanks in advance!
-Karl Marx
If anyone was wondering what Howard Berger has been up to (in addition to looking for a lawyer, presumably) since the Avery nonsense was booted from the sports pages by this weeks...um...revelations...it appears that he has been studying his Little Red Book and engaging in some good old fashioned class-warfare.
Berger used his Friday column over at Eklund's Magical World of Make-Believe to criticize MLSE for leasing a $25,000 box at Texas Stadium so that the underachieving Leafs can watch the upcoming Thanksgiving game between the Cowboys and Jets during their swing through the bible-belt in early November:
It'll get the folks from Bay Street a nice view of the field, some free beer, and undoubtedly a whole slew of those weenie-wraps that people gorge on when the hors d'oeuvres are passed around. If the Leafs are unable to defeat Ottawa and/or Boston in their next two starts, they will fly to Dallas on the heels of a five-game winless streak, and with one victory in seven games. For that, they'll be feted with the luxuries of Texas Stadium.
Scandalous!
Of course, the only real controversy here is that all of the "millionaires who wear the blue and white" are welcome to use the box. The Wizard of Woz surely hasn't done anything to warrant such treatment, and his play of late should really result in him watching the Cowboys game from his hotel room (where he should be watching Leafs games from as well, incidentally), or at least a seat in the bleachers...where he could sit next to Howard Berger:
This year, the NFL's Dallas Cowboys will host the New York Jets in a nationally televised game that begins at 3:15 p.m. When I noticed the coincidence in the hockey and football schedules back in July, I went on-line and spent $144 for a ticket to the Cowboys-Jets game. I've driven past storied Texas Stadium on a number of occasions but have never seen an event there. And, the Cowboys are moving to their new digs in Arlington after the current season. So, it was first chance, and last chance, for me. That's why I dented the Visa card to such an extent; the $144 gets me a seat on the 45-yard of the upper deck, above the Cowboys' bench. Pretty good location, I'm told.
Not only does the FAN 590 pay Berger to watch hockey and send him on expense-paid trips around North America, but his salary also allows him to spend nearly $150 on a single ticket to a football game?!?! Well la-di-da. Sure is nice for some. Godd and I will be barely able to afford a few pints to drink away misery after tonight's Leafs game.
I guess that is how the other half lives.
Poor Jiri Tlusty. First he's victimized by a gal pal. Then he has those who insert synonyms for the male appendage into their every writing rising to his defence. Otherwise, he's mostly getting support from those who can't argue the point so simply blast everyone who differs as a rascist and a homophobe. Meanwhile the basic argument, that the Leafs need to insist on a higher standard of behavior from their best young players should they ever hope to become a winner, is totally lost. And I know dozens and dozens of quality young teenagers who wouldn't be caught like Tlusty was. Don't you dare stigmatize an entire generation by saying this is what all kids do today. . .
Is he talking about us? Homophobia? Racism? Synonyms for the male appendage?
Of course my ego wants me to believe that Cox's little tirade was directed at us, but there are many bloggers, message-board posters and even journalists who have commented on Cox's bizarre polemic over the past few days...Pension Plan Puppets and Bitter Leaf Fan both gave Cox a cyber-beatdown, while David Shoalts (who is almost completely rehabilitated in our eyes) and James Mirtle (great, as always) pointed out the inherent silliness of Cox's piece...However, none of these dwelt on the topics of homophobia or racism.
If Cox was referring to us, we should note that nowhere in our exhaustive coverage of Wang-Gate did we ever call him homphobic or racist...Mr. Till criticized the media for validating the "witless homophobia" of the bloggers who originally posted the pics of Jiri (as well as for driving up their hit counts) and I made sure that I did not infer that Damien was a racist when I wrote about the Conn Smythe - Muhammad Ali business...Accusing someone of homophobia and racism is a serious charge which can permanently and unfairly taint a reputation. It is a much-too-easy charge to make, and very difficult to disprove once it gets out there...We may believe that Damien is a flawed sports columnist, but we definitely do not, for one second, believe that he is a racist or a homophobe...On the other hand...accusing your detractors of viscous name-calling isn't really the most honourable debating tactic...
As for the "synonyms for the male appendage"...that is what really made us think that Cox had dropped by the site for a visit...We may have under-delivered on dick jokes yesterday, but there was no shortage of synonyms for the male appendage...which in itself is really just a prudish synonym for penis...I, personally, would have gone with the Little Soldier...or maybe Wang...or Willy...how about Captain Winkie?...Summer Sausage?...Meat Stick?... One-eyed Monster?...Joystick?...Pork Sword?...Love Truncheon?...Pocket Rocket?...Giggle Stick?...Trouser Trout?...Mutton Dagger?...maybe I'd just go with the classic Wild Baloney Pony...
