Peter.

Someone, at some point, owned the house I now live in and decided to build an in-law suite as an addition. The grandparents-living-with-the-kids thing is somewhat popular in this city. When my mom bought this house in 2004, the addition was her ‘wing’ of the house. Eventually it became its own separate apartment and sometime after that it ended up falling into my hands. Now I’m in here by myself, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. I’ve got my video games all over there in several stacks, my DVDs more or less beside them. I’ve got my leather furniture and my fireplace and my posters. I’m a college-aged male so it’s pretty dirty. I don’t mean like “the DVDs are just laying everywhere” (because I keep them neatly organized), I mean like “will someone please dust that kid’s fucking house”. Just me and my cat here, and right on the other side of the door is the rest of my family in case I completely run out of food or company (hey, college-aged male, give me a break).

A few months ago my little sister got a cat of her own, except as he’s grown he’s started to look more and more like a squirrel. His tail is simply gigantic and he’s hilarious to watch. He loves coming next door to play with me and my cat. Anytime I open the door to go to the other side, you can hear him (and the dog, too, let’s not forget about her) come running from wherever in the house they are to see me and maybe, just maybe, get that golden ticket to come next door when I go back.

He’s a real little fucker too, a big fan of hopping up onto my speakers and diving behind them to play with the wires. If my house ever burned down, he’d definitely be the first reason I’d think of, and that’s WITH gas stoves. One thing he hates is being told no. No, you can’t eat my cat’s food. No, you can’t chew through my electrical cords. No, you can’t kick box my cat. No, you can’t claw the couch. No, you can’t go through that door just because it’s closed. I mean he probably hates being told no because he just has to wait for me to fall asleep and he can do it all he wants without any real repercussions, but still, you have to teach him rules. He’s an animal dammit. Today he was chasing my cat all over the apartment (my cat likes playing but he’s turning eight this summer, not always in the mood for full force fighting, he takes after me like that) and my cat ran under my bed. I decided I was going to step in and pick Momo (that’s the squirrel cat) and move him next door. He didn’t like that. I have two big gashes on my right arm near the wrist (another two months of people thinking I’m one of those chic cutters, fantastic), another big one on the back of my hand, and several small ones in between to show for my troubles.

I didn’t really like this anymore than he likes being told no, so I shoved him right back, then picked him up angrily and threw him next door. I slammed the door and as he looked back, just before it closed, he looked kind of sad, that kind of sad where he doesn’t think he did anything wrong but he knows he upset someone and that doesn’t make him happy. But God dammit I was trying to play some NBA 2K5 and now I had to wrap my hand in a t-shirt because I was bleeding pretty decently for some cat scratches. I wasn’t in the mood to make up with a fucking cat. I knew he’d be back. He always comes back.

So I found a dirty t-shirt (I’m not so good with the laundry either) and wrapped my hand up tight in it and hit the ol’ internet to entertain me until I was confident that I wouldn’t drip blood onto my PS2 controller while playing. Eventually I came across something, a news item, and it really upset me and I kind of stopped what I was doing and just sat there and thought for a while. I wasn’t bleeding anymore, so I went next door and tried to find Momo. No one had any idea where he was. I ended up in the basement and found him, by himself, off on a corner couch curled up and asleep. I felt bad when I threw him out earlier but I felt really bad seeing him all alone so I pet him and he woke up and I apologized for being an asshole. Why do I talk to my cats? They’re cats. Whatever. I walked back upstairs and told my mom what I had read on the internet, that Peter Zezel was dying in a hospital of a rare blood disorder and had been taken off life support. We talked about it for a few minutes and then I came back next door.

A few minutes later there was a soft pawing at my door. Momo wanted to come in. So I let him. And he came over to me and Minion (that’s my cat, by the way) on the couch and sat with us and was a nice boy. And it was nice, and I’m glad it happened. Death has a way of making you appreciate smaller, nicer things in life.

And Peter Zezel died today.

Fuck.

