July 2008 Archives
Editor's note: About a week ago, we offered Varry Galk the opportunity to write a post about a recent piece of nonsense by noted fashion critic Howard Berger. And then we didn't check the ol' Cox Bloc inbox for a week. Luckily Howard (like most other mittenstringers) writes basically the same column over and over again, and Varry's post is still very much relevant. So here, better late than never and in all of its well-researched glory, is Varry Galk's belated Cox Bloc debut.
The last Howard Berger column Varry Galk will ever read is, in many ways, unremarkable as far as Berger columns go: illogically structured and lazily reported.
In an article titled "Leafs, Kings Bear Many Similarities," Berger of course proceeds to instead list a host of differences -- Kings actually have young talent, Leaf fans are moronic sheep, only the Kings are motivated to turn their franchise around. Boring stuff, although I did chuckle when Berger wrote that while the Kings have been characterized by failure and turnover, they deserve a pass because, unlike the Leafs, they are an expansion team...a 1967 expansion team. (Perhaps by 2073 the Kings can finally shed that "expansion" label).
His unrelated Part Two is somewhat more interesting. Feel Howie's smugness through your screen as he breathlessly reports the following:
Is it possible that the folks in charge of Hockey Night In Canada are finally souring on the Maple Leafs? How else can one explain the Blue & White being idle on three Saturdays during the 2008-09 season?[...]Is this an indication that CBC executives fear a decrease in the number of Leaf watchers? Or, are they merely embarrassed by their insistence to put the Leafs on national TV in recent years, no matter how dreadful the team?
Whatever the case, CBC decision-makers are banking on a trio of marquee match-ups in the Leafs' absence. On Dec. 13th, the early national telecast will be Washington [and Alex Ovechkin] at Montreal. On Dec. 27th, it will be Montreal at Pittsburgh [Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin et al]. And, on Jan. 17th, Leaf fans will watch in envy as the Canadiens and Senators take the national stage at Scotiabank Place. This long-overdue shift in philosophy by HNIC is somewhat risky, given the Leafs' large, unconditional following. But, it's a decision that will be met with overwhelming approval by hockey fans in other parts of the country that are tired of being force-fed a lousy Toronto product each week.
So the CBC's righteous decision to pointedly humiliate Leaf fans by airing the Habs instead of the Leafs on three Saturdays is "long-overdue." Certainly, Howie's historically minded limo driver would agree.
Never mind that, as Kim pointed out so well, the Leafs have enjoyed much more success than the Habs since Montreal last won the Cup. Never mind that the Leafs have played the Senators in four separate playoff series this decade and won each one. Never mind that the Leafs defeated the Habs to pass them in the standings on the last day of the season way back...in 2007.
And never mind that Howie predicted the 2007-08 Montreal Canadiens - who, by this logic, should have been on HNIC last season rather than the "force-fed" Leafs - to finish in 14th place in the Eastern Conference. This oopsie has not prevented Berger from recently bragging about how easy it is for him to predict in July how teams will fare, based on their post-free agency roster.
No, the real problem with Berger's analysis of CBC's "shift in philosophy" is...there hasn't been one.
In about 2 seconds of online research, anyone can learn that TSN paid a record $200 million to obtain, among other things, the rights to 17 national Leafs telecasts. When you also consider Leafs TV and regional Sportsnet games, this only leaves 23 available games for HNIC to telecast. And there will thus be precisely 23 regular season Leafs games on HNIC for each of the next six years, even if the Leafs win the next six Cups. The centrepiece in the TSN negotiations was their ability to broadcast more Leafs games not just regionally, but nationally. Starting this season, the rest of Canada is getting more Leafs. Not less.
(As an aside, the Habs are off HNIC for three Saturdays as well, also thanks to the TSN deal. I'm sure Montreal fans will stay home those days and "watch in envy." I'm also sure Berger does not yet know this fact.)
Anyway, Berger has misinterpreted facts before when they dovetail with his various axes to grind (see Avery, Brunnstrom, or anything that gives him a forum to bash the Leafs). So why was this the last Berger article I will ever read?