Anyway...in my absence, the shit-sucking black-hole at the centre of the hockey universe finally swallowed up any remaining common sense and decency and spewed us into a dimension - as the aforementioned Mr. Neill so eloquently put it - of "pure chaos, pure evil." A dimension where, apparently, Helen Lovejoy writes Damien Cox's columns.
More than four decades ago, legendary Conn Smythe quit the Maple Leafs, claiming the team had decided to put "cash ahead of class" by allowing Muhammad Ali, then better known as Cassius Clay, to fight at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Were Smythe around yesterday, the collective misbehaviour of today's Leaf millionaires would undoubtedly have made him throw up.
Muhammad Ali refused to fight for a country that refused to grant him his civil rights. His actions cost him his boxing title and nearly his career. While his stand was controversial at the time, he is now viewed as an iconic figure in both the sports world and the civil-rights movement. Conn Smythe was upset because Ali wouldn't fight the Viet Cong, so he sold his stake in the Leafs in protest. You could say that Conn Smythe was on the wrong side of history here. Or, if you are Damien Cox, you use this as an example of when the Leafs actually stood for something. Ah, the good old days.
(It also should be noted that Muhammad Ali was not known as Cassius Clay when Smythe quit the Leafs. The fight was in 1966. Ali changed his name in 1964. Damien Cox is a professional sports writer.)
For starters, you had the team and one of the veterans it counts
upon for mature leadership, Darcy Tucker, rapped on the knuckles and
fined by the NHL for participating in a truly adolescent scene last
Saturday night in the pre-game warm-up with the Rangers.
Try as they might to make it all Sean Avery's fault, the Leafs were, essentially, found equally culpable in the idiotic episode.
Wrong.The Rangers were fined $25,000, the Leafs $10,000. Avery was fined $2500, Tucker $1000. By my calculations, the NHL deemed Avery and the Rangers to be two and a half times more culpable that the Leafs.
That is math. It can't be questioned.
Cox goes on to trash Bryan McCabe, which I have no problem with. I actually called Mr. Till after Tuesday's game to tell him that I'm done with the Leafs until McCabe is off the team. And, true to my word, I haven't watched a Leafs game since.
So, after managing to write three paragraphs that didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out of my head, Cox gets back on track with possibly the most horrifying shit ever printed in a Toronto sports page. Are you ready for this? It is like hell on paper, except that hell is only a word; the reality is much, much worse:
Finally, to add a layer of ridiculousness to the day, the Leafs were forced to put out a bizarre news release after the game concerning nude photographs of their prize rookie, 19-year-old Jiri Tlusty, that have been posted on the Internet in recent days. Those randy pics followed up on another photo last week that appeared to show Tlusty tonguing another male.
Tonguing?Little known fact: Damien Cox is 92 years old. Like many other people born near the start of the first World War, Damien enjoys early-bird specials at Denny's, Corner Gas, complaining about what young people are doing, and using words like "randy".
If this was a team that had the kind of real tradition it once had under Smythe, rather than fake "The Passion That Unites Us All" propaganda, you could say the team's famous emblem was soiled on this day.
But then, if this was a team of pride and tradition, Tlusty wouldn't have been in the lineup last night and Leaf ownership wouldn't have been hiding behind a press release.
The youngster would be back in the minors, having disgraced what was once a Canadian institution - a team that once had a member of Parliament in its lineup - with his amateur porn shots. Ownership, meanwhile, would be vowing to make certain such foolishness never reoccurred.
A member of Parliament! Classic! Cox tries to provide an example of people with high moral standards and he gives us...politicians. You can't make this shit up. .
But not the Leafs. Instead of reprimanding the kid, they sic the lawyers on websites that dare to run the pictures, just as the organization once bullied those who accused Gardens workers of foul crimes.
Jiri NSFW took a picture of his wang to impress some girl.
She seems to have posted the pics on the internet, or at least gave
them to someone to post. Jiri is 18 years old. He made a mistake. The only thing that Jiri is guilty of is very poor judgment, and I would argue that he is actually the victim in this whole sorry saga. Mr. Till has already taken the perpetrators of this crap to task, so there isn't much more I can add. Except that only a cranky, out-of-touch old man would blame Jiri for this mess.
Cox wraps up his assault on the young folks with a mind-boggling dig at the Leafs, claiming that they sold their soul to the devil a "long, long time ago." Well, it couldn't have been that long ago, because Brylcream Jr. was clearly at the helm when that deal was made. How else can you explain selling your soul to the devil in exchange for...well...hmmm...don't people usually sell their souls in exchange for success? I betcha Fergie threw a first-rounder in with the soul.
*Note: I put way more time into deciding on a title than I did actually crafting this piece. I liked the simplicity of Cocks Block, but my significant-other feels that it was the worst of the list. So here, just so that she might shut up, are the alternative titles for this entry:
- Cox on Cocks
- Cox Talks Cocks
- Damien! Cocks!
