Cocks Block*

I apologize for being so late to the party, but, as Mr. Till pointed out in an earlier post, I spent most of yesterday standing around in a home-made velociraptor costume attempting to get Sam Neill's autograph. Alas, the day was a waste as I never did get to meet the great actor. Hell, I didn't even lay eyes on that lawyer who got eaten while sitting in the toilet. Hopefully I'll have more luck at the Event Horizon Fan-Fest in January.

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!