For me, it's because of the cumulative effect of statements like these, all of which appear in Berger's latest:
Leaf fans can easily be sold a bill of goods, which allows for false optimism on an annual basis.
In Toronto, it appears that a hint of reality has overcome the Leafs' undying flock of supporters, though it's nothing that a two-game win streak won't cure.
The ability to reverse a losing environment is far more critical in [Los Angeles] than in Toronto, where fans of the Blue & White are limitless in their anticipation and reverence.
And so on. Other teams have fans that want their team to do well. In contrast, and as Berger points out, over and over and over again, the Leafs have "delusional" "zealots" who need not only to acknowledge, but to truly internalize, the belief that the team has been a disgrace to the sport since 1967. Hell, he even called us all assholes for taking an interest in the Leafs when children are dying of cancer at SickKids.
But it's not just the failure of our hearts and minds that rankles Howie. The current plight of the team is also our fault. To wit (from his July 14 column):
You have no power to influence the people that actually make decisions about the Leafs, for you continue to not only accept a bad team, but to thoroughly embrace it in ways that gorge the bottom line. Every jersey you buy; every ticket that is printed; every time you turn on the TV to watch the Leafs play, is another endorsement of the product - no matter how inept it is, or to what degree it torments you.
Let's set aside the huge issue of whether the average Leaf fan gets to buy any of these aforementioned tickets (Kim has already addressed this admirably on Cox Bloc). My first point is to point out that, analytically, his statement reads like the following:
Your mother is fat. You continue to not only accept your mother's weight problem, but to thoroughly embrace it. Every time you call, every time you visit her on Thanksgiving and every Mother's Day card you buy is another endorsement of her body shape, no matter how obese she becomes.
There are three obvious responses:
1. It is no such endorsement, and you know it;
2. Fuck you for even talking about this; and
3. What exactly am I supposed to do, other than treat my mother like my mother?
Point (3) is the real rub. What does Berger propose that we do differently? Careen back and forth between the Ducks and Red Wings bandwagons? Self-flagellate? Ignore hockey altogether until the Leafs are ahead in the third period of a Cup-clinching game, since obviously 100-point seasons and deep playoff runs are more appropriately lumped into the "failure" pile?
There are so many other problems with this vendetta. There is not one iota of evidence that abandoning a team during bad times is both necessary and sufficient to spur a return to glory (see Blackhawks, Islanders, Blue Jays, etc.) - in fact, it's more likely to cause management to try and make do on the cheap. There's also the concept that maybe, rather than failing to try to build a strong hockey franchise, it's that MLSE just isn't very good at it. Personally, I don't see how it helps the bottom line to spend to the cap on bad players and miss the playoffs rather than spend to the cap on good players and enjoy a profitable playoff run.
But more importantly, why on earth should Working Class Howard use up 90% of his bandwidth by laying into average Toronto fans? Cox may lie and mislead, but at least he attacks players and management - you know, people actually relevant to whether the team succeeds or fails. Exactly what difference does it make when Joey and his buddies in a sports bar in Woodbridge high-five after a Leaf win, while all the tickets they couldn't possibly afford were sold to wealthy and/or corporate season ticket-holders? Did Joey insert no-movement clauses and trade Rask for Raycroft while we weren't looking?
In fact, let me flip the script on Berger's "cancer should put the Leafs in perspective" nonsense. Some journalists put themselves in harm's way to alert the world to genocide. Others try to shed light on injustices or social trends. Howard Berger has chosen instead to make it his journalist's mission to take a bad hockey team and look beyond its players, decision-makers and even its paying corporate customers to attack average, working-class residents of the city in which it plays and remind them that their home team has not won a championship in a disproportionately long time. Period. Cheering a victory or even tuning in on television are not just ignorant but counterproductive in his world, unless and until the Leafs build the sure-thing bandwagon a discerning fan should jump back on. (I bet Berger owns a pink Red Sox cap.)
