I know, it's summer, and hockey is the last thing on most people's minds. God knows, the Stanley Cup playoffs go on and on, longer than Celine Dion's heart. In my world, the NHL playoffs would end the night before baseball season got underway and would start the night after the final game of the World Series. But then again, my world isn't ruled by the almighty dollar sign.
And just because the playoffs are over doesn't mean I can sweep hockey out of my head. On the contrary, what with this frenzied free-agent madness, hockey's top of mind every day right now.
I have to admit in analyzing the lockout and its fallout, I was dead wrong in almost every particular. I thought the game would take years to recover, and that at least three U.S. teams would fold. Although the television ratings in the States are nothing short of abysmal, and hockey still ranks below, say, team tetherball in American consciousness, the gate for most teams is up, in some cases dramatically.
I thought the crackdown on obstruction would last until sometime in mid-November, but they were still calling five-on-threes in the Cup finals. As a result, the game sped up considerably and became fun to watch again.
I thought hell had frozen over when Trevor Linden led his players into the jaws of a salary cap everybody had sworn up and down they'd never accept. Turns out the cap hasn't hurt. In fact, money's getting thrown around same as it ever was. What this cap has done is levelled the playing field so that more teams can afford, say, a Chris Pronger. Let the bidding wars commence.
My beloved Leafs backed themselves into a corner last year by overpaying for a bunch of mediocre or worse free agents, by opting to keep Ed Belfour, by inept coaching. Even so, they went on a hell of a tear at the end of the year and almost snuck into the playoffs. As eighth-seeded Edmonton showed this year by coming to within a whisker's distance of the Cup, anything would have been possible.
But the playoffs were missed, and MLSEL thus missed out on a bunch of revenue they've learned to count on. Clearly, something had to be done.
Something was. First, Quinn was fired and Paul Maurice was brought in to replace him. Then Domi and Belfour were let go, and we brought in Andrew Raycroft, Pavel Kubina and Hal Gill.
Hmm.
When you're a Leaf fan, every move your team makes is either brilliant or terrible. There's no middle ground. Here, accordingly, is a schizophrenic assessment of our progress so far this off-season.
So. Paul Maurice. He coached so many of our yowwens so well over the past season: every callup looked comfortable and confident. He'll whip this team into shape. Reached for comment, Rod Brind'amour guaranteed the Leafs would make the playoffs in 2006-2007.
Funny, isn't it, how Maurice left the 'Canes and then they won a Cup? I wonder, if a Leaf playoff spot hinges on a game between us and Carolina, will Brind'amour order his team to tank?
Andrew Raycroft. He won a Calder Trophy two years ago with fantastic play. He's just the goalie we need until Tuukka Rask is ready to take over.
...Except we traded Rask for Raycroft. And hey, did you notice Raycroft was one of the few goaltenders in the League last year whose stats were worse than Eddie Belfour's? Nice upgrade there, eh?
Pavel Kubina and Hal Gill. Big, bruising defensemen, one with offensive upside, one with a nice defensive game. They'll take pressure off Kaberle and McCabe. The blueline looks set.
Really? Kubina's a career -98. Gill is slower than constipated mole-asses. Kaberle remains our only solid all-around defenseman.
Up front, we've done...nothing. As of this writing, there's still no winger in the organization fit to skate on the same ice as Mats Sundin. It looks like we're going to re-sign Lindros, who spent most of last year injured, and Allison, who spent most of last year handing out pucks to the opposition. But as JFJ said, the problem last year wasn't scoring goals, it was letting too many in. Hence Raycroft, Kubina and Gill.
Just once I would like to see Leafs management do something bold, something that the nattering nabob of negativity in me won't seize on. I know hockey's a crapshoot, but it's long past time we shot the crap out of our team.
There's always next year....
2 comments:
Ken, I challenge you to find a team--preferably a Canadian team--you can support and feel good about supporting. If you're so miffed at the Leafs' choices, perhaps they are not the team for you after all....
Just don't be a Habs fan, please! In my biased opinion, they SUCK.
:)
Jen,
I posted this on the Leafs fansite.
I've been a Leaf fan since I was bandied around on dad's knee at the age of three years old. As I am now 34, this means I've never seen my team in the finals. And I've been through some incredibly lean years, the sorts of years where every goal for was a win, every win was a playoff berth earned, and a playoff berth equated to a Cup. What's worse, I've seen Leaf management translate those lean years and their attendant high draft picks into bust after bust. It's like they had, for the longest time, the unfailing ability to reach into a pool of highly touted prospects and pick the one lemon.
Then they got good when Gilmour was kidnapped out of Calgary. Gilmour remains my favourite Leaf--were I a bit older, I'd probably cite Sittler--and by and large, since '93, we've been a competitive team. Not a great team--there's still the matter of no finals appearances, let alone Cups won--but a pretty good one.
I've discovered that when the team is pretty good, being a fan is even harder than when it sucks. Because you just want to beach-slap these guys over the hump. Some nights, when the hump is there to be surmounted, they simply don't show up, and you tear your hair out.
Being a Leaf fan weds you to the team. Like any marriage, there are rough patches--'why does my wife have this infernal infatuation with Nik Antropov? the homewrecker'--but in the end, you're wedded as much to the drama as anything else. And no team satisfies your lust for drama more than the Leafs. Thanks to a ravenous media, every single superstar is linked to your team. Trade rumours coalesce out of the ether like so many bubbles in soda pop.
The Leafs are also like your brothers, in the sense that YOU have the right to sh*t all over them, but if anybody who isn't part of the family says an unkind word, well, you know what you have to do.
I sometimes think about trying to become a fan of another team, but I really do believe that Leafery is in the blood. As such, the blood is apt to reject anything that's not blue and white.
So I will continue to root, root, root for the home team, and hopefully one day my lifelong fandom will be rewarded.
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Truth is, I'm enough of a hockey fan to appreciate pretty much every other team. There are four teams I hold varying degrees of animosity for. In reverse order, they are Detroit, Montreal, Ottawa, and Philadelphia. Other than those four, I'll cheer for anybody if my Leafs aren't an option. I followed the Oiler run religiously. And I'll follow Vancouver's run next year. (You saw it here first.)
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