Back in grade twelve I was your perfect grade twelve student. This meant that when we had research time (what the fuck did we need to research? It was grade twelve. Anyone who is reading something on the internet did grade twelve with their eyes closed. The people who had problems in high school are over on YouTube laughing like hyenas over people falling while skateboarding) I was on ESPN.com checking fantasy football stats or something along those lines. One day my law teacher, who was subbing for our business teacher (it was a business class, we were always on the damn computers in business class because what the fuck do you need to learn in grade twelve business?), his name was D’Arcy McCardle though I’m almost positive I’m spelling that wrong, called me out in class. I quickly hid ESPN and spun around and he asked me to come with him, and I was like “oh shit”, and then he said it had something to do with the site I had just been on, and I was like “OH SHIT”.

Luckily McCardle was an awesome teacher and an even better guy and as soon as he got me out of the classroom he told me that he was just fucking with me. We were going down to the office, but that’s because Peter Zezel was coming to our school and they wanted me to ask him a question because they knew I knew a lot about hockey. Sure enough, the next day Peter Zezel was at our annual awards assembly. He gave a speech about effort and trying and success and whatnot. Then they called out a bunch of students in the stands to stand up and ask questions. And of course these were predominantly the best students and whatnot, and they asked questions about trying hard for your goals and stuff. I wasn’t like that, God dammit I was a hockey fan and I was going to ask a hockey question. So when it was my turn I stood up, and I don’t remember the exact wording, but I had looked at his career stats the night before, so I asked him what it was like to get so close to the Stanley Cup in both 1987 and 1993 only to be foiled by Wayne Gretzky’s teams.

I should have looked closer. He came close in 1985, too.

Anyway he kind of smiled and chuckled and I had a huge smile on my face and he tried to tie it back into the general message of success. The head office at the school looked like they were going to have their heads explode. Later McCardle told me that the staff was very impressed with how much I knew about hockey and translated the question to our law class for those of us who didn’t follow hockey or hadn’t been to the assembly. McCardle laughed about it. Jared, who used to write for this blog (and that’s a funny joke, because all three of us USED to write for this blog and none of us really do now), was one of the ones who skipped the assembly. Jared was always a huge fan of the 92-93 Leafs, like everyone on God’s green earth is, and he was massively bummed. We got to meet Peter Zezel, and he didn’t.

We joked about it for months afterward but now Jared will never get to meet Peter Zezel, because Peter Zezel is gone.

Some girl asked why Zezel looked so big, because he looked like he had ballooned, and McCardle tried to tell us about his disorder and how it made him carry extra weight or something. I guess none of us really knew what he was talking about, or didn’t listen, or something. I don’t remember anything about a rare blood disease being brought up. Or that it was potentially fatal. I was blindsided today. I don’t know anyone who wasn’t. Peter Zezel. 44! Fuck. 44.

Age is a funny thing, because the older you get, you’re really playing a twisted game of chicken with your body. The twist is that no matter what you do, how determined you are to win, you will always lose. In the end, you lose. Your body will fail and turn on you at the drop of the hat, seemingly at random, the percentages lining up against you the older you get. I’m 21. I’m 21 and my right shoulder grinds and cracks when I move it and I have no idea why. I’m 21 and sometimes I will wake up in a bed next to someone and my back will hurt so much that I’ll have to spend the day walking on an angle, like a fuzzy, Canadian Quasimodo. I can crack every major joint in my body like it was my pinky knuckle, and I’m 21. Today my sister’s cat clawed open my arm and hand. The bloody scratches are still there. And I’m thankful. I’m thankful even though my shoulder sounds like a meat grinder and my back gives me fits and my joints pop like firecrackers when I tell them to and I have streaks of blood on my hands. I’m thankful even though I’m 21 and my body is certainly older than I am.