And he won't rest until every man, woman and child - even those ever-important cancer-stricken children at SickKids who love the Leafs because of frequent visits by the likes of Kaberle and Stajan - know how to pronounce the word "delusional." Hell, even Cox finds it annoying when he rocks out to the Eagles only to have a tut-tutting columnist remind him of their recent mediocrity and, by extension, his own supposed futility.
What an utterly worthless pursuit, Howard. I neither need to nor want to read you, and so I simply won't. Go Leafs.
The last Howard Berger column Varry Galk will ever read is, in many ways, unremarkable as far as Berger columns go: illogically structured and lazily reported.
In an article titled "Leafs, Kings Bear Many Similarities," Berger of course proceeds to instead list a host of differences -- Kings actually have young talent, Leaf fans are moronic sheep, only the Kings are motivated to turn their franchise around. Boring stuff, although I did chuckle when Berger wrote that while the Kings have been characterized by failure and turnover, they deserve a pass because, unlike the Leafs, they are an expansion team...a 1967 expansion team. (Perhaps by 2073 the Kings can finally shed that "expansion" label).
His unrelated Part Two is somewhat more interesting. Feel Howie's smugness through your screen as he breathlessly reports the following:
Is it possible that the folks in charge of Hockey Night In Canada are finally souring on the Maple Leafs? How else can one explain the Blue & White being idle on three Saturdays during the 2008-09 season?[...]Is this an indication that CBC executives fear a decrease in the number of Leaf watchers? Or, are they merely embarrassed by their insistence to put the Leafs on national TV in recent years, no matter how dreadful the team?
Whatever the case, CBC decision-makers are banking on a trio of marquee match-ups in the Leafs' absence. On Dec. 13th, the early national telecast will be Washington [and Alex Ovechkin] at Montreal. On Dec. 27th, it will be Montreal at Pittsburgh [Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin et al]. And, on Jan. 17th, Leaf fans will watch in envy as the Canadiens and Senators take the national stage at Scotiabank Place. This long-overdue shift in philosophy by HNIC is somewhat risky, given the Leafs' large, unconditional following. But, it's a decision that will be met with overwhelming approval by hockey fans in other parts of the country that are tired of being force-fed a lousy Toronto product each week.
So the CBC's righteous decision to pointedly humiliate Leaf fans by airing the Habs instead of the Leafs on three Saturdays is "long-overdue." Certainly, Howie's historically minded limo driver would agree.
Never mind that, as Kim pointed out so well, the Leafs have enjoyed much more success than the Habs since Montreal last won the Cup. Never mind that the Leafs have played the Senators in four separate playoff series this decade and won each one. Never mind that the Leafs defeated the Habs to pass them in the standings on the last day of the season way back...in 2007.
And never mind that Howie predicted the 2007-08 Montreal Canadiens - who, by this logic, should have been on HNIC last season rather than the "force-fed" Leafs - to finish in 14th place in the Eastern Conference. This oopsie has not prevented Berger from recently bragging about how easy it is for him to predict in July how teams will fare, based on their post-free agency roster.
No, the real problem with Berger's analysis of CBC's "shift in philosophy" is...there hasn't been one.
In about 2 seconds of online research, anyone can learn that TSN paid a record $200 million to obtain, among other things, the rights to 17 national Leafs telecasts. When you also consider Leafs TV and regional Sportsnet games, this only leaves 23 available games for HNIC to telecast. And there will thus be precisely 23 regular season Leafs games on HNIC for each of the next six years, even if the Leafs win the next six Cups. The centrepiece in the TSN negotiations was their ability to broadcast more Leafs games not just regionally, but nationally. Starting this season, the rest of Canada is getting more Leafs. Not less.
(As an aside, the Habs are off HNIC for three Saturdays as well, also thanks to the TSN deal. I'm sure Montreal fans will stay home those days and "watch in envy." I'm also sure Berger does not yet know this fact.)
Anyway, Berger has misinterpreted facts before when they dovetail with his various axes to grind (see Avery, Brunnstrom, or anything that gives him a forum to bash the Leafs). So why was this the last Berger article I will ever read?
