TORONTO'S SECOND NHL TEAM, AND OTHER FRIDAY AFTERNOON TIDBITS

Just some short stuff to wile away this Friday afternoon:

• Here's a topic that's kind of in the same vein as Toronto and the NFL: A second NHL team in T-Dot. James Mirtle has a good post up on this, building off a Globe & Mail column by Eric Duhatschek, pointing out how "ridiculously underserved" the GTA is a NHL market. Maybe it's naive to think that the Condo Builders would ever allow a competitor in, but it's good to see there's a growing chorus that realizes that Leafs games are a private party and that offering the AHL Marlies as an alternative is pretty thin gruel.
  
  Associate Blogger Neil Acharya and I were talking the other day. We're both sports fans. We try to see a couple Jays games together each year, and we've talked about seeing the Raptors, or travelling to the U.S. for baseball, or overseas for soccer. Yet the topic of going to see the Leafs at ACC never comes up, since we know getting tickets is out of the question. Eventually, that loss of connection will grow into apathy, so really, it is in the Leafs' interest to allow competition. Personally speaking, having the Senators as a rival has renewed interest in the Leaf
• Rogers Sportsnet's Ian Mendes is playing provacateur, asking why there such a different perception of the Leafs and Senators' respective Swedish captains when Mats Sundin and Daniel Alfredsson's playoff goal scoring is essentially similar. (Mendes' post predates the games the Ontario rivals played this week.)
• The truth hurts, Sager... from Ottawa Sun columnist Ann Marie McQueen: "... red hair is a hard look for men to pull off. Not that they can do much about it, of course."
• The Golden Gaels are up the creek, sans paddle... but all hope is not lost. Here's the Whig-Standard's advancer.