- Damien Cox is an old man who spends way to much time thinking about an 18-year-old's dong!
Ever since the Jiri NSFW fiasco blew up the Toronto media this week, I've been wrestling with how to handle it. As posted yesterday, when we found out about the "story" a week ago, we decided it was foolishness, and to leave it be. If only the mitten-stringers could have followed our lead. Because in their handling of the story, they have revealed far more than just the pixellated schlong of a naive young winger; the real story here is how much we have learned about the stagnant cesspit that is Leafs media coverage.
That's why this post will be short on jokes. Once I decided to write on this, I initially thought I'd give it a light touch, lambasting the usual idiots, and we could all move on to poking fun at Richard Griffin's addiction to The View, or Steve Simmons's tenuous grip on logic. But the more I read the coverage of Tlusty, the angrier I got. Quite frankly, this is the easily the lowest point Leafs media has sunk in my memory. Regular readers, of this site or the usual organs, will know what a sorry benchmark that is. And just as watching the Leafs get waxed 5-1 by Ottawa was a nadir that allowed observers to dissect the main problems (awful defensive zone coverage, poor coaching, strange inability to show up for important games) besetting the Buds on the ice, so does the sorry and disturbing spectacle of middle-aged sportswriters getting all het up over a Leaf rookie's private nudie shots highlight some distressing themes of Toronto hockey media and the wider national culture.
First, we have the mittenstringers' inability to actually break a story, even if you believe Jiri NSFW is a legitimate or important one. I, like most other Leaf fans with a computer and a pulse, heard about/saw the photos last week. They were linked on Deadspin. They were disseminated on other blogs and message boards. Yet the mitten-stringers didn't get on the case till about a week later, which in Internet time is about the lapse between, oh, the signing of the Magna Carta and the October Revolution. Heckuva job, boys. Welcome to the Internets - don't forget to check out the funny cat pictures!
Of course, this really isn't any kind of story, is it? Lonely kid in foreign country meets girl, sends embarassing pictures to her, they get out on the Internet, personal embarassment for kid. Wait, it is a story - it's pretty much the third reel of American Pie! Is it a hockey story? Is it important to anyone, save Jiri Tlusty, his family, and whoever put the pictures out there? Absolutely not. Yet, as Shoalts pointed out, (and yes, Shoalts is the only mainstream columnist I've seen with a cromulent take on this one) the feeding frenzy erupts nonetheless, with the myriad papers, columnists, TV stations and call in hosts rushing to tear this kid up, give us "their take," cast the first stone. All of them of course, pale in the face of the Sun, the only paper with the stones to exploit a 19-year old's nakedness and humiliation by running the photo on the front page. The Little Paper That Could!
If any of them are called on this bullshit, what we will hear was "it was the story." "Everyone else was covering it." The combination of this herd mentality and a corporate view that dollars, eyeballs, hit counts, are the only measure of success is why more people cover a Paris Hilton court appearance than a global AIDS pandemic, or closer to home, exactly what our country is doing over in Afghanistan anyways.
On that topic, let's discuss the bag of wasted cells that published the photos in the first place, completely with a sniggering "T-Bone in the Morning" style interview that consisted mostly of variations on "So Jiri, are you a fag or what huhhuh?" The guy claims his ambition is to be the Canadian Perez Hilton (cause Ryan Seacrest is taken, I guess- Campanelli Represent!), a statement so sad and vacuous that, on the heels of Are You Smarter Than A - Canadian - Fifth Grader? makes we want to give up on this country for good and spend the rest of my days in bitter, homicidal jungle exile, Mosquito Coast-style. George Grant was right.
Thanks be to the mittenstringers, for they have doubled this douchebag's hits. Worse, they have participated in and validated his witless homophobia, homophobia that anyone with a passing familiarity with junior hockey knows is endemic and systematic, a black loathing infesting the Game all levels, the Game that the likes of Ron MacLean solemnly invoke as representing the true ethos of Canada. Ron's more right than he knows. Wonder why it was the tongues picture that The Sun chose to run on its front page?
That's why the moralizing, the salve needed by the journos to justify using humiliation and hate to move units, stinks so foully. Reading Cox (which Mr Jorn will fully eviscerate tonight - it's just that bad), one call smell the hypocrisy. Leafs journalists who have jumped on Jiri, ask yourself - is this what you wanted to do with your life? Is this what being a sportswriter was supposed to be like? For the final irony here is that it isn't Jiri who has really been exposed - it's you. And you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Fear not, however, your correspondents are keeping close tabs on the stories that have racheted up the Hogtown sports pages from depressingly stupid to hilariously, deliriously batshit insane. Times like these make it tempting to go off half-Coxed, and spew whatever nauseous bile first comes to mind, but the situation demands consideration. Rational thought. Reasoned analysis. Time to construct great dick jokes - because merely good dick jokes would be a disservice to you, the reader.