For me, it's because of the cumulative effect of statements like these, all of which appear in Berger's latest:
Leaf fans can easily be sold a bill of goods, which allows for false optimism on an annual basis.
In Toronto, it appears that a hint of reality has overcome the Leafs' undying flock of supporters, though it's nothing that a two-game win streak won't cure.
The ability to reverse a losing environment is far more critical in [Los Angeles] than in Toronto, where fans of the Blue & White are limitless in their anticipation and reverence.
And so on. Other teams have fans that want their team to do well. In contrast, and as Berger points out, over and over and over again, the Leafs have "delusional" "zealots" who need not only to acknowledge, but to truly internalize, the belief that the team has been a disgrace to the sport since 1967. Hell, he even called us all assholes for taking an interest in the Leafs when children are dying of cancer at SickKids.
But it's not just the failure of our hearts and minds that rankles Howie. The current plight of the team is also our fault. To wit (from his July 14 column):
You have no power to influence the people that actually make decisions about the Leafs, for you continue to not only accept a bad team, but to thoroughly embrace it in ways that gorge the bottom line. Every jersey you buy; every ticket that is printed; every time you turn on the TV to watch the Leafs play, is another endorsement of the product - no matter how inept it is, or to what degree it torments you.
Let's set aside the huge issue of whether the average Leaf fan gets to buy any of these aforementioned tickets (Kim has already addressed this admirably on Cox Bloc). My first point is to point out that, analytically, his statement reads like the following:
Your mother is fat. You continue to not only accept your mother's weight problem, but to thoroughly embrace it. Every time you call, every time you visit her on Thanksgiving and every Mother's Day card you buy is another endorsement of her body shape, no matter how obese she becomes.
There are three obvious responses:
1. It is no such endorsement, and you know it;
2. Fuck you for even talking about this; and
3. What exactly am I supposed to do, other than treat my mother like my mother?
Point (3) is the real rub. What does Berger propose that we do differently? Careen back and forth between the Ducks and Red Wings bandwagons? Self-flagellate? Ignore hockey altogether until the Leafs are ahead in the third period of a Cup-clinching game, since obviously 100-point seasons and deep playoff runs are more appropriately lumped into the "failure" pile?
There are so many other problems with this vendetta. There is not one iota of evidence that abandoning a team during bad times is both necessary and sufficient to spur a return to glory (see Blackhawks, Islanders, Blue Jays, etc.) - in fact, it's more likely to cause management to try and make do on the cheap. There's also the concept that maybe, rather than failing to try to build a strong hockey franchise, it's that MLSE just isn't very good at it. Personally, I don't see how it helps the bottom line to spend to the cap on bad players and miss the playoffs rather than spend to the cap on good players and enjoy a profitable playoff run.
But more importantly, why on earth should Working Class Howard use up 90% of his bandwidth by laying into average Toronto fans? Cox may lie and mislead, but at least he attacks players and management - you know, people actually relevant to whether the team succeeds or fails. Exactly what difference does it make when Joey and his buddies in a sports bar in Woodbridge high-five after a Leaf win, while all the tickets they couldn't possibly afford were sold to wealthy and/or corporate season ticket-holders? Did Joey insert no-movement clauses and trade Rask for Raycroft while we weren't looking?
In fact, let me flip the script on Berger's "cancer should put the Leafs in perspective" nonsense. Some journalists put themselves in harm's way to alert the world to genocide. Others try to shed light on injustices or social trends. Howard Berger has chosen instead to make it his journalist's mission to take a bad hockey team and look beyond its players, decision-makers and even its paying corporate customers to attack average, working-class residents of the city in which it plays and remind them that their home team has not won a championship in a disproportionately long time. Period. Cheering a victory or even tuning in on television are not just ignorant but counterproductive in his world, unless and until the Leafs build the sure-thing bandwagon a discerning fan should jump back on. (I bet Berger owns a pink Red Sox cap.)