At least I don’t have haemolytic anaemia. I can’t even say that. Do you know what that is? If you had asked me yesterday I wouldn’t have known. I know now, though I still can’t say it.. TSN tells me that it killed Peter Zezel. I have no reason not to believe them (…for once). Haemolytic anaemia is a disorder where your body kills your red blood cells. It kills them faster than it can reproduce them. I guess this means that you run out eventually. You run out and die. Peter Zezel died. I have cuts all over my arm and hand, cuts is really a better word than scratches in terms of giving you a visual of what I see right now, and I can see the blood, and I am fucking THANKFUL that my body doesn’t hate me enough to kill off my red blood cells faster than it can reproduce them. That’s a horrible thought. A horrible thought. I know I’m going to pass on when my body decides that it’s had enough, good show old boy but I’m tired and want to go home now, you’ve had your fun. I don’t like thinking about it because it could come in any number of ways. But killing off my own blood cells? That terrifies me more than I’m comfortable thinking about. It happened to Peter. And he’s gone now and I guess all we have left are sad, confused ramblings. And memories.

I was young when Zezel was here in Toronto. Like five, six. To me, and many others, those teams live on through the magic of video tape (somewhere, Jack Horner is disgusted). One such tape was “The Passion Returns”, a tape my dad had that covered the 92-93 Leafs. Peter was featured prominently on the tape and I loved him. I loved everyone on the team because at seven years old you don’t dislike someone on your favourite hockey team in a puff video piece. But you also don’t know what a puff video piece is. You’re just watching a fascinating movie about the best hockey team ever. And you’re falling in love with the sport and each and every player on that tape. Gilmour. Potvin. Clark. Gill. Ellett. Andreychuk (hey, he even has the same first name as me! How cool is that?). Zezel. Foligno. Macoun. Everyone. As I grew older and started devouring everything about hockey that my young eyes could find, I’d always run into players from that tape. That tape and the 94 Leafs and the 95 Leafs when they came back from the lockout and I actually watched and the 96 Leafs which was the year Gretzky got traded to the Blues and then we played them in the first round and they beat us. Those motherfuckers, they beat us. And then Colorado won the Cup and because I was young and they had a cool logo I decided I was an Avalanche fan. I wasn’t actually because, though I didn’t know it at the time, I was bound by blood to the Leafs. Still, my mom later told me she had been planning on ordering me some Leafs’ clothes and when I announced I was an Avalanche fan she decided not to. I’ve actually regretted that every single time I’ve thought about this since I was told I could have had Leafs’ clothes. No one has ever known that.

But I’d run into Gilmour, who was still in Toronto, though not for long at this point, and Potvin who was here for a little longer, and Clark who was gone but holy crap we traded for him again that is AWESOME! And Zezel. The first year I have conscious memories of watching hockey was the 95 season and it was a game against Dallas. Mike Torchia was in net. Peter Zezel was on Dallas. I had no idea why. And we had some buffoon named Mike Craig on our team. I liked everyone on the Leafs’ back then. I even liked Matt Martin. I didn’t like Mike Craig. Later when I was old enough to find individual stat sheets and player histories I’d find out Zezel was basically traded for Mike Craig (restricted free agent compensation, oh pre-Bettman NHL rules). Damn did that ever piss me off. Damian Cox will have you believe that trading the draft pick that ended up being Roberto Luongo was the worst Leafs’ asset mismanagement under Cliff Fletcher but Zezel-for-Craig was pretty fucking awful and I’m not just saying that because of certain events. Like with everyone else from those teams, though, I was always happy to read a team report and come across Peter Zezel’s name and hopefully see him doing well. I remember the year he got traded to Anaheim only for him to not report because he was staying home with his dying niece. That was heartbreaking.

And like that he was gone from my life, the guy with the Z-name from the video, the guy who was given up for Mike Craig, the man who chose family over money. I certainly thought about Peter Zezel after that. Talked about him, with Jared I’m sure. But he didn’t cross my eyesight anymore, until the day that I was pulled aside and was told to come up with a question to ask him. The best I came up with was asking what it was like to lose to Gretzky. Fuck. I could have done better.

I guess at least I didn’t ask what it was like to be traded for Mike Craig.

