Great moments in OMF: Non-sports columnists columnizing on sports

(Moral of the story: Anything only known to us through black-and-white photos and film footage, probably not relevant to the present day.)

It seldom ceases to amaze why columnists who are not on a sports beat get to waste ever-shrinking newspaper space writing about sports. It almost always ends in mental cutaways to Barbara Bush saying to a reporter, "I'm embarrassed for you," or Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski bellowing, "Donny, you're out of your element!" That alone is usually enough to say, don't bother with behind-the-curvers.

Still, you wonder why someone such a columnist at the Toronto Star gets to cliché-monger his way through a fine whine about the Toronto Maple Leafs having the NHL's longest Stanley Cup drought among the Original Six teams, since the Chicago Blackhawks won for the first time in 48 seasons. It also covers a twit typist for the Ottawa Citizen using the World Cup as a device to betray his own aging white guy insecurity by recycling feeble footy jokes about "let's go to Nairobi to find out how to make a soccer ball out of garbage" and "stay tuned for Ghana versus Serbia!"

There are people who pull off the cross-over. Stephen Brunt can touch on universal themes through his books and columns. Earl McRae, whom it was privilege to count as a colleague, could do it with aplomb. There are people who are shifted from sports to "city side" to plug a hole. It's a very short list, though.

The practice could be justified by saying, "Well, sports affects people's lives and the mood of a city and everyone is entitled to an opinion." Anyone who writes a column eventually resorts to writing one about how they have no use for a particular sport (if memory serves, someone wrote a "I choose not to golf" column for the Simcoe Reformer one time, but at least it ran in the appropriate section).

It never goes the other way, though. A sports columnist does not get to say, "Screw writing about the Senators' salary cap situation. Today, I am writing about light-rail transit even though I am barely acquainted with the details and the paper has people with a much firmer grasp of the subject. It affects Senators' fans lives and everyone is entitled to an opinion."

Besides, most of the time, when the columnist ranges into sports, it's a gong show. Take it away, Royson James:

"Consider, since the likes of Frank Mahovolich and Red Kelly and Ted Kennedy, hockey’s best players have not worn the blue and white. Canada’s Team — the grand and glorious Maple Leafs — has failed to sign a single one of the game’s greatest players during all those championship-empty years.

"Wayne Gretzky may consider this his NHL home city, but Leaf team owners managed to scuttle any chance The Great One would skate for the home side. Bobby Orr, Mark Messier, Pavel Bure, Teemu Selanne, Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and the most spectacular talents shone elsewhere. Leaf fans settled for Darryl Sittler, Mats Sundin and Doug Gilmour."

Talk about a flagrant misread — which teams did the transcendent stars of the 1950s and '60s such as Maurice Richard, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe and Jean Béliveau play for again? HockeyDB also has no listing of a "Mahovolich."

A cursory understanding a sports history, which granted is not a job requirement for laying out pages in either Toronto or India, would suggest it is folly to compare the Original Six days with the modern 21- to 30-team NHL. The Leafs of yore were one of just six teams. In those days before the entry draft, they had right of first refusal on any player in the richest and most populous region of essentially the lone country scouted by the NHL. All that, and Bobby Orr ended up in Boston. Speaking only as smugly as someone not yet alive may, it is a wonder the Leafs captured only nine of the 25 Cups during the Original Six period.

The Montreal Canadiens, with first crack at players in the second most populous region of the same country, won 10 over the same time span. Like Harry Sinden said once, "Let me tell you about that so-called great rivalry ..."

Point being, why give space to someone who writes the Blue Jays won "back-to-back titles in 1991 and 1992" and expects overworked copy-editing cats, who someday soon will be located in Sagar, would correct it to 1992 and 1993? Or thinks he's scoring debate points by referencing how the New York Yankees "routinely sign baseball's biggest names and brightest stars" without informing readers who might not follow sports religiously that Major League Baseball has no salary cap, unlike the NHL?

The same goes for Mark Sutcliffe at the Ottawa Citizen, the same guy who finds humour in the abject poverty of Nairobi, spewing about CBC's World Cup coverage. There is no need to party like P.C. thugs circa 1991 and accuse him of anything ending in -phobia. Hacky and hickish suffice.

Someone who feels it necessary to spend two good paragraphs explaining to readers Canada is not playing in the FIFA World Cup should probably see if the LCBO has that little-known English lager Shutyerwordhole on special during said FIFA World Cup.