And he won't rest until every man, woman and child - even those ever-important cancer-stricken children at SickKids who love the Leafs because of frequent visits by the likes of Kaberle and Stajan - know how to pronounce the word "delusional." Hell, even Cox finds it annoying when he rocks out to the Eagles only to have a tut-tutting columnist remind him of their recent mediocrity and, by extension, his own supposed futility.
What an utterly worthless pursuit, Howard. I neither need to nor want to read you, and so I simply won't. Go Leafs.
Well, we've given Working Class Howard a lot of grief round these parts, but today we have to salute the man for strapping us (along with some other blog making fun of the mittenstringers - our lawyers are on high alert and willing to go to any lengths to defend this unique blogging concept we stole from Fire Joe Morgan) to his back and carrying us to the tip, the top, the New York Times, the paper every right-thinking American knows is second to none at selling out the troops, keeping the white man down, and forcing traditional preachers to marry God-hating sodomites in front of the young uns at a family barbecue. We couldn't be prouder.
So in gratitude, I would like to point out that the above-mentioned NYT article is a little hard on Howard, using the fact that his article on third jerseys leads with with a discussion of the Leafs (you know, the beat he is paid to cover pretty much exclusively) to make a bunch of jokes about Leafs/Toronto self-absorption that were pretty hilarious in 1983. Gee Gray Lady, I'm sorry Howard didn't give equal time to the teal, mauve, and desert ochre jerseys with the Hypercolour reflective stripes to be modeled by one of the 20-odd NHL clubs no hockey fan give a good god damn about. Certainly New Yorkers would never have such a parochial attitude. I guess all the pots and kettles in NY must be buried under new Yankee Stadium along with that Ortiz jersey.
I did love the rich irony of Howard ripping off the Leafs for NOT gouging their fans by introducing a new 3rd uni design, likely cause he had to scrap the MLSE VMPIREZ RIP OFF SUKKOR LEAFS FAN SHP column he's had in the hopper for months. He is always thinking of ways to make his life easier though, suggesting the Leafs wear a '67 model jersey, cause apparently something significant happened that year and then didn't happen for a while and baby Jesus cried and Dairy Queen ran out of Skor bits. Imagine the premade column leads if they did that.You gotta love a guy for trying...
While on Hockeybuzz, I managed to catch something else Howard wrote recently about this being a godawful season ahead with nothing to look forward to, and it put me in mind of the ballgame I watched Saturday night. Giants-Dbacks is no one's idea of a marquee matchup, but with Arizona pitting ace Brandon Webb against Giants phenom 12-year-old Tim Lincecum, it was worth a look. And am I glad I watched - both had their good stuff going, especially Lincecum, striking out 13 in 7 innings with a moving fastball, solid hammer, and ridiculous changeup. The Giants fans were going mental, all thoughts of Barry Bonds gone as they rocked along on a summer night with Tiny Tim and his elbows and knees motion. It didn't matter that the Giants are an incompetent franchise running out a 41 year old shortstop, Rich Aurilia in the cleanup spot some nights, and starting a guy at third who got released by the freaking Pirates. They have Tim Lincecum, and he is phenomenal, and Saturday night I doubt they would have traded places with any other fans in baseball.
Fans love "their guys," the guys who came up through the system, the guys they have watched develop, struggle, and break through. It may be an illusion that these guys belong to us more, but it a necessary tonic to the grim reality that we are all ultimately cheering for laundry. I have two Tigers t-shirts - Granderson and Verlander. I could have bought a Miguel Cabrera one outside Safeco last month, but he's not one of "my guys." Not yet. I bought Verlander instead, remembering how excited I was he fell to Detroit in the 2005 draft, then marvelling through his poised rookie season thal lasted all the way to the World Series, and that unforgettable no-hitter last spring, the first Tigers no-no I'd ever seen. We go back a ways.