Still, all day I’ve felt bad that Peter Zezel was lying on his deathbed, removed from life support, a hockey player I adored when I was a little boy, and when I met him a decade later and was actually solicited for being someone who would have something of value to say… I didn’t have anything. Maybe I impressed people with what I knew about hockey that day. But in the end I feel bad and unlike today when I felt bad that I had hurt a cat’s feelings I won’t ever get to talk to Peter again and express my admiration. To fix things. Hopefully he’s somewhere where he’s fixing things now. And kicking the puck to the wing off the draw, naturally.

Goodbye, Peter. I’ll miss you. We all will.

Dave being Dave

Come on, we should all know by now that whenever I say 'I'll finish this later', I don't mean 'later in the day', I mean 'next week', or (more likely) 'not at all'.

Last time, I looked at the problem this team has in a very general sense. You know, the players aren't good enough to win more than they lose regularly in the National Hockey League, the front office is filled with people who probably shouldn't have the jobs they do, and the people who run the team from the board room are a meddling group of incompetents on a good day. Everyone knows the problems with the Toronto Maple Leafs. If you couldn't figure it out just from watching the past few years, you've surely figured it out by the non-stop media bombardment over the past month or so. The Leafs are a mess, people, we all know it, let's go a little deeper today, shall we? I want to look at what this franchise needs to do to get back on track - from a hockey perspective, obviously, as everyone with money invested in the organization is sitting pretty.

The first step, I think, is pretty obvious. Richard Peddie needs to be removed from the hockey operations side of the company. He's done a wonderful job of making money for MLSE. That's great. I'm happy for him and them, I truly am. More power to Peddie for doing... well, whatever it is that he does that makes them so much money. Good for Richard Peddie.

But that doesn't qualify him to be making decisions about the day-to-day hockey operations. It doesn't qualify him to be anywhere NEAR that department. And yet, there he sits, president of the Toronto Maple Leafs. So the first thing that needs to be done is move him out of the job.

(I'm not going to suggest that Peddie be outright fired - are you kidding? From 1998 to 2003, when Steve Stavro sold off and Peddie got involved in the hockey operations, he did nothing but make fistfuls of money for MLSE. He's not making them lose anything now. He won't get fired, and doesn't deserve to. But they should move him back to his old job so he can make them money while not hampering the hockey team.)

Many people, apparently including myself, looked at the chain of events that happened with the Raptors as a good model to take. Peddie hired someone as GM of the Raptors, it didn't work out, so he snaked a proven, young executive to be the new GM. Most importantly, he gave Bryan Colangelo the unilateral power to reshape the team however he saw fit. Colangelo was hired in February of 2006. The Toronto Raptors made the playoffs in 2007. This is the model the Maple Leafs need to adopt.

But if Peddie does not step aside, back to the money-making shadows of the board room, and give control of the actual hockey team to the new people in charge of building it, nothing is going to change, and nothing will matter. As long as Peddie remains president of the hockey team, the team will spin its tires. Period.

Anyway.

Next step is removing John Ferguson, Jr., from the position of general manager. Now, I like Ferguson. I like that we hired a young guy (he was 36 when hired, and is still only 40), and I feel really bad for the situation he was thrown into. Let's be honest with ourselves - Ferguson was never going to succeed regardless of how good he was at the job. And, again, being honest with ourselves - he didn't do a very good job. Is he capable of doing better? I'd think he'd have to be. Does he deserve a shot somewhere else? Maybe. Does he need to go now? Absolutely.

Again, this is someone I don't know if I'd fire outright. It's not like he made the Owen Nolan trade or anything. All kidding aside, can't we give him a scouting job or something? He's a young guy who was handcuffed by the situation he was given. He's worked as a professional scout before, re-assign him to that department. Just keep him away from contracts.

At this point, we've removed the president (Peddie) and the GM (Ferguson Jr.), which brings us to the next guy on the blame train: Paul Maurice.

I personally believe Maurice is the right man for this job. I enjoy his personality, I believe in his style, and I think the blame should fall to the inferior player personnel, not the coach.

That said, I give him one more year. Ideally, the roster is so dramatically reshaped next year that you're able to get a real sense of what he can do with this team. If the results aren't strongly positive, go back to the well. I'm not saying "get us to the playoffs next season or you're gone", but he has to prove that he can steer this ship back to respectability. I keep him on, but with the understanding that he's out of a job if things don't change.

