Yardbarker: Toronto Maple Leafs

Is It Hockey Season Yet ?

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:22:17 -0500

Am I the only one who is really anxious about the start of the season ? Man the anticipation is killing me ! I'm really not to happy about the RANGERS opening up their season in PRAGUE . My feelings are ,We need to keep this game in the U.S. or CAN . I mean that's the place all the money comes from , Why let another country benefit financially off our sport ? We got a lot of marketing to do in our own country , or eventually we might not have the NHL to watch and enjoy at all !

Eleven Blue Points - A Toronto Maple Leafs Blog: FREE LEAFS TICKETS! (It's Really Not That Exciting)

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:46:39 -0500

So if anyone made it down to the ACC last Wednesday for the press conference you'd have come away with a pair of Leafs/Sabres tickets for the first pre-season game of the year... If you didn't go down don't worry. I've got you covered...READ FULL STORY

DECISIONS, DECISIONS: HAS MATS SUNDIN MADE HIS CHOICE?

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:28:25 -0500

by Mike Jack Captain Mats Sundin has been meditating and reflecting in his homeland of Sweden since the NHL's free agent signing period began on July 1st. An unrestricted free agent, Sundin has chosen this state in order to make the best decision possible about his ultimate future. Sundin's possible choices are: a) Sign with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the team he's lead for the last 13 seasons for an alleged $7 million one-year deal. b) Sign with the Vancouver Canucks, the team that offered the most money - a $10 million per season, two-year deal. That would make him the highest paid player in the league. c) Retire. I believe Mats Sundin has made his choice and he will play for the Toronto Maple Leafs this season. (For More, Go To: http://www.epiccarnival.com/2008/07/descisions-descisions-has-mats-sundin.html)

Brett Favre vs. Mats Sundin: Who's worse?

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:35:38 -0500

Favre and Sundin have a lot in common: both are legends in their cities, both were universally respected, and both have been playing a controversial game of "will-he-or-won't-he" for months that may see them jump to a rival team. But the two cases aren't the same -- one is far worse.

Dealing with Crooks is Gary Bettmans's Fatal Flaw!

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:05:45 -0500

Bad judgment is like a disease, I believe this axiomatic. That Bettman has failed in numerous respects as a commissioner of the NHL is unto itself lacking the fatal qualities of his most recently publicized decisions.

From One Shabby Team to Another: Maurice to Interview for Islanders

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:14:54 -0500

The Leafs discard Coach Paul Maurice, the Sharks donate Ronny Wilson to the Leafs, then the Isles ditch Nolan, and now Paul Maurice interviews with the Isles? The Leafs are the only ones lucking out. OR is it just that these teams' players need new leaders? There are a total of 7 candidates vying for the position of Islanders' Head Coach, including former Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella (replaced by Mr. Hockey, Barry Melrose) and his assistant, Mike Sullivan, possibly former Atlanta coach Bob Hartley, and current Providence Bruins coach Scott Gordon in Boston's organization. Former Colorado coach Joel Quenneville is also available. Finally, the current Islanders assistant Gerard Gallant, who previously coached Columbus, will interview. Who should get the job? Tortorella and Hartley have Stanley Cups.

NHL Futures, HNIC Song and Wild 3-Way\

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:59:18 -0500

As good as hockey talk gets in the middle of July. Cup Final prediction, Trade rumors and silly theme songs.

RANGERS REJUVENATED !

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:22:31 -0500

Well my fellow DIE HARDS this season at the very worst will be really fun to see . The NEW ! York Rangers will be quick REJUVENATED and vibrant . This team will come in with gusto ! For the most part I feel Mr. Sather has done a pretty good job at sifting through the free agent market to find our beloved team the best hungriest players available . I feel the trades he made were even more impressive. I'm very happy this team was not bullied into signing Jagr or Avery , don't get me wrong I love both players but money was definitely an issue and furthermore this team has to make room for some talented call ups . The NYR are in the midst of changing over there is a metamorphosis about to take place right before our eyes . There is one thing I would be elated to see ,and that's the signing of MATS SUNDIN this guy would thrive here and I know many of you guys probably think this cant happen but I strongly believe that the hesitation on SUNDIN's part is because he truly wants to be a NEW YORK RANGER ! many sources have reported that NY is tops on his list . Well with all this said I love what my team has done getting rid of the dead wood , and signing guys who were overlooked or unhappy but most of all very skilled . This season is gonna rock ! The Hockey GODS are SMILING on the NEW YORK RANGERS !