Far be it to say Sutcliffe is writing more out of his generational discomfort than any actual knowledge. That would be a classic case of a writer creating an imaginary divide to soothe his own ego, and he's not to be bested in that Olympic event:

"What does it say about our hyphenated national identity that between Sidney Crosby's goal and the next Winter Olympic hockey tournament, this is what passes for a unifying event: Millions of Canadians enthusiastically waving the flags of other countries?

" ... Plus, the soccer audience is more urban and urbane than the typical Canadian, which might attract a different advertiser to the CBC. Hockey evokes a rural picture, with guys in mullets and lumberjack shirts sipping Tim Hortons while they watch their kids on the outdoor rink. Soccer is played by the archetype metrosexual, David Beckham."

Metrosexual? No one has used that word in three years, although in Ottawa, being three years behind the times would have ahead of the general populace by a cool decade.

Short answer, it says we live in a great country where people have an option in their rooting allegiances. It is not harmless, although it's a challenge for the Canadian Soccer Association when the national team is playing a home friendly.

However, that is a question for the soccer crowd to answer and report back to the group. Point being, people who do not know sports being allowed to embarrass their newsrooms and the trade is bad editorial policy, or old media fail. That space could be used on something more meaningful. The non-sports columnist opining on sports belongs in the Bad Idea Jeans Hall of Fame.

It also goes against the grain of a better way to do it, finding broading meaning by staying specific to a subject. Be universal by being particular. Like, no wonder this site went back to being a hobby blog, eh? That's how the mulleted Tim Hortons patrons would say it.

What some reaction to Brendan Burke really says

Presumably you saw the John Buccigross feature on how Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke's 21-year-old son, Brendan Burke, who is gay, hopes to work in the hockey industry.

Please excuse the eye-roll at the well-intentioned but empty sentiment. It's understandable if this changed your opinion of the elder Burke "because of his reputation as a hard-nosed, black-and-blue executive who extols the virtues of fighting in hockey," but now that you have had time to digest the news, ask yourself if it should. It reeks of the media getting caught up in the persona it's assigned to a sports figure and perpetuating those generalities. You could even say it plays into old stereotypes that anyone who is gay, or doesn't find gay people evil, is weak or not a person in full.

Brian Burke, by all accounts, is a sharp dude (just ask him), he's educated and has been exposed to a fair bit of the world, since he's always moving to a new GM gig every few years. He is also loyal. One could argue that would make him more likely to develop a stronger bond with his son than some average Joe. Most bigotry comes of out being sheltered or not very smart (gee, can't imagine why sportswriters would be oblivious to this concept).

This mostly rates attention due to the status of the father. The tail wags the dog. What sort of got buried is that the Miami Redhawks, a college hockey team full of 18- to 22-year-old jocks, accepted Brendan Burke as he is. Perhaps the sports world is more forward-thinking than behind-the-curve sportswriters would have you believe. Buccigross was able to show without telling, bless him:

"In between the first round and the Frozen Four, you tell one of the Miami players you are gay. Another player figures it out on the morning of the national championship game, and you have to pull him aside and tell him not to tell anyone before the game. You don't want it to be a distraction. You ask him to wait 12 hours after the game; then he can tell whomever he wants.

"After the heartbreaking overtime loss to Boston University, and mainly by word of mouth, your news gets around to the whole team. There isn't a big emotional sit-down talk, although you do speak with some of the guys personally. The general response is 'OK, Burkie's gay. Who cares? Pass the beer nuts.'

"About a week later, you approach your boss, the director of hockey operations for Miami, Nick Petraglia, and tell him. Then, a few days later, you tell Coach Blasi. You are pretty sure one of the players told them both in advance to give them a heads-up, but neither cares, and both are incredibly supportive.

"Blasi says that having you as part of Miami's program is a blessing and everyone is much more aware of what they say and how they say it. He says he is as guilty as anyone and everyone needs to be reminded that respect is not a label but something people earn by the way they live their life. Coach Blasi says you are a great student and an even better person. You say Coach Blasi is a great coach and an even better person."

That's the real story, far as this high-tech redneck is concerned. Ask yourself if you can see that happening with a major junior franchise team. Perhaps it has already. We don't know, since all the sports columnists who are now compelled to write, "There are gays in sport, gays in hockey, gays in society. I know of many who have served in front offices and scouting capacities. They shouldn’t have to hide, now or ever," have seldom if ever bothered to write that column on a day when it was not convenient or current. Note he said nothing specific about a gay player. And who is so pathetically naive he thinks he's being profound by pointing out there are "gays in society?"