If you'll permit us to cover our ass for a moment, we were well aware of the Jiri NSFW story last week; we decided it wasn't really sports journalism so we left it. Furthermore, we feel bad enough about generating links and buzz for the usual mitten-stringers, let alone some low-rent Canadian version of Perez Hilton. This is yet another reason why Kim and I will never make it journalism, cause J Jonah Toronnasun looked at the same story and saw FRONT PAGE BABY!
I gotta say, I didn't think anything was gonna bump Howard Berger getting sued by Sean Avery off the top of the hopper, but that's the kinda couple days it's been. Bear with us, cause tomorrow the gloves are coming off, and we're hitting this shit harder than Dick Griffin pummels his JP Ricciardi pillowcase. With the way the discourse is going, maybe we need to start a porn site, too. So come back tomorrow for all the snark you need, some analysis, about every butt-naked tongue showing cancer-mocking bit of it.
You've been warned.
SEEN AND HERD
So Cox Bloc fave and all around good guy Al Strachan was touting the merits of Glenn Healy as the Leafs next GM (I wonder if Brylcreem Jr watches the Hot Stove between periods. Awkward! On second thought, he probably spends intermissions in the can doing shots of creme de menthe and reapplying his hair treatment)... the smackdown Al received from Eric Duhatschek wasn't enough to keep Professional Journalist Howard Berger from barking a hearty me too on his blog today, going so far to compare him to Brian Burke...If the Leafs want to get someone even less experienced than Brylcreem Jr to run the hockey side, I'd go for Scott Clemmensen. He too is a career backup, has no managerial training, and would be a cheap in-house solution...crystal meth is cheaper than ever these days...
ASSAULT AND BATTERY
The Star's Chris Zelkovich takes Don Cherry to task for creaming his silks over Oglethorpe-style rhubarbs yet again. It's so cute when these guys pretend Grapes can read... Steve Simmons didn't disappoint on Sunday. First off we get his summation of Igor Larionov's case, saying that based on his years in the NHL alone, he shouldn't be a candidate. Of course, it's partly based on his decade-plus as one of the top players in Russia, you say. But Simmons has got you there - so was Vladimir Krutov, and no one's arguing his Hall case. So SImmons tries to negate both ends of Larionov's career. Nice try, Steve. You wanna know why no one argues for Krutov? 34 career NHL points in one disinterested, donut filled season. Larionov in the NHL: 16 seasons, 644 points, 3 Stanley Cups, almost all after the age of 30. QE-fucking-D, Steve...Simmons also treats us to his fond memories of the good old days, when no one came to Hall of Fame press conferences... forget that the NHL needs all the good publicity it can get, Simmons wants first crack at the cheese tray, dammit.... I can't even fathom this gem, so I'll give it to you straight: "Instant replay in baseball should be used for home runs and plays at the plate, not just homers ...."....seriously, you can pick up meth downtown nowadays for five bucks that'll keep you grinding for a week....
HERCULES AND PAUL ROMA
So Landsberg is running a contest to get him some OTR clones. If you vote, you're automatically entered into a draw for a trip for two to Toronto and two tickets to a taping. Second prize is four tickets... But seriously, you know Landsberg is in trouble when the Dook of York and his cronies are scoring points off you.... Thanks to Pension Plan Puppet for passing this Starwipe gem along - apparently Kevin McGran still thinks it's last year... but he's way ahead of his Star colleague Dick Griffin, who still gets his ideas on winning baseball from Pitching in the Pinch by Christy Mathewson. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say...our first mailbag will be up this week, so last chance for questions... And hey, whatever happened to my meth dealer? Guy was supposed to be here an hour ago...
The Raptors have many shameless shills in Toronto, like Chuck Swirsky, but media types elsewhere in Canada seem to dislike them.
"To me," Randy Turner wrote in the Winnipeg Free Press, "Canada's national basketball team is the one that employs (B.C.'s) Steve Nash."
Hey Randy, luckily you can head down to Phoenix for a weekend and catch both the Suns and the Jets. Plus, you'll get to spend the weekend in a city that can actually support professional sports teams. What a deal!
Senators deserve respect
Says Who?
Adam Proteau
Okay Adam, whatcha got?
Off to the best start of any team in league history through the first 14 games (13-1-0-0), the Sens not only are proof positive you can play NHL hockey well into June and not suffer from some alleged Stanley Cup hangover the next year - they're also prime examples of good things happening to good people.
And it's a low down dirty shame they're not receiving the hype and headlines their performances deserve.
They're not?
