Jorn's Jottings VI VI VI - Jottings of the Beast
Oh Helen...call off your dogs
The race to turn the sports pages into gossip rags intensified this week with three of Toronto's most prominent columnists flinging innuendo, rumour, and hearsay around like shit in a monkey fight.
First up: Rosie DiManno, who claimed in her column this past Sunday that Mats Sundin had told one of his closest friends that "[i]t's not my job to fix John Ferguson's mistakes." Between this, and Simmons' accusations about Mats from last week, I'm surprised the Leafs captain didn't waive his no trade clause just to get away from his "friends". Mats called JFJ later that day to deny these comments. Rosie responded by writing that "[w]hat Sundin may or may not be saying privately to friends is a fart in a mitten." I have no fucking idea what that means, but it doesn't sound like Rosie was a) defending her source as valid, or b) apologizing.
Not to be outdone, Simmons slipped this cryptic little morsel of info into his Sunday Brainsqueeze: "Biggest mistake Ferguson made that nobody talks about: Hiring an attractive female team masseuse for the all-male Maple Leafs." No explanation. Figure it out for yourselves people. Let your imaginations run wild.
Of course, the bottom of the barrel can't be scraped until Damien Cox gets his hands in there. So, as a farewell present to Chad Kilger, we get this unsubstantiated little tidbit: "A veteran player, Chad Kilger, departed amidst murky rumours involving his personal life." Details? Anything to back that up? Nope? Just throw it out there and see what happens. Maybe we can combine it with Simmons' rumour? The possibilities are endless.
"Dishonest Arguments and Confused Invective" Dept
Speaking of Cox, it turns out Bob Gainey made the move of the deadline by getting less for a capable NHL starting goalie than the Leafs did for Hal Gill. According to Cox, trading Huet to a conference rival and potential playoff opponent is an act of both bravery and genius, and the Leafs should be envious of the Habs for having a man with the intestinal fortitude throw caution to the wind and make a pointless trade. Of course, the Leafs had a guy like this running the team for five years. A guy who could make stupid deals like this in his sleep. A guy who never once had a glowing tribute like this appear in the pages of the Toronto Star:
So on an eventful day when there were 25 trades, including major acquisitions by Dallas, San Jose and Pittsburgh, the image of Gainey's determined jaw setting the course of Les Habitants was so starkly in contrast with the dysfunctional Leafs that it could not be missed.
Gainey's determined jaw setting the course? Pravda didn't write shit like this about Stalin.
And the winner is...
Now that the trade deadline has come and gone, we can announce the winner of our Blue and White Bargain Bin contest. Or, more accurately winners, as Godd Till and Jacques Strap both correctly identified three players that would be lucky enough to no longer be on the Leafs roster by 3pm on Tuesday, February 25. You both win the right to claim that your hockey prognostication abilities are greater than Eklund and Darren Dreger combined, and Mr. Strap gets to write a guest column for the Cox Bloc if he feels like giving us some free content. Congrats.
Seeing as a lobotomized ferret could claim better prognostication abilities than Eklund and Dreger, I'll choose to take my 15 seconds of fame in the form of that there guest column.
Give me a week or so, i'm sure adequate fodder will present itself.
Toronto media: the most negative, least objective in Canada.. as it evolves into a characature of itself.
Hey, remember! Its the fans fault for the state the Leafs are in. And Montreal is so much better - This tonight according to our dimwitted scribes and tv stooges.
The retard coolaid isn't necessarily good for you. But its free, so they drink it.
Far be it from me to agree with DC, but I say again that the Gainey deal isn't so bad. I know that you haven't anointed Huet as the next coming of Georges Vezina, Godd, but remember that Huet was 19-16 with almost a 3.00 GAA last year - basically a .500 goalie.