True, you might not have read that 10, 15, 20 years ago in a daily newspaper, so it does represent progress to a limited extent. Don't miss the point. You should resist putting people in tinier and tinier boxes where if they believe in A (fighting in hockey = good), then they must believe B (gay people = not good). There are gay people who vote Republican or Conservative because they want lower taxes, a stronger military or are just stupid (assist to J.S. Mill). There are NDP voters who go hunting. You should never assume a singularity to anyone's personality, even though we're all guilty of it sometimes.

Accepting his daughter is gay and being in favour of gay rights did not make the former vice-president of the United States any less of an asshole or stop him from shooting a man in the face. The same would go for Brian Burke.

Meantime, all the best to Brendan Burke and the people on the Miami hockey team, who did the right thing without expecting a medal or a pat on the back. (You may argue that if he works in hockey, it's more of a tribute to nepotism than a repudiation of homophobia.)

That's where change happens in this world, not in trading on outdated stereotypes. Besides, when it comes to old-school admirers of truculence being comfortable around gay men, Don Cherry long ago retired that trophy:

Mornings with Mr. Canoehead

Water off a duck's back, raisins off an Oldsmobile ... what's not bothering you know.

... Sports columnists who think they have a right to comment on Serena Williams' body. Shame on you, Jason Whitlock: "She'd rather eat, half-ass her way through non-major tournaments and complain she's not getting the respect her 11-major-championships résumé demands...seriously, how else can Serena fill out her size 16 shorts without grazing at her stall between matches?"

... Whoever at FOXSports.com came up with the "Jays' Halladay all but gone in Toronto" headline based on J.P. Ricciardi saying, "if something makes sense, we at least have to listen." Flimsy basis, much? New rule: If a list of teams a reporter believes someone might be traded to exceeds one-third of the league, it's straight out of Eklund country. Quoth Craig Calcaterra: "The Blue Jays ... cannot spend a decade talking about how impossible it is to compete with Boston and New York and then turn around and give them one of the best starting pitchers in baseball during a pennant race ... if it did, it would potentially kill baseball in Toronto forever, and the fact that Rosenthal spends any time on those options at all suggests that this is more of a 'throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks' column than anything else."


... Whatever possessed an Ohio sportswriter to say, "Let the rest of the world play rugby," after Team USA beat Canada in the final of the world junior football championship on Sunday. Far be it to point out Americans should be flattered some of their backwards neighbours throughout the world have taken up the gridiron game. No matter how bad the over-the-top chauvinism gets in Canada during the world junior hockey championship, you'd never catch someone saying, "Let the rest of the world play ringette."

... The rumour Leafs first-round draft choice Nazem Kadri did not put on a hat on draft day because of his Muslim faith. Brian Burke was hilarious shooting that down: None of the Leafs' choices put on a hat when called down to the podium at the NHL draft as per a team policy (Burke noted he wanted photographers to get a better shot of the players' faces), plus there were published photos of a younger Kadri wearing a Canadiens hat. Whoever started that is out of touch.

... Bob Uecker dropping hints on-air about the possibility of a Major League 4.

... idly wondering if ave people seen the blog, Tennis Has A Steroid Problem?

BT to the dub, Erin Nicks is back up and blogging at The Universal Cynic. It will get more traffic than this site without even trying, and that's OK.

Spezza's not going camping with Team Canada

There is irony, on a base level.

Jason Spezza's apologists will often suggest there's a chance he can do the Steve Yzerman metamorphosis from all-out offence to two-way centre when he gets older. Well, they both wear No. 19 and they're both right-handed shots. Now the Ottawa Senators centre has been left off the Canadian Olympic hockey team's summer camp roster chosen by none other than Steve Yzerman.

Honestly, it was a joke to write back in May that Spezza was one of the No Way Guys for Team Canada. Granted, this only has to be awkward for Sens fans if they let it be awkward. They like to pile on Spezza as much as the next guy.

Their team will have Spezza's undivided attention and he won't be holding back to try to avoid an injury that would keep him out of the Vancouver Olympics. He won't get burnt out by the playoffs. Anyway, it is dollars-to-donuts that the Ottawa media will try to reassure the faithful by pointing out this does not mean Spezza playing in the Olympics is absolutely out of the question. As per CTV's report, "Players not invited to the orientation camp can still be considered for both the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and 2010 IIHF World Championship. Although the 2002 and 2006 Olympic teams were comprised entirely of players who had been invited to camp."