CAN RANGERS INK SUNDIN ?

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:08:38 -0500

This is the pivotal question I'm asking all fans of hockey .Can the NYR get SUNDIN .Would he be a good fit on Broadway ? Im asking this because I feel he is the perfect man for the NYR I'm just not sure if everyone else feels like I do . Now call me crazy but i can really see him in a RANGERS jersey .This would make the RANGERS a serious threat to contend ? I would love to hear from you guys on this issue .Please don't respond if you are gonna be negative in your response ,thanks .Maybe the hockey GODS will shine on NEW YORK and deliver us SUNDIN ! I love the young guns but we need the general(SUNDIN )to lead the troops . thanks for your interest.

NEW YORK DUMPS TRASH IN TORONTO

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:27:20 -0500

HAHAHA take that. The NYR have dumped some trash in toronto .What were they thinking? Why i ask Ryan Hollweg is the worst hockey player I've ever seen play .Well thanks for the pick we owe ya one . Now hows about talkin Sundin to come to broadway. That would put the cherry on the cake.Well at least if the towel boy gets hurt they got a fill in.Maybe he could sweep up the joint wit his new stash.Im sorry but this is a bad move on the part of toronto but hey one mans trash is another mans trash .HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Eleven Blue Points - A Toronto Maple Leafs Blog: July 15th And I Decide To Post Again...Whatever

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:26:32 -0500

So it's been the better part of 7 months since my last post. Just typing again gets me pissed off about The Leafs. Anyways, thought I'd pass along this little e-mail that I received from Matt Stajan...(you're an idiot if you actually think Matt sent this): READ FULL STORY

SINCE ROY HALLADAY IS SUCH A BILL MURRAY FAN ...

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:23:15 -0500

by Neate Sager, Out Of Left Field

Roy Halladay, you might be on B Squad, but you're the B Squad leader.

On Monday, Halladay likened playing for the perennially also-ran Toronto Blue Jays to being "like a little bit of Groundhog Day ...You want to talk about why we're succeeding, what we've done to help us get to the point of where we're at, and we just haven't done that ... It's hard to keep talking about the same thing."

To a diehard Jays fan, that's the equivalent of, in the last two hours, having lost your job, your apartment, your car and your girlfriend. And then depression set in. There's only one way to respond -- with an open letter pieced together from Bill Murray movies. It's the best way to get inside this guy's pelt and crawl around for a few days.

Dear Doc,

So it's true. A commenter on Drunk Jays Fans a while back claimed you'd been overheard wondering over dinner in a Toronto eatery if you were doomed to play your entire career in Toronto and never make the playoffs. It must make your lips numb just to think about it.

If this was coming from someone who isn't the god of ground-ball outs, people would be saying, right about now, his bladder feels like an overstuffed vacuum cleaner bag and his butt is kinda like an about-to-explode bratwurst.

This is a letdown. In the grand scheme of Blue Jays baseball, a high-dollar hurler betraying any trace of human emotion is really more of an A.J. Burnett thing. You're the Doc. You can chew your way through a concrete wall -- or the New York Yankees lineup, as you did with a two-hit shutout last Friday at Rogers Centre, the world's only 50,000-seat video-rental outlet -- and spit out the other side covered with lime and chalk and look good in doing it.

As a bonus, you usually finish the job in less than two-and-a-half hours.

This can be forgiven. You forgot that your cross to bear is putting up Cy Young-worthy stats while throwing for a team owned by Rogers Communications. Rogers' baseball philosophy: A hundred-dollar shine on a three-dollar pair of shoes. That kind of explains why the Jays have given 205 at-bats this season to Kevin Wench.

You saying you're unhappy and "one thing I really want to accomplish in the rest of my time, is win a World Series," could mean Toronto is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions, real wrath of God type stuff -- human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Up until now, the impression was that you were cool with being the best Roy Halladay you could be. That was enough for us, even if it never was with Mats Sundin during the NHL season. You taking the mound every fifth day was one reason not to look at the long winter and see a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope -- but enough about the Toronto Maple Leafs.

