The Wrong Fes To Chuk With
Whoa..did Paul Maurice drop a steamer on Dave Feschuk's lawn or something? WTF is up with his piece in the Star today?
With a juicy tidbit like that I had to read, and it didn't disappoint:
Or maybe it's just a gut feeling brought on by prolonged exposure to Maurice's post-failure mumbo-jumbo. When it comes to making the good old hockey game seem like rocket science, he's got it down to a science.
"It's easy to say, `Why do you stink?' That's now almost a sign of intelligence. If you can say something nasty about the Maple Leafs, you clearly know the game," said Maurice yesterday, delivering yet another lost season's post-mortem. "But we're in that environment, all things are wrong. The GM's gotta go. The coach has gotta go. The captain's gotta go. All the players gotta go. You gotta blow everything up ..."
He said it as though he had a better idea, of course, as though none of this would be happening if the full scope of his intellect were ever unleashed on the NHL. And shame on the morons for not seeing the brilliance behind Maurice's three-year tenure as a head coach in Toronto, which includes exactly one playoff berth - with, ahem, the AHL Marlies - who were ousted in the first round a few years back.
Our apologies, Coach, for perpetuating the insane idea that the 41-year championship drought now residing at 40 Bay St. is a national joke. And now that you'll almost certainly be preparing your resumé for circulation, here are a couple of tips in your impending job search. You might not want to mention that you've been head coach of NHL teams in 10 different seasons and that your teams have now missed the playoffs seven times. Leave out the bit about losing in the first round two other times. And go heavy on your nice run to the Cup final with the 2002 Hurricanes, when the Maurice era looked positively Bowman-esque.
Whoa. WTF indeed. I've thought hard on this all day, friends, and here are the possible reasons I've come up with for why the Star's favourite shinny dilettante perpetrated this unhinged type-by:1. Starwipe editors are disappointed with Cox's kid-glove treatment of the suits at MLSE
2. Maurice won't stop calling Feschuk 'Scott.'
3. Andrew Raycroft is actually an incredibly skilled computer hacker.
4. Maurice prefers Hagar to Roth.
5. Maurice put guinea worms in Feschuk's travel kit.
6. Thousands of years ago, on the distant world Bilettinore, two emerged as the most gifted of all the Sorcerer Raven's disciples: the virtuous Fezzchawk and the malevolent Mawrees. This battle of scribe and coach is but one of an infinite number of titanic struggles taking place simultaneously across the Alt-World-Lands, till the day when one of them triumphs to claim The Forger's Key and its terrible power to rip the very frames of time from their dusty hinges.
7. Maurice farts in the car.
8. No matter how many precautions Feschuk takes, Maurice always finds a way to make off with those pick-a-nick baskets.
9. Dave Feschuk is kind of a jerk.
I betcha Brylcreem preferred Gary Cherone.
Hmmm, I think I gotta go with number 9, except substitute "jerk" for some word that combines his fair-weather fandom with his general obnoxiousness and pointless doomsaying.
Andrew Raycroft is actually an incredibly skilled computer hacker
Tea. All. Over. My. Keyboard.
Kim:
John Ferguson Jr = John Corabi
Raycroft isn't good at anything. Nothing.
And Feschuk is just a douche.
I have to laugh at a self-important twit like Feschuk calling someone else arrogant.... Pot. Kettle. Black.
Isn't there a shitty basketball team that nobody cares about for you to cover Dave?
Maurice has taken far too little criticism for the way his team has under-performed the past 2 years. But if a member of the news media dares to criticize the mighty leafs we know we won't have to wait long for the "but he's a jerk" retort from leaf fans. Here's a hint, it is not the media's fault that Toronto has not made the playoffs in 3 years. But keep blaming them anyway, who doesn't love consistency?
That's not what I'm talking about at all. The Leafs suck. Maurice deserves to be criticized, and deserves to be canned.
But what analysis do we get in this article? Is there anything about Maurice's impotent line-juggling, his inability to use timeouts, his infatuation for the Woz, his failures teaching team defence or penalty killing, the failure of young players to develop, or his rotation early season of one good goalie with one ECHL one?
No. As usual, we get personal attacks and axe-grinding masquerading as analysis, with precious little understanding of how coaching wins and loses games on the ice. You know, where they actually play the sport of hockey. A massive and knowledgeable market deserves better than this type of coverage. Get it?