More or less, that takes care of the office jobs that are already filled. I'm still on a very light hockey diet these days - I read a ton, but I don't watch all that much or follow the inner workings of the organization closely, so I'm not the guy to tell you that, say, the head European scout isn't doing his job. Now we need to look towards filling them.

One of the fun parts about this entire mess (assuming you're neither Maurice nor Ferguson, that is...) is that things are changing more or less by the hour. I was fully PLANNING to this post last week the day after I wrote the last one, but then it took a big part of the day to get caught up on what I missed while I was sleeping, and then by the time I was caught up, I had a host of new things to read. And by the point that the day's news had finally slowed, we were all expecting Cliff Fletcher to come back and blow the team up. The tone of my post would have changed, since I was planning on saying something like "I have absolutely no fucking idea who we hire right here and now", so I decided to wait things out. And I waited, and waited, and we still don't have Fletcher making his triumphant, Rock-esque return speech, and here we are a week later. But I digress.

The point of that was to segue to my suggestion for the GM spot: hire Cliff Fletcher. I know, ground-breaking and all, given that the entire mainstream media and blogosphere has been buzzing about this for a week. But still, I'm sticking with it.

I like the idea, a lot. The only condition is that it has to be understood that it's an interim position. We all love Fletcher, but he hasn't executed a successful, long-term plan on a hockey team since he worked for the Calgary Flames. And he left them in 1991.

However, we're looking for a short-term thing at the moment. Specifically, I want Fletcher to come in, cut the fat, stock the cupboards, and position the team to be young and competitive in the coming seasons. His track record (joined the Maple Leafs in 1991, traded five players to Calgary for five better players - including Doug Gilmour - the next season, had the team in the playoffs the season after that; joined the Coyotes in 2001, had the team in the playoffs by the next season when he was kicked upstairs so that Michael Barnett could destroy the team; and I thought he did more with Tampa but Wikipedia has nothing and I can't be bothered to look elsewhere) suggests he can do that. Really, what is he being asked to do? Fill the job until someone with a long-term vision can come in. Until then, clear out as much dead cap space as you can, get whatever young players, draft picks, and general assets as you can, leave the new guy with cap room and young talent to work with, and then sit back in a nice, comfy advisor's job. In the process, you're throwing the fans a bone by bringing back a name from the Passion teams. Why not?

However, I wouldn't expect Fletcher to be calling the shots by the draft, when I'd hope that THE new guy is in charge. So, who is that guy going to be?

Well, I don't have the first fucking clue.

Darren Dreger and other MSM outlets like throwing around names like Ken Holland, Jim Rutherford, and Brian Burke. Holland is the best GM in the league and has some serious tenure with Detroit, as Rutherford does in Carolina. Burke and Rutherford are no slouches, either. How the hell does anyone figure that they're going to bail on their jobs to come and work for this team? ESPECIALLY if Peddie doesn't get out of the way and give them complete control? Don't get me wrong, I'd be utterly ecstatic if MLSE convinces Holland to jump ship, but I'm not counting on it. Most of the other presently employed GMs aren't particularly desirable to me, and the ones that aren't employed, well, aren't employed for a reason. We're not going to be able to go and steal the direct architect of one of the best teams in the league like Peddie was able to do with Colangelo and the Raptors (unless, of course, there's fire to the smoke re: Holland), so I think that means we should look at the best and brightest 'understudy' executives working for other teams who haven't got a shot yet. I'm talking specifically about hiring either Jim Nill from Detroit (he's highly regarded, and if we can't take Holland, why not swipe his assistant?) or Wayne Thomas from San Jose (another well-thought-of guy who's working in a successful organization). My personal pick is Thomas, but I'd be satisfied with either one.