As long as I have been a Leafs fan, there have been precious few of those guys, and fewer still I followed from draft pick to rookie to star - Potvin, Kaberle, who else really? Antro? This year, no matter what the results on the ice, I will be fascinated watching the progress of Tlusty, Stralman, Kulemin, Pogge, Steen, Stajan, Schenn, hopeful that the Leafs have started to ice a team not built on veteran mercenaries who didn't really want to be here, or who you could never totally embrace (hello, Shayne Corson) but on a group of young guys who will grow together, jell together, thrill us as we see them take next steps, figure out defences, back each other up in a war against Philly or come together to surprise Detroit or Pittsburgh, to learn to hate Montreal and Ottawa as much as we do. A team that belongs to us. Whatever Howard says, I think it will be a hell of a ride.
And it sure beats the hell out of cheering for O'Neill, Lindros and Allison, no matter what the jerseys look like.
So in gratitude, I would like to point out that the above-mentioned NYT article is a little hard on Howard, using the fact that his article on third jerseys leads with with a discussion of the Leafs (you know, the beat he is paid to cover pretty much exclusively) to make a bunch of jokes about Leafs/Toronto self-absorption that were pretty hilarious in 1983. Gee Gray Lady, I'm sorry Howard didn't give equal time to the teal, mauve, and desert ochre jerseys with the Hypercolour reflective stripes to be modeled by one of the 20-odd NHL clubs no hockey fan give a good god damn about. Certainly New Yorkers would never have such a parochial attitude. I guess all the pots and kettles in NY must be buried under new Yankee Stadium along with that Ortiz jersey.
I did love the rich irony of Howard ripping off the Leafs for NOT gouging their fans by introducing a new 3rd uni design, likely cause he had to scrap the MLSE VMPIREZ RIP OFF SUKKOR LEAFS FAN SHP column he's had in the hopper for months. He is always thinking of ways to make his life easier though, suggesting the Leafs wear a '67 model jersey, cause apparently something significant happened that year and then didn't happen for a while and baby Jesus cried and Dairy Queen ran out of Skor bits. Imagine the premade column leads if they did that.You gotta love a guy for trying...
While on Hockeybuzz, I managed to catch something else Howard wrote recently about this being a godawful season ahead with nothing to look forward to, and it put me in mind of the ballgame I watched Saturday night. Giants-Dbacks is no one's idea of a marquee matchup, but with Arizona pitting ace Brandon Webb against Giants phenom 12-year-old Tim Lincecum, it was worth a look. And am I glad I watched - both had their good stuff going, especially Lincecum, striking out 13 in 7 innings with a moving fastball, solid hammer, and ridiculous changeup. The Giants fans were going mental, all thoughts of Barry Bonds gone as they rocked along on a summer night with Tiny Tim and his elbows and knees motion. It didn't matter that the Giants are an incompetent franchise running out a 41 year old shortstop, Rich Aurilia in the cleanup spot some nights, and starting a guy at third who got released by the freaking Pirates. They have Tim Lincecum, and he is phenomenal, and Saturday night I doubt they would have traded places with any other fans in baseball.
Fans love "their guys," the guys who came up through the system, the guys they have watched develop, struggle, and break through. It may be an illusion that these guys belong to us more, but it a necessary tonic to the grim reality that we are all ultimately cheering for laundry. I have two Tigers t-shirts - Granderson and Verlander. I could have bought a Miguel Cabrera one outside Safeco last month, but he's not one of "my guys." Not yet. I bought Verlander instead, remembering how excited I was he fell to Detroit in the 2005 draft, then marvelling through his poised rookie season thal lasted all the way to the World Series, and that unforgettable no-hitter last spring, the first Tigers no-no I'd ever seen. We go back a ways.
As long as I have been a Leafs fan, there have been precious few of those guys, and fewer still I followed from draft pick to rookie to star - Potvin, Kaberle, who else really? Antro? This year, no matter what the results on the ice, I will be fascinated watching the progress of Tlusty, Stralman, Kulemin, Pogge, Steen, Stajan, Schenn, hopeful that the Leafs have started to ice a team not built on veteran mercenaries who didn't really want to be here, or who you could never totally embrace (hello, Shayne Corson) but on a group of young guys who will grow together, jell together, thrill us as we see them take next steps, figure out defences, back each other up in a war against Philly or come together to surprise Detroit or Pittsburgh, to learn to hate Montreal and Ottawa as much as we do. A team that belongs to us. Whatever Howard says, I think it will be a hell of a ride.