Do a Google News search and you'll see that there have been 3,013 stories that mention the Ottawa Senators in the past week. One-hundred and eleven stories have mention the Senators in the headline. Search for "Sens" and you'll get more than 200 stories, with 92 headlines.
Do a quick search over at the Globe and Mail and you'll see there was no shortage of Sens-sational coverage this week. (I even left out the coverage of Ottawa's defeat at the hands of the mighty Washington Capitals, since I don't think stories about the Sens losing qualify as hype and headlines in the minds of certain Sen-sitive souls).
All Star Ballot full of Senators - Globe and Mail - Nov. 11
How good are the Senators - Globe and Mail - Nov. 8
Senators: Rewrite History - Globe and Mail - Nov. 7
Ottawa Makes it look easy - Globe and Mail - Nov. 7
Sens take aim at history - Globe and Mail - Nov. 6
Ottawa collects 12th win in first 13 games - Globe and Mail - Nov. 5
Senators keep rolling - Globe and Mail - Nov. 4
Really, anyone who reads the papers or watches TV knows that the Senators are really good and broke some sort of arbitrary record this week. It has reached the point where I can't take a crap without being reminded of the Senators. But, according to Adam Proteau, the Senators are being ignored. This is a classic media trick, as regular readers may have noticed: make definitive statement, regardless of facts, and write column about how everyone has got it wrong (see Shoalts, David).
This is a team that's hard not to root for.
Says you.
People in Toronto seem to find it difficult. 98.246% of American hockey fans don't care. There was a collective yawn in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal last year when the Sens made it to the Cup final. I would argue that half the hockey fans in Ottawa still cheer for the Leafs and the Habs. So, it seems like it is easy to not root for the Sens.
But, Mr. Proteau, this is your column, so please don't let me get in the way of you telling us why hockey fans should be cheering for the Senators.
They've got Daniel Alfredsson, the captain whose captaincy was forever questioned and qualified until he shut up the carpers and harpies with jaw-dropping displays of leadership last spring.
Jaw-dropping? John Muckler? Is that you?
Guaranteeing a game 6 victory against the Devils and carrying your team to a Stanley Cup championship is a jaw-dropping display of leadership. Taking a slapshot at Scott Niedermeyer and leading your team to a five game loss is...well...lets just say that my jaw is firmly clamped shut.
They've got Jason Spezza, the dazzling offensive talent and mega-geeky laugher who will be regarded as Ottawa's Steve Yzerman by the time his stint in Canada's capital is done.
Steve Yzerman should sue.
They've got Mike Fisher, the straight-edge, two-way pivot rapidly developing into one of the game's great unheralded players and on pace for the best offensive season of his career.
Little known fact: Mike Fisher draws an X on each hand in black magic marker before every game and owns an original pressing of the first Minor Threat 7 inch.
They've got Chris Phillips, the low-key, always
Okay okay okay. Stop. We get it.
After Phillips he goes on to praise Danny Heatley and Anton Volchenkov. No mention, oddly enough, of Chris Neil. I mean, how can people not root for that guy?
I look at Ottawa these days and see a team that reminds me of the NFL's New England Patriots, who can lose a player here and there and miss neither a beat nor the chance to beat down their opponents.
The New England Patriots? Who are in the process of winning their fourth Super Bowl in the last seven years? The New England Patriots?
I would think the Buffalo Bills of the 1990's would be a more accurate comparison; lots of regular season success, and unbelievable ability to cock it all up when it really matters. (On the other hand, if he were comparing insufferable fans and rampant cheating, then the Pats would have been fair).
The sole stat the Senators are tops at is the one that counts most: wins. And, even if they drop their next seven in a row, something tells me we'll see them playing again this June - and running rampant again next October.
I'm sure some people are going to accuse me of being a Leafs homer who hates the godless and gutless Ottawa Senators, so let me respond in advance. B-Rabbit style. I am a Leafs homer. I do hate the Sens. I do live in a trailer with my mom. But, trust me, if someone had written this article about the Buffalo Sabres last year, I would have the same problems with it. The unsubstantiated claims in this piece are infuriating (Sens get no headlines, Alfredsson's jaw-dropping leadership abilities, Spezza as the second-coming of Yzerman). It is exactly the kind of shoddy work that drove us to staring this blog in the first place. And, if in the process of criticizing the bizarre rantings of the hockey press, I get the opportunity to take cheap shots at the Sens, well all the better. Lalime.
Allan Ryder has a good piece in the Globe today using statistical analysis to break down Ottawa's incredible start, concluding that they've been a little lucky but are still scary good, and that they have a shot (thanks to Whack-A-Mole and the NHL's Pointz for Everyone initiative) at breaking the alltime points record, set by the Bruins or someone back in the 70s. Cleveland Barons? Of course, if they played the Leafs every night, they'd have it in the bag by Christmas.