In other words, Transformers 2 can still be considered for Best Director and Best Picture.

If it is any consolation, three other Canadian NHL teams, the Edmonton Oilers, Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens, do not have a single player going to the summer camp. There is the Calgary contingent, Jarome Iginla, Dion Phaneuf, Jay Bouwmeester and Robyn Regehr, bingo-bango-bongo Roberto Luongo from the Vancouver Canucks. Otherwise, if you follow a Canadian NHL team and would like to see a player who you're not angry with skating for this country internationally in 2010, you're going to have to wait for the world championship.

And you know what that means. Remember, we're all in this together.

On a Kingston-related note, former Voyageurs (and Belleville Bulls star) Dan Cleary has been invited to the camp. Everyone should be rooting for him, since he's a Newfoundlander. The St. Louis Blues centre Andy McDonald wrangled an invitation, too.

Nazem Kadri and the Hockey Reflex

It might be a stretch, but whatthehell.

The way some media portrayed the Leafs drafting Nazem Kadri, a young man who is Muslim, might be a symptom of what a friend calls the Hockey Reflex. It's an umbrella term for a much larger identity crisis which envelops the national obsession. Canada is evolving faster than ever as a nation, albeit not in ways that can be 100% anticipated. That has stoked angst hockey will one day concede some of centre stage to other sports. If that happens (stress, if), it will be because it is cost-prohibitive and a sport of the middle class, which has been shrinking for more than 20 years.

Please bear in mind this is not directed at any individual. It's more of an attempt, as someone on the outside, to try to figure out what is at the heart of the Saturday Star describing Kadri as a "symbol of change" (beat writer Kevin McGran's story) and a sign "the cultural tectonic plates of the GTA just shifted a little bit." (Damien Cox's accompanying column.) The Globe & Mail also got in on the act ("The new face of the good ol' hockey game"). Here you thought the Leafs drafted Kadri because they thought he might be a potential 35-goal scorer whom you can already see skating on a line someday with Taylor Hall. Suspend your disbelief and presume that Leafs GM Brian Burke is waiting for next year to make a big move to snag a phenom from the OHL, instead of just talking about it so much).

Kazem being Muslim is part of the story, certainly. One could not get away with not noting it when only one other Muslim, early-2000s journeyman Ramzi Abid, has played semi-regularly in the NHL (68 games). There are certainly fans who are going to identify with a player who's of a similar background to them, or commit it to memory like his height, weight and junior team (case in point: On Newsday's blog item about Kington Frontenacs forward Ethan Werek being drafted by the New York Rangers, the first comment makes reference to Werek being a "dual Canadian-Israeli citizen").

This comes back to the Jason Whitlock saying that social agenda does not trump truth. One way to get away from a loaded word such as "agenda" is to say that labelling and packaging — Leafs draft Muslim player! — should not stand in for honest dialogue.

Think about it. It as if there is a nettle tugging at the heart that mandates reassuring people that newer Canadians are taking up the game en masse, even when they are not. It comes off as a Hail Mary, hoping there something will just magically happen to off-set trends which are working against sustaining the elitist youth hockey model in Canada.

That would include, off the top of one's head, urbanization, an aging population, the decline of the manufacturing sector in smaller Ontario centres (if the family breadwinner now works at a big-box instead of on an assembly line, it will be tougher to afford new skates for little Logan) and last but not least, the fact the cost of youth hockey is divorced from sanity. You can only count on families being willing to make a sacrifice for so long.

However, The Globe's Jeff Blair had a point when called BS on the Kadri coverage in his Monday column, writing, "Look, I like to sing Kumbaya as much as anybody but it's a stretch to see anything remotely altruistic behind the Maple Leafs drafting a Muslim player of Lebanese descent. Really." The Star, once it had time to flesh out a sober second thought, moved from "symbol of change" stuff to following up with a story headlined, "Immigrants won't flock to hockey for Nazem Kadri." The money quote probably came from minor hockey organizer named Paul Maich:

"We are still not seeing the numbers from the visible minorities that represent the percentages in the local population. I really don't think the short term effect will be that great but I'd like to be proven wrong."

Not to presume anything of some random minor hockey guy, but I'd like to be proven wrong is not far off from, It'd be nice, but I'm not gonna actually make an effort.