And it sure beats the hell out of cheering for O'Neill, Lindros and Allison, no matter what the jerseys look like.
Is this thing still on?
A revelatory insight into the Silver Fox's endgame in the Jeff Finger negotiations can be found here.
A little (is two months a little?) belated, but farewell to former Raptors voice and longtime Marty York nemesis Chuck Swirsky. No matter who he's replaced with, we doubt they'll ever rise to the level of Chuck's cultural importance.
And why contribute to PPP or Bitter's "How I became a fan" series when I can use the same idea to pad out my own posts? (Come on, you didn't think we learned anything from the mittenstringers?) I will post more on my Leafs fandom in the coming weeks, but wearing the blue and white of failed glory and glorious failure wasn't a foregone conclusion (although I am a lifelong Scotland football supporter). Though I picked my baseball team early, I decided as a child to go with the team whose game I got to go to first. After a flirtation with the Montreal Antichrists, my dad won seats at Maple Leaf Gardens sometime in 91 or 92, where if my dodgy childhood memory serves, the Leafs overcame two goals by Mats Sundin and the Nords to win 3-2 in OT. And it was sealed.
Good thing I wasn't born ten years later - I'd probably have only been able to attend a Senators game. In which case.... I'd still be a Leafs fan! Try the veal, proceed to the comments - and maybe let us know what your first game was like.
A revelatory insight into the Silver Fox's endgame in the Jeff Finger negotiations can be found here.
A little (is two months a little?) belated, but farewell to former Raptors voice and longtime Marty York nemesis Chuck Swirsky. No matter who he's replaced with, we doubt they'll ever rise to the level of Chuck's cultural importance.
And why contribute to PPP or Bitter's "How I became a fan" series when I can use the same idea to pad out my own posts? (Come on, you didn't think we learned anything from the mittenstringers?) I will post more on my Leafs fandom in the coming weeks, but wearing the blue and white of failed glory and glorious failure wasn't a foregone conclusion (although I am a lifelong Scotland football supporter). Though I picked my baseball team early, I decided as a child to go with the team whose game I got to go to first. After a flirtation with the Montreal Antichrists, my dad won seats at Maple Leaf Gardens sometime in 91 or 92, where if my dodgy childhood memory serves, the Leafs overcame two goals by Mats Sundin and the Nords to win 3-2 in OT. And it was sealed.
Good thing I wasn't born ten years later - I'd probably have only been able to attend a Senators game. In which case.... I'd still be a Leafs fan! Try the veal, proceed to the comments - and maybe let us know what your first game was like.
Dear Damien, Steve, Working Class Howard, Richard, David, Marty, Darren, Toth, Rosie, and whoever else:
We need to talk. When this all started a year ago, it was fun, fresh, and exciting. We'd observed you from afar from so long that it was a real thrill to wake up every morning to read whatever nonsense you'd leaked all over the paper, knowing that that very night we'd be typing away in our Leafs jammies while Mom called us upstairs before our Boyardee got cold - ripping you on the Internet. The Internet! Where the real nerds write and everything!
But now things have gotten stale, and we think it's time to move on. Don't get me wrong, we've had some great times. Steve, we can remember staying up all night trying to explain to you how ERA worked (that scrunched up look of confusion on your face was adorable!). Damien, we spent hours glaring at the back of your head while we dissected your latest screed. And Howard - we'll always have that unforgettable limo ride in Montreal.
You might have noticed we've been a little distant lately. We want you to know that it's not us. It's you. We've changed, tried to improve our writing, mix up our wrestling references, anything to hide the fact that every week you write the same goddamn nonsense. This week, Howard, when you blamed Leafs fans for the state of the franchise and managed to contradict yourself all over the yard, we saw the call go up: "Where's Cox Bloc?" Well, to paraphrase Eric Bischoff, Kim and Godd ain't walking through that door anymore.