Also, I can't find a link, but apparently (according to 590) the Leafs have sent Anton Stralman down to the Marlies to make room for the RETURN OF THE MACKABE. The move makes sense on one level, giving Stralman a chance to get ice-time and continue to develop. However, after the Leafs failed to show up in Kanata, we got this from Maurice:
"We have to put the clamps on our back end and put pressure on our forwards to help out. You don't want to give up five odd-man rushes in a game; we gave up four in the first six minutes."
Maurice hinted he'll bench players if necessary to keep the team from taking itself out of games.
Andy Wozniewski is still on the Leafs. Says it all, doesn't it?Wade Redden sucks.
It got me thinking of Simmons himself. How does he do it, week after week? How does he summon the strength to keep lashing together his endless juvenile diatribes, made-up rumours and uninformed bullshit? He must be special. Where other writers would say "Maybe I should think about this for a few minutes" or "wait, I'm just talking out of my ass here" Simmons just forges ahead with whatever floats through his brain. It's almost inspiring. In another, simpler, time and place, say the United States of eight years ago, a man like that could have been President.
Enough day dreaming. Come on Pagoda, let's hit it!
Richard Peddie continues to insist that John Ferguson's performance as Maple Leafs general manager will be evaluated at the end of the season.
The question is: Why wait that long?
Um, cause there's nobody out there to hire in the middle of the year? If you randomly hire and fire without a plan, eventually you pull the squeaky-voiced kid outta the break room and send him out to deal with Sather and Bowman. That's right - you end up with Gord Stellick as GM.
In the wake of Ottawa's signing of Jason Spezza for seven years and $49
million US, it is even more apparent what a mess Ferguson has made of
the Leafs' salary situation for this and the coming years.
The Stanley Cup contending Senators, with
Spezza, Dany Heatley and Daniel Alredsson all under contract for the
future, have just more than $41 million in salaries committed to next
season...
Worth revisiting: Former Winnipeg coach Urban Bowman's view on why CFL expansion to the U.S. would never work: "You can't play on Fridays because of high school. You can't play on Saturdays because of college. You can't play on Sundays because of the NFL. Doesn't leave many days, does it?"
Hmm, I must have missed the CFL announcing they were expanding to the US again. Thanks for passing on this piece of wisdom, Steve. What's that? They have absolutely no plans to and this has been a dead issue for a decade? Worth revisiting = worth getting Steve four lines closer to going back to bed.
Barry Bonds says he will not go to the Hall of Fame if there is any kind of asterisk placed to his home run-record baseball that will be on display. Which should make it simple: Put up the asterisk and keep Bonds out.
Yeah, keeping baseball's alltime home run leader outta the Hall. Wraps it up in a neat little bow. Whatver your feelings about Barry, this is bad publicity they would dread. The Hall knows (a lot better than Steve) that they need the players more than the players need it.
.. All these years later, you can't say the Raptors have made it big in Canada. How else do you explain having their season opener on The Score, followed up by a game on the digital channel, Raptors NBA TV?
All these years later, you can't say that Canadian sports columnists understand basketball or know how to inform fans about it. How else do you explain Simmons' Raptors season preview this week, a good chunk of which concerned how he hates Brylcreem Jr?
A Philadelphia judge got quite personal in his criticism of Eagles coach Andy Reid and his drug-addicted sons. But if he hasn't lived in that house or been exposed to the disturbing powers of heroin addiction up close, he can be as personal as he chooses, but he has no idea what he is talking about ...
Yeah, where does this judge get off? Making "judgements" about things that haven't actually directly happened to them. The chutzpah. The unmitigated gall. Seriously though, we should have qualified people in society who can rule on these kinds of sticky legal situations of which they have no direct experience. We'll call them gaugers, or Surmisers General, or something. Could come in handy.
I kid, but Simmons is really just defending his turf. We already have a name for people who come down with their verdict on a situation unhindered by experience, logic, research, or wisdom - "columnist." Having no idea what he is talking about IS STEVE SIMMONS' JOB, PEOPLE! Step the fuck off.
How ecstatic do you think Pob Rearson was when he discovered that Bob McCown's new book - McCown's Law: the 100 Greatest Hockey Arguments - was published this past Tuesday?
I haven't had a chance to read the book yet, but the publisher promises us that we're in for a treat:
Hockey's most controversial authority gives you everything
you need to know to be Canada's best-informed armchair coach.
Sports talk-radio personality Bob McCown knows what he's talking about, and
he's not afraid to say what's on his mind. Depending on your own strongly held
opinions, some of Bob's will have you cheering in agreement while others will
tempt you to throw the book out the window (if you weren't enjoying the damn
thing so much). McCown's Law will be fuelling and informing heated
discussions at the bar for years to come.
A sample of Chairman Bob's opinions:
-The Leafs haven't won the Stanley Cup in 40 years for a perfectly logical
reason: they have the crappiest players.