Point being, citing Kadri as a "symbol of change" is unfair. This is not out of concern for Kadri. It's presumed he has the head on his shoulders to handle being a hyped-up high draft pick and a Leafs prospect from Southern Ontario, plus being the team's first Muslim. That's for the Leafs and sports psychologists to handle.

The unfair part with some of the Kadri coverage is that it wrongly assumes a person who is a visible minority needs that role model. It's a little too close to the old liberal canard, add-minorities-and-stir. It is pandering. Just because your parents were born in another country does not you need a role model to get into a sport.

We can all find it on our own. Many already do this in Canada. The demographics of a Leafs crowd are distinctly different from Toronto's other teams, but it's a far cry from what it looked like at Maple Leaf Gardens in the 1970s and '80s. People from all walks of life are discovering hockey in Canada since it is the No. 1 sport, although it's overcovered. (There is even a side point that having the world junior here almost every year might be a good entry point, since it's the most publicized hockey event whose format is similar to the World Cup, with group play followed by knockout rounds. That is just a personal observation.)

The Kadri-to-the-Leafs love-in glosses over a larger truth. No matter what your cultural makeup is, you play a sport because there is an opportunity. It's like the riff Chris Rock did on blacks dominating U.S. sports — "and as soon as we get a heated hockey rink, we'll have that too!" (Oddly enough, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's story about the Thrashers drafting Evander Kane did not mention that Kane is black.)

Opportunity hinges on the values of one's family, community and society's ability to pay. On a macro level in Canada, that means there is a push to keep men's hockey on the front burner, even to neglect of other sports, which has passed the point of satire. Meantime, the way it works in this country is that if you want to be great at a sport, your family is expected to go out-of-pocket (unless said sport has a very thin field at the Winter Olympics).

That puts hockey beyond the means and interests of many families, pure and simple. That dictates a day is coming when the drop-off between No. 1 and whatever is the No. 2 sport will shrink. Exercising the Hockey Reflex only prolongs the inevitable.

(As a footnote, some recent examples of the Hockey Reflex. It is a gross generalization, to be fair, but you can see it in the sports section every day.

You can see at play with Canada Basketball having to scrap its successful beyond belief National Elite Development Agency or the fact our national women's basketball team's summer schedule is being subsidized by China and Cuba. Dave Feschuk, writing in the Toronto Star, noted sarcastically, "Thank goodness for Communists."

It's even prevalent within hockey. Earlier this month, ctvolympics.ca posted a story headlined, "Hockey schmoozers to gather at Olympic centre" which outlined how there will be a 80,000-square-foot entertainment and hospitality complex for rich folks and hockey players to hobknob during the Olympics.

On the same day, no less, the Calgary Olympic Oval scrapped its women's hockey program where national team mainstays such as Cherie Piper, Gina Kingsbury, Carla MacLeod, Colleen Sostorics, Delaney Collins, Tessa Bonhomme and Gillian Ferrari train. At least the schmoozers' needs are being addressed, eh!

As a second post-draft footnote, for any Sennies fans — love the choice of Jared Cowen — did you see this from the Columbus Dispatch:

"It's hard to believe how far the Ottawa Senators have fallen, and how fast they went from Stanley Cup runner-ups to one of the most dysfunctional clubs in the NHL.")

Related:
Newest Leaf's hockey-mad home; Kadri's father made sure son could play the sport his own parents couldn't afford for him (Kevin McGran, Toronto Star)
Immigrants won't flock to hockey for Nazem Kadri; New face of Leafs might help introduce the sport, but cost still a big factor (Lois Kalchman, Toronto Star)

Hoserdome 2009: Oh, that court thingy...

The stickiness of a sports business story is usually in inverse proportion to how sticky it is outside. People might have missed the story about a court finding the NHL has been underfunding pensions, especially in Ontario, where it's probably bigger news the LCBO strike has been averted.

"The decision by Ontario Superior Court means the league will have to top up its pension fund by as much as $30 million and may have to make retroactive payments to the widows of deceased players.

"The suit, brought forward last year by the NHL Players' Association, charged that errors in the calculation of pensions for players who died before 1986 meant their widows received as little as 10 per cent of the funds entitled to them."

This does not necessarily go all the way to Gary Bettman and Bill Daly, but it whets the thirst for reading about what depths of malevolence to which a league will sink. Point being, it will be really interesting to see what kind of reception Bettman and/or Daly get on Friday at the NHL draft in Montreal, since it would be his first appearance in Canada since a bankruptcy court dealt a setback to Jim