New Kid on the Bloc
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.
Varry Galk, like Rickey Henderson and the Rock, refers to himself in the third person. Kim Jorn likes that.
*quiet* crowd looks around
*quiet* crowd makes eye contact with each other
*quiet* crowd gives slight nod
*BEDLAM*
That was awesome.
I try not to wish real violence on to people, but seriously, Berger is making me work on keeping those urges down. How someone can be that out of touch without the help of hallucinogens is beyond me.
You guys are awesome.
Brilliant.
Howard is an insufferable douchebag who possesses no capacity for logic or context.
tremendous read... good stuff bud.
Berger is an eloquent writer, too bad his subject matter is pure tripe.
He continues to go further and further down this path, and becomes less and less worth paying attention to. I would urge everyone to just annoy him.
I don't listen to the FAN590 anymore, or read the newspaper. I do read Berger on the hockeybuzz.com but I'm at the end of my rope there as well.
We need more serious bloggers (like this site) who actually enjoy the game, and don't have an axe to grind. The mainstream media is nothing but a pedantic, relentless chasm of miss-information and insight.
Thanks for the kind words Cob...however, I think it is clear that we have many axes to grind.
Godd Till loved this post. This line:
since obviously 100-point seasons and deep playoff runs are more appropriately lumped into the "failure" pile?
put me in mind of Patton Oswalt's description of KFC's Famous Bowls as "a failure pile in a sadness bowl." Berger's co;umns are of similar nutritional value.
That's why the comments on the NYT piece, that Berger is a "good reporter" who has a passion for the job, etc, are ridiculous. Howard has been proven time and time again to be a lazy, sloppy, reporter, and harping on the same irrelevant fan-bashing over and over again isn't passion, it's derangement.
On another note, caught Fat & Failure on the Team 1040 last night. After bashing Mats and his agent for the last week, Van City's fave plagiarist was all kissy face when given the chance to interview JP Barry.
The gruesome twosome than had the Prov's sports ed on, and the bashing continued, the ed referring to Mats as 'pathetic' and 'worse than Brett Favre.'
This would be the same sports ed who ran this mash note to Mats in the Province last week:
And, last but not least, Province editor in chief Wayne Moriarty said the newspaper is willing to straddle the line of neutrality to break the Sundin impasse. The Province will offer the following:
1. A two-year subscription
2. Be guest editor for any issue he chooses
3. A set of four Province coffee mugs
4. One dozen Province-labeled MaxFli Noodle golf balls.
5. One pre-season public humiliation of both Kurtenbloggers.
Mats, how can you hold out any longer?
jjamieson@theprovince.com
The homerism in this town is so second-rate it's embarrassing. They also talked about the North Van kid getting to start for the Jays in front of his family as eculted that "the best part was, Toronto lost!"
Bush. League.
Anyway Varry, top-drawer work and hope to see more from you. What say you, Blocheads?
Aye!
I second that emotion.
Fantastic stuff.
Varry needs to get a blogger/wordpress/typepad account and join the Barilkosphere - a place where he can channel his frustration into something so much more productive and positive (and endlessly mock the likes of HB).
More Galk please.
Unless it turns out Varry Galk is actually Berger himself, which would shatter my world.
I think Varry needs to stop by and take a bow.
Thanks very much, guys. I am both grateful and not Berger himself.
I don't think I have the capacity to be a full-on Barilkosphere member, but I will definitely chip in to the Bloc from time to time with comparable rants (basically, I'll help out when I feel like sending out the Bloc signal).
And to Rory, cob and bkblades, thanks for reading...but let's get some new handles, no? Cox Bloc needs, at the very least, a Maniel Darois and a Palt Woddubny.
Or a Lary Geeman or a Manny Darkov.
What we really need is a Kill Bitchen.
Varry,
Someone started a thread about your post over at HFboards:
http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=540567
Kill Bitchen might be the best name possible.
I love how a few of the commenters miss the mark so wildly!
You guys fucking rule. Damien Cox, Howard Berger, and the rest of the Toronto media are a bunch of douches who apparently don’t think facts or historical perspective have any place in sports writing. I can’t believe I just found this blog now… it would have made me feel much better this past season knowing that I wasn’t the only one pulling my hair out every time these morons put out another piece of tortured logic or disinformation. I hate them.
I’ve been known to spend hours pulling stats and putting together spreadsheets to disprove the seemingly endless media stream of ill-informed anti-leaf rhetoric. I’ll be sure to share my next analysis with the Cox Bloc crowd now that I know it exists.
Anyways, keep up the good work.
(not the real) DanDaoust
I'm shocked that nobody has figured Berger out,he's a classic case of:
"we hate most about others what we hate in ourselves"
His jabs at Leaf fans is just a reflection of his self loathing
Berger is a huge Leaf fan who has become as cynical as many of us.Listening to Berger during the hockey season is a roller coaster ride of (his) emotions.Berger may be an ass,but he's a classic long suffering Leaf fan.
Amazing entry. I agree 100% with everything you said. I am not going to stop liking my team just cause they suck a few years...shit i ain't no bandwagoner!
To more specifically refute Howard's limo driver friend, and all those who like to say the Leafs have sucked and sucked and kept on sucking without reprieve for 40 years, here are where the Leafs and Habs have finished in the league standings and the playoff round they were eliminated in over the last 10 years. Avg indicates their average finish for the 9 seasons included (plus the lockout makes 10). The number in brackets is the pre-lockout average league-wide finish, the post lockout years being the Ferguson era and to me, when the Leafs started sucking.
Tor
98-99 5th rnd3
99-00 7th rnd2
00-01 14th rnd2
01-02 3rd rnd3
02-03 9th rnd1
03-04 5th rnd2
05-06 19th out
06-07 18th out
07-08 24th out
Avg 11.55 (7.16) 13 playoff rounds
Mont
98-99 19th out
99-00 18th out
00-01 24th out
01-02 18th rnd2
02-03 21st out
03-04 13th rnd2
05-06 12th rnd1
06-07 19th out
07-08 3rd rnd2
Avg 16.33(18.83) 7 playoff rounds
So, even including the 3 Ferguson years, which most Leaf fans would like to forget, in the last 10 years the Leafs have finished almost 5 places better than on average than the Habs and have played almost twice as many playoff rounds. Again, for the six years prior to the lockout, with Quinn as GM, the Leafs are the 7th best team in the league in terms of final standings, and even if we might have liked to see longer term thinking, we usually had a pretty good team.
Luckily for Howard, you don't need to know what you're talking about when driving a limo or reporting on the Leafs.