What else is there for a baseball geek in Canada, aside from fulminating at the brilliant bits of misinformation that periodically spew forth from GM J.P. Ricciardi? Since you pitch for a team that hasn't been anywhere near the playoffs since both of us were in the eleventh grade, the satisfaction of a job well-done is supposed to be enough to keep you happy.

Who knew? You're always so concerned about your reputation. Einstein did his best stuff when he was working as a patent clerk!

You're not alone in having a weak moment in Jays-land. In the spring, there's always the wild thoughts, imagining a real Cinderella story, came out of nowhere, to lead the pack in the cutthroat AL East. By the team summer heats up, it's usually obvious that even if you guys play so far above your heads that your noses bleed for a week to ten days; even if God in heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field; even if every man woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn't matter because all the really good-looking girls would still cheer for the Red Sox and the Yankees because they've got all the money and for the Tampa Bay Rays because they have more brains, and those teams will go to the playoffs!

It just doesn't matter we win or we lose. It just doesn't matter!

You're needed in Toronto to take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, the Red Sox and Yankees can buy anything -- and the Rays have a much better drafting record than the Jays have under Ricciardi -- but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it.

The pathway to salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor's edge -- which more or less sums up your team averaging only 3.8 runs in your starts this season.

That is your burden. If you could pitch in a hair shirt, you would. Having to have a World Series ring to be validated is some screwhead fetish. You're pitching for the doomed, otherwise known as diehard Jays fans. They're lost, they're helpless, they're somebody else's meal, they're like pigs in the wilderness.

They --we -- need a leader every fifth day. An army without leaders is like a foot without a big toe. And you're always gonna be here to be that big toe for us.

Of course, you'd like a little something, you know, for the effort, you know. Oh, uh, there won't be any October glory, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.

So you got that goin' for you, which is nice.

(There are 17 quotes from Bill Murray movies buried in this post. How many can you find before resorting to checking IMDb?)

Hollweg Traded to Maple Leafs For Fifth-Round Pick

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:14:34 -0500

The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Ryan Hollweg from the New York Rangers for a fifth-round pick in 2009. The pick was originally part of the deal with Pittsburgh for Hal Gill. Hollweg, arguably one of the worst players in the NHL, has amassed a whopping 12 points in his 3 years in the NHL. Known more as an "enforcer" or a "fighter", most people's issues with Hollweg come from the fact that he is bad at fighting and more often than not misses checks and running himself into the boards. This was a steal for the Rangers and yet another poor move for the Leafs. Maybe he'll turn it around in Toronto. Or maybe he'll continue to be a drain on someone's pocketbook. Either way, Hollweg will get paid, when he really shouldn't.

Tampa Bay Lightning and GM Jay Feaster go separate ways

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:27:55 -0500

It seems to me that every week there's a new Tampa Bay Lightning move, to be honest with you I believe this one is crazy. Jay Feaster had been the club's GM since 2002 and he was an assistant GM since 1998. This guy turned the Lightning into a cup winner (something no one would have imagined), he [...]

Mr.Sather (dont let us down) Sign Sundin !

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:43:05 -0500

Well let me start by saying this off season has hit this team really hard.We lost the heart and soul of the nyr.We all know who im talking about.Let me explain why i feel that the front office has made a huge mistake . First of all jags was awesome for us even though his numbers in the regular season was down he had played some of the best playoff hockey since mess in 94 .I atribute his reg season numbers being down to the fact that he wanted to keep his options opened . We all know jags was a steal for us at just over 4 mil a year and jags knew that as well the front office needed to step up to the plate and give this man whatever he asked for but instead they throw a ton of money at naslund. Come on we all know that is not the answer to replacing jags . Here it is the fix to this is SIGNING SUNDIN NOW !!!!!! If you want to get young i can understand that.But we still need mentors to guide the way . after all the goal is winning the CUP this upcoming year and even though i love the youth movement and i do believe that the team as is ,will be exciting to watch its all about competing for LORD STANLEY'S CUP.We all know that with this team as is we cant do that without at least 1 more scoring threat,and no one player fits our needs like SUNDIN does .So isay to you please Mr.Sather open your eyes as well as your purse and Sign SUNDIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!