-It's time the law put hockey's most violent offenders in something more
restrictive than the penalty box.
-Let's leave Olympic hockey to the men.
-Eric Lindros won't end up in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but he still deserves to
be mentioned right alongside the all-time greats.
-Slovakia, not Canada, may just be the greatest hockey nation
on Earth.
-The Ottawa Senators. Are these guys a bunch of chokers or what?
How can this not be the greatest book ever written by a guy who wears sunglasses in a radio studio? We'll give you a full rundown once we get our hands on this
inevitable masterpiece. If the Bobcat's writing is anything like his radio
show, I imagine that his use of ellipses to signify his trademark miscarried
pauses puts our pal Simmons to shame:
"Well ........ ........... ............ ......... ............ ..........there you
go ..... ........ ........... ......... .............. we'll be back after the page break with Gord Kirke to discuss
in painstaking detail ....... ............. .................. ......... ............ the financial stability of the Arena Football
League ....................... ............... ............... ................. ............... ............... .......... ........ .............. .................. you're reading my book, simulcast on Rogers
Sportsnet. ........ .... ........ ............ .......... ............ ...................... .................
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York
-The Bard, Richard Part Three
Well, Toronto really should have stepped up in New Jersey last night, but once again they failed. It may still be early in the season, but this was a big game against an important conference rival. When you add in the personal animosity and past playoff battles, this really should have been a statement game for Toronto. Instead, they went into the swamp and only managed to win by 37 points.
A disgrace.
Of course, the best thing about the Raptors annihilation of the Nets last night was imagining Marty York watching the game at home and throwing his remote control at the TV at some point during the second quarter as his least favourite team (Raptors) put up 35 points against his favourite team (whoever is playing the Raptors).
You could tell on Friday morning that Marty was licking his lips in anticipation of a Nets win:
Superstar Vince Carter,
whose abhorrence for Raptors coach Sam Mitchell was one of the reasons he
wanted out of Toronto, needs only six more points to become the third-fastest
active NBA player to reach 15,000.
Torontonian Jamal Magloire, incidentally, made his debut Wednesday as Carter's teammate with the New Jersey Nets and looked exceptionally strong inside. He's told friends he's pysched to play well again tonight against the Raps, who made no attempt to obtain him in the off-season.
What can Marty do now? His beloved (superstar) Vin-sanity did manage to get his 15,000 point, but it was Vin-tage Vin-effectiveness: achieving a personal milestone while doing absolutely nothing to help his team win. Maybe Marty will argue that Vince went above and beyond because he racked up seven points last night, which was one more than he needed. Congrats Vince. Your mom must be proud.
The inference in Marty's quote, of course, is that the Raptors would be better off without Mitchell and with Carter, and I'm sure his tone wont change on Monday. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that early next week we'll see him criticize Mitchell for running up the score by keeping Carlos Delfino on the court when the game was already out of reach.
It's hard to believe that Marty York - back in the days when people actually had to pay at least 50 cents to read his work - was one of the most high-profile sports columnists in Canada. Now, like a rolling stone (how does it feel, Marty?), he plies his trade for one of the free subway rags - and not the decent one, mind you, but the one that you pick up only when the 24 Hours box is empty.
Now, I am aware that Schadenfreude isn't a noble feeling, but I must confess to some joy in watching K-Marty's downward spiral. As Richard III so emphatically proved, if you spend your life being a total prick to pretty much everyone, there aren't going to be many people feeling sorry for you when you're lying prone on Bosworth Field (metaphorically speaking, of course).
The people that Mega-Lo Marty has pissed off, besides me, are legions and they go way back before the Raptors roamed the earth. The Blue Jays (players and coaches) once wasted away the hours on a late-eighties post-game flight by throwing everything from peanuts to trash at poor Marty. According to the Ryerson Review of Journalism, a fellow reporter was once almost beaten down by a ball-player because he was mistaken for Marty. "[O]ne of the athletes...grabbed him and was threatening to beat the shit out of him. And here was this poor guy with his hand in front of his face pleading, 'I'm not Marty York, I'm not Marty York.'" According to another unnamed source quoted in the Review, York was too frightened to enter the dressing rooms at the 1989 Grey Cup. He resorted to paying someone to go in and get quotes for him.
The fact that athletes preferred to pelt, beat, and ignore him may explain why York allegedly got into hot water for plagiarism in the early 1990s. It only makes sense that if you can't get sources for your stories (because they want to kick your teeth in) the next best would be copying those who can get people to talk to them. According to Globe and Mail sources cited in the Ryerson Review (once gain...and thank you so much for existing), York was warned by Globe editors after his fellow reporters researched and ratted out the similarities between York's work and stories by other reporters.