It would appear that Gainey had his pocket picked somewhat, based on the superior return Trader Cliff got for Hal Gill, and no doubt Habs fans will be wondering why their team didn't tool up to take a run at a wide open Eastern conference, but if you assume that Gainey had evaluated Huet and decided that he wasn't worth re-signing (likely at something around $4 M a year) then why hold on to the guy for twenty more games and get nothing for him when you can trade him now, get something for him. There is an argument that the whole year has been a careful plan to bring Carey Price along.
My point is less about the return Gainey got for Huet and more about the apparent succession plan in the goaltending department - something the Leafs could have used a bit more of in the post-Ed -Belfour, holy-crap-Pogge's-not-ready-yet, Raycroft-stinks what-do-we-do-now era.
I'm just sayin', and I'm doing it without talking about Gainey's jaw.
This post really should have been titled "A happy ending for Kilger?"
Jeez... believe me, I understand taking the piss out of the local media, and that the writers out there are just as likely as the average blogger to be clueless hacks, but I think you're really grasping for stuff to get worked up about here. And while I understand, from the name of the site alone, that you're more focussed on throwing some light on these media hacks-- which is a good thing, and maybe I'm missing the point-- but too often (for my tastes, at least) what I'm seeing looks as much like indignation that someone would dare talk shit about the Leafs as it does that these are just shitty writers. For a blog that focuses so much attention on the Leafs and is so thoughtful, it's just so strange to me how many times their whole mess of an operation is defended here while fingers get pointed at reporters whose only mistake is being shitty at their jobs.
The reason I say that, I guess, is that you're so often coming up on the wrong side of this stuff you're grasping at, which-- not coincidentally, I don't think-- is the virulently pro-Leafs' side. At least as far as I can tell.
Again, maybe I'm missing a point here somewhere, but I mean, Kilger left the Panthers for "personal reasons", just as he had the Leafs earlier. "Murky rumours about his personal life" is exactly the situation. It's already been defined as "personal", and the fact that nobody has details is exactly what makes it murky. Is Simmons speaking Chinese? It seems to me like a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
And then there's the Huet thing. The guy is a UFA and isn't going to be a piece that gets anybody to a Stanley Cup. Gill, as you know, is built for the grinding kind of game that hockey turns into in the playoffs (which is why he made no sense here). Big, physical, long reach... terrible instincts, but he at least has some value to a team during a long playoff run. Huet really didn't, and Montreal was going to go with Price anyway, for good or ill. They've cleared up confusion at the position, and rid themselves of someone who was ultimately going to be unhappy in the room while the kid stole his job.
Also, take a look at what the market for goaltending was like. Lots of teams had guys they would offer, if there were any takers. Getting a second round pick for a guy who was ostensibly your backup and is a UFA in three months? Once you take off your Blue and White glasses, I'm sure you can see how this is a whole lot more shrewd than getting a (slightly) better than expected return on Gill. The flowery language of the glowing tribute is, of course, bullshit, but I really don't think that makes it any less warranted. Maybe you're only concerned with the bullshit language, but that's not how it read to me at all (though perhaps I'm long past the point of giving you guys the benefit of the doubt on this stuff, and in that sense, am being a total dick.)
As for Quinn, he never had a team loaded with young talent hitting it's prime ahead of schedule, with many more strong pieces still in the pipeline. Or were you're referring to Ferguson, which would be right fucking crazy? Either way, if you really don't see the difference between what Gainey is doing and the teams Quinn and JFJ put together, that could be the nut of our differences right there...
OK, enough of me... apologies as usual...
Stoeten
Along the lines of what my uncle used to say to my aunt:
stoeten if Kim and Godd said A you'd say B. I bet you think JP Ricciardi is a good GM.
Ignoring the fact that you missed the point on most of what was written let's look at the Kilger situation. What proof is there that there is anything murky about Kilger's personal reasons for being away from the team other than the fact that he told the media that he wanted them to be private? Isn't intimating that there is something untoward about his absence without offering any proof the kind of bullshit rumour-mongering that traditional journalists love to accuse bloggers of propagating?