Don't worry, there's others out there that still care about you. Recently Bitter Leaf and Down Goes Brown have done an outstanding job lambasting your foibles and pointing out what you can do better (for more on that, call your buddy Lance). Maybe, deep down, they still think you can change. We don't.
Right now you're probably thinking, what about our child? Cox Bloc, the bitter, twisted spawn of your bad journalism and our splenetic rage? Well, first of all, we get full custody. Kim and I are still going to be writing here - probably a lot more regularly now that we're switching our gimmick. We're still going to write about the Leafs a lot, and hopefully will retain our good standing as fully paid up members of the Barilkosphere (well, we owe PPP ten bucks still. Sorry!). Hell, we'll probably even rip you every once in a while, for old times sake. But we want the freedom to write about whatever we feel like - Leafs, rock n roll, work, politics, Canada, baseball, George the Animal Steele, Brand Power, who knows. For our sanity, we've gotta start doing something else.
To the Blocheads - Varry Galk, Junior, Pob, Paul D, Dick, Bim, bk, Pike, Firko, Bllan, Marty York, eyebleaf, and anyone I may have missed - thank you. Your comments and criticisms (yo stoeten!) have been the most rewarding part of doing this, and we both really hope you'll continue to stop by here as we stumble blindly towards a new blogging day. Suggestions, feedback, ideas for what you want to see, and requests for Freebird? Proceed to the comments.
And to the mittenstringers, one more song for the road.
We need to talk. When this all started a year ago, it was fun, fresh, and exciting. We'd observed you from afar from so long that it was a real thrill to wake up every morning to read whatever nonsense you'd leaked all over the paper, knowing that that very night we'd be typing away in our Leafs jammies while Mom called us upstairs before our Boyardee got cold - ripping you on the Internet. The Internet! Where the real nerds write and everything!
But now things have gotten stale, and we think it's time to move on. Don't get me wrong, we've had some great times. Steve, we can remember staying up all night trying to explain to you how ERA worked (that scrunched up look of confusion on your face was adorable!). Damien, we spent hours glaring at the back of your head while we dissected your latest screed. And Howard - we'll always have that unforgettable limo ride in Montreal.
You might have noticed we've been a little distant lately. We want you to know that it's not us. It's you. We've changed, tried to improve our writing, mix up our wrestling references, anything to hide the fact that every week you write the same goddamn nonsense. This week, Howard, when you blamed Leafs fans for the state of the franchise and managed to contradict yourself all over the yard, we saw the call go up: "Where's Cox Bloc?" Well, to paraphrase Eric Bischoff, Kim and Godd ain't walking through that door anymore.
Don't worry, there's others out there that still care about you. Recently Bitter Leaf and Down Goes Brown have done an outstanding job lambasting your foibles and pointing out what you can do better (for more on that, call your buddy Lance). Maybe, deep down, they still think you can change. We don't.
Right now you're probably thinking, what about our child? Cox Bloc, the bitter, twisted spawn of your bad journalism and our splenetic rage? Well, first of all, we get full custody. Kim and I are still going to be writing here - probably a lot more regularly now that we're switching our gimmick. We're still going to write about the Leafs a lot, and hopefully will retain our good standing as fully paid up members of the Barilkosphere (well, we owe PPP ten bucks still. Sorry!). Hell, we'll probably even rip you every once in a while, for old times sake. But we want the freedom to write about whatever we feel like - Leafs, rock n roll, work, politics, Canada, baseball, George the Animal Steele, Brand Power, who knows. For our sanity, we've gotta start doing something else.
To the Blocheads - Varry Galk, Junior, Pob, Paul D, Dick, Bim, bk, Pike, Firko, Bllan, Marty York, eyebleaf, and anyone I may have missed - thank you. Your comments and criticisms (yo stoeten!) have been the most rewarding part of doing this, and we both really hope you'll continue to stop by here as we stumble blindly towards a new blogging day. Suggestions, feedback, ideas for what you want to see, and requests for Freebird? Proceed to the comments.
And to the mittenstringers, one more song for the road.