One story that dogged Marty during his baseball days was that he didn't actually watch the games that he wrote about. And, if you believe the response from the Toronto Star's Doug Smith when he was asked how he gets along with Marty, it seems our old friend still doesn't feel a need to talk to the players and watch the events that he comments on:
In the last 10 years of covering the
Raptors full time, I've probably seen an average of 70 games a year, never
missing more two in a season at home, and taking in probably 90-100 practices a
year. Never once, not one single, solitary time, never, ever, ever in a decade,
have I once laid eyes on that last fellow you mention at a practice, game,
press conference or media availability. To cast him as a beat grunt does a
disservice to all the honest, hard-working, legitimate beat grunts in all
sports. Please never, ever, ever use that name in that context again.
The Sun's Steve Buffery also has no love for No-York, writing on November 23, 2006 that York "is a veteran muckraker with no credibility, who was long ago run out of the mainstream Toronto media. In fact, the writer in question has rarely, if ever, been spotted inside the Raptors locker room at the Air Canada Centre. His sources are said to be certain season ticket holders desperate for a sense of importance."
Notice a pattern here? Of course, not following the Raptors hasn't stopped Marty from writing negatively about the team every chance he gets. I'm not sure if York hates basketball or just the Raptors, but he has campaigned against the team with such vehemence, and treated the fans with so much contempt, that it makes Steve Simmons's vendetta against JFJ seem like the good-natured ribbing on Mr. Till's beloved Corner Gas.
York, you may recall, "broke" the news of the infamous Mitchell v. Carter slapping match, and quoted an unnamed Raptor (MO PETE) at length last year in a column which claimed Mitchell did not have the respect of his players. York has even gone as far as to to call Raptors coach Sam Mitchell a "borderline lunatic" (in the same 2005 interview he also said that the Raptors were the worst team in the NBA "if you take away Chris Bosh and Jalen Rose" - really, Marty? They would be the worst team if you took away their two best players? The L.A. Lakers wouldn't have won three NBA titles in a row if you took away Kobe and Shaq. Is this what you teach the kids at Sheridan College?).
All of this makes people like me angry, but York committed no greater crime last year than when he took a break from predicting the imminent firing of NBA COACH OF THE YEAR Sam Mitchell to bash poor ol' Chuck Swirsky. Just like any schoolyard bully, York tried to make himself look like a big man by picking on the harmless kid with the goofy looking face and bad clothes.
Sure, Swirsky's exuberance can be a little grating, and his 'Ring it up from downtown Pickering' shtick is annoying (and completely ridiculous, since a stretch of highway dotted by strip-malls, townhouses and a nuclear power plant doesn't technically have a downtown) but at least Swirsk, unlike too many of Toronto's sports media types, doesn't seem to actively hate the sport that he covers. York, though, felt it necessary to take Chuck to task for "brainwashing thousands of fans and even media types."
Normally I would be all for snarky criticism of media types, but York's column was so mean-spirited and bitter ("misleading and mindless cheerleading for the Raptors continues to emanate from ignorant, irresponsible and self-serving suckups and shameless shills in the Toronto media") that it deserves nothing but scorn. Swirsky's show is nothing but mindless entertainment, and he is so far off the serious-sports radar that we wouldn't bother criticizing him even if he devoted two hours to making a case for McCabe for the Norris and Simmons for the Pulitzer.
As for Swirsk's brainwashing abilities...I'll admit that staring at the man for prolonged periods of time can be disorienting (and that some of the small-brains in the Toronto press may be easily manipulated), but I think Swirsk's mystical powers may be somewhat overstated.
While it may seem like we've covered York pretty extensively in this monstrous post, there is a lot of info that weren't able to include and we can count on Marty to spew a lot of Raptor player-hatin' over the next few months, so get used to seeing his work displayed prominently on the pages of Cox Bloc.
Marty, you are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker.
It was Hegel, or maybe Jan Hrdina, who had an explanation for the existential plight of the benighted Senators fan. He called it negative identity, defining yourself against something bigger instead of what you actually stand for. Ultimately, it leaves you empty at the centre, afraid to confront what it is you really are. How else to explain a town six months removed from a trip to the Finals, poles apart from the Leafs in terms of points and future outlook, still feeling the need to rage at the Blue and White? Deep down, Sens fans know they once were Habs fans, or they were Leafs fans, or they are twelve; either way, they live in the most boring city in Canada, which certainly puts them high in the running for lamest worldwide.
But that's not the scariest part, dear reader. This sad stunt is yet another reminder that, as much as reading Simmons or listening to Watters makes us long for the sweet relief of a nailgun pressed to the temple and fired, they are role models to the Ottawa media. They're where the Ottawa guys want to be. So take some pity on the sad sacks in the nation's capital, and give them a break or two. The Leafs always do - in the regular season, anyways.