Then you have the president's spot, and I want Scotty Bowman for that - assuming he's still interested, that is. I don't know that he really wants to have the day-to-day grind of the GM job, but hiring him first (and yeah, I wrote it backwards, whatever) and letting him pick his own GM (and if Bowman is doing the hiring, you have to think the chances of it being Holland or Nill increase) and then letting him sit back and get involved when necessary might be tempting. If you can't get Bowman, give Fletcher the president's job when you hire a new GM. Or make the next GM take the president's job, too. I don't know. The goal should be Bowman.

So, if we follow, we're replacing Richard Peddie with Scotty Bowman, John Ferguson, Jr. with Cliff Fletcher and then Wayne Thomas, and giving Paul Maurice one more year. Cool.

Dealing with the mess of the actual team is both way more complicated and way more simple. Get rid of the old guys with big salaries. I'm not one of those message board Leaf fans that dramatically overvalue all of their own players, nor am I expecting significant returns. But, come on. It's trade deadline season. You're seriously going to tell me that in a market with MAYBE five teams committed to selling (Tampa, Los Angeles, Toronto, Edmonton? Buffalo?) and everyone else within striking distance of the playoffs, you're not going to be able to find someone to flip a draft pick or prospect of some sort for some of what needs to be moved? You're going to tell me that Columbus, the last NHL team to have never made the playoffs, sitting on the bubble with ten million in cap space and another ten million coming off the books next year in Sergei Fedorov and Adam Foote's expiring contracts, are going to tell their fans that "sorry, Bryan McCabe doesn't fit in with what we're trying to do here"? A team like Chicago, desperate to make the playoffs for the first time since 2002, isn't going to think long and hard about bringing Hal Gill (who's actually having a pretty good year, oddly enough) on board? Phoenix, in a similar situation as Chicago but a lot more cap space, is going to pass on secondary scoring players in the form of a Jason Blake, Darcy Tucker, or Mark Bell?

Again, I'm not saying get huge returns for them. You can't. McCabe has three years and a 5.75 million cap hit left, Kubina has two years and 5 million per, Tucker has 3/3, Blake has (an absolutely FUCKING insane) 4/4. Bell and Gill each have one more year left at 2.5 and under, so they're actually not entirely that unreasonable, except that Bell pretty much sucks and Gill likely isn't going to play this well anywhere else, ever again. But that isn't the point. Cliff Fletcher does not need to hit a home run with a Pavel Kubina trade, he needs to clear Pavel Kubina's salary off of the books and get him out of here. And, by being aggressive and ruthless and playing on all the factors of a seller's market at this time of the year when teams have cap space and prospects to spare and need to show their fans they're serious... I think at least a few of these guys can be moved.

If I'm running the team, the only three people I DON'T trade are Mats Sundin, Tomas Kaberle, and Vesa Toskala. I'll look at my evidently contrarian stance on Sundin later in the week, but I think you can build a solid team around those three in the short term. I'm looking to the New York Rangers here. When they blew their team up in 2004, they kept Jaromir Jagr. So I keep Sundin. Trade him if you can get a massive return and you know he's coming back next year, but keep him otherwise. Other than those three, everyone is available.

I think Fletcher, or whoever is hired to stick and light the dynamite, has a few goals in order to get the team ready for next year:

1) Clear out as many of the Tucker/Blake/Kubina/McCabe/Bell/Raycroft sucktet as possible. Bryan McCabe is a very useful player in this league, no question, but at 5.75 million on a team that needs to be blown up, he's worthless. Get what you can for these guys. Don't try to swing for the fences unless you're given your pitch, just try to get on base. Clearing these guys out cleans up a LOT of dead cap space and opens up a lot of roster spots. And all of them are moveable. All of them. But do it in the next month, while teams are making retarded decisions. If you can get someone to give up something of value for Raycroft right now, you're not getting it any other time. Pull the trigger.