And go through our archives and point out the post where we blame the media for any of the Leafs struggles. I'd be interested to see that one.
ok, point taken about blaming the media (i guess enough leaf players do it, no need for their bloggers to as well).
But what might have started out as a good idea for this site has degenerated into lashing out at any scribe that is critical of the leafs.
(i guess enough leaf players do it, no need for their bloggers to as well).
Wow, Damien Cox is a reader? I'm honoured.
Seriously though, if you've noticed that tone it's cause the Leafs suck, so the idiotic analysis of them is negative. If there were articles about how great Raycroft is, we'd be taking them to task too.
Hopefully you'll stick around, because there will be more baseball mittenstringing and the rest of tour around the other NHL markets coming up, along with the usual coverage of Leafs coverage. Probably some other features as well.
And one more thing - Habs fan or Sens fan?
Really? There are at least six newspapers, two radio stations, and three all-sports TV networks that extensively cover the Leafs. A lot of that coverage is "negative" (and deservedly so) and we do not touch it. I have always felt that we are consistent in targeting a certain type of coverage - you know, the kind where the basketball beat writer writes a bizarre and rambling attack about the local hockey coach, which seems to be based more on personal animosity than anything close to resembling job performance. We would have taken issue with his piece if it had been written about John Gibbons, Sam Mitchell, or Damien Cox.
As always guys, well done.
Following your responses to arcman, the thing that struck me as so strange about this article was that it came out of deep, deep left field (or as I like to call it, "Crazytown").
I can't do a detailed archive search on The Star's site without paying (I'm nothing if not cheap), but Feschuk wrote what, a half-dozen articles on the Leafs this season?
If he had been harping on what a smug ass Maurice was all season, it would at least have a touch more credibility.
I don't disagree that Maurice did a lousy job this year and deserves to be sent packing. But where's the analysis. He was smug at his press conference? Wow, that's never happened before, ever, has it? Coaches are unfailingly polite, welcoming and charming at press conferences, especially ones at the conclusion of a 3rd straight non-playoff season.
It's not the media's fault the Leafs suck - it's the media's fault that the media sucks.
Also, is Feschuk telling us that Maurice is a smoker? That may be a bigger story than Chad Kilger's as yet unexplained leave of absence...
"It's not the media's fault the Leafs suck - it's the media's fault that the media sucks."
That should b the new tag-line for the Cox Bloc.
I suppose What your trying to say is Freedom of the press is fine as long as the reporter doesn't ruffle the feathers of the public?
IMO ruffled feathers adds a bit of excitement., Gets people talking.
Not even close. I believe in freedom of the press. I also believe in my freedom to dislike ad hominem, analysis-free dreck.
Ruffled feathers are fine - I guess to a certain extent that's why we're all here. If mainstream journalists all wrote well-reasoned articles, we wouldn't have much to talk about, would we?
Keep on writing feces, Dave Feschuk!
Re: #6 - Douglas Adams's estate wants his "gin and tonic" joke back (not that it was one of his better ones anyway).
Good analysis about arcman. He's a sens fan.
Also, write more!
Yeah, we've been in a bit of a lull. Simmons, Cox and Howie (aka the Holy Mittenstringer Trilogy) have been pretty tepid and they're hasn't been much of interest written about the Jays.
Was thinking about adopting the Ottawa crew as playoff 'stringers but DGB has that on lock. Don't worry, there will be something new in the next couple days.
What kind of stuff would you like to see?
Feschuk's really been picking up the slack for your regular mittenstringers this week. Chris Bosh got the Cox-on-Sundin treatment yesterday, exposed for his crap leadership. Today, Rasho Nesterovic is only playing for a contract (which he loves more than his newborn child) and last year's NBA Coach of the Year is suddenly a shitty coach.
I've been reading the Star for years and have never seen this level of douche-ness by Feschuk. It's really mind-boggling. Lay into the guy.
Yeah DGB is just decimating the Ottawa scene.
In a perfect world they would write more insanities about the Leafs but I guess we'll have to wait until the Ducks are out and they start camping out on Burkie's lawn.
In the meantime, I like seeing Feschuk get torn apart because he is playing the part of the typical angry blogger that apparently is the bane of journalism.
Plus I hate his smarmy picture.