2) Trade Hal Gill. He's having a good year, he's got one more year at 2.075 against the cap, he's big and he's a veteran. I would never have predicted it, but Gill is pretty much our best non-Sundin/Kaberle trading piece. You should be able to get something decent here. I mean, realistically, how many teams are going to be dedicated sellers? If we go with the five listed before, what is everyone's options on defense? Rob Blake and Brad Stuart from the Kings, Steve Staios and Dick Tarnstrom from Edmonton, Brian Campbell from Buffalo, and then the Toronto guys. Play the market. Play it hard. Teams like Columbus, St. Louis, Chicago, Phoenix, Florida... they're not going to be able to NOT make moves at the deadline unless they fall way out of the hunt.

3) Get Andy Wozniewski off of the team. He's a UFA at the end of the year. Good. Keep it that way.

4) Explore trading Alexei Ponikarovsky, Nik Antropov, and Ian White. Ponikarovsky is the guy I'd most be satisfied with moving, since I think he's pretty much reached his ceiling. While 20 goal, 35 point guys have a place, at his price tag, I'd see what you can get for him. Antropov is finally having the great year he's been teasing since 02/03, and White is a young, puck-moving defenseman. These are players that will help for the future, but if you can get something that will help more, look into it.

5) Stock up on prospects and draft picks. Look, when New York did this in 2004, I remember looking at a lot of the returns they got and thinking "wow, they stacked their cupboards". They didn't. Prospects don't always turn out. Toronto gave up a lot for Brian Leetch - two prospects and a first round pick for Leetch and a swap of mid-round picks - but neither of those players turned out and the pick ended up being flipped to Calgary for another pick - and neither of THOSE two players, Lauri Korpikoski and Kris Chucko, have done anything of note yet. Hell, neither have even played an NHL game. The point is, by getting lots of prospects and picks, you're increasing your odds. Think of it as buying lottery tickets. The more you have, the better shot you have at winning, right? This is the same thing. Get in bulk and hope enough of it turns out so that you break even.

6) Stay away from retarded contracts like those of everyone in point 1.

Now, obviously, there are no guarantees with anything, especially in this business, but I think that if the interim GM can come in and execute these steps, it will clear the slate nicely for the permanent GM. Yeah, it's asking a lot, but what the fuck is the point of doing this if you aren't going to do it right?

This weekend is the All-Star Game, and after thinking about it over the last couple of days, why did any of us really think a big move was coming last week? The ASG provides the perfect opportunity to give everyone a chance to regroup after a big change like this. So I really think that something is coming down the pipe this weekend. I'm guessing Ferguson gets fired and Fletcher is given the interim job. Peddie won't go anywhere, at least not yet, and probably not at all. Why now? This year is a write-off anyway, and Fletcher isn't the guy who's going to get the long-term power. Peddie will step back in the summer, or this team is fucked, period.

Ah, but who are we kidding? This is the Toronto Maple Leafs, people. The three game winning streak we had last week wasn't a fluke, it's how things are going to be for the rest of the season. They're going to pick their game up, McCabe is going to come back, and we'll have another ninth-place, one-point-out finish. Ferguson will keep his job, sign Brendan Morrison to a stupid contract, and trade Jiri Tlusty for Dwayne Roloson. I'll be writing this exact same post next January, just like in March, I'll be writing the exact same "holy shit guys we can make the playoffs for really real" posts I wrote last year.

The sad part is, I actually believe that that is probably what will happen. I mean, this is Toronto. Nothing is ever, EVER, going to change.

That's about it for me. I'll leave with a link to Tom Benjamin's take on the crisis. I need some sleep.

I am still here!

I have not forgotten about this blog OR Nikolai Borschevsky.

We are NOT absentee bloggers, I swear

Ok, so the truth of the matter is, all three of us are very busy with exams right now. Well, I'm not really, given that I've had the week off, but I have nothing to write about (be it here or my other blog) lately for whatever reason. I'm incredibly apathetic to the NHL playoffs right now anyway. Steve is wrapped up in the start of the MLB season, and Jared... well, I'm not entirely sure what Jared is up to right now. If you could look in some ditches or something so we can try to find him, that'd be great.

Anyway, I guess the point is that we don't want you to think that we've abandoned the cause. We're just a little sidetracked at the moment. So I've embedded this little clip of the glory days to help tide you over until we return to our regularly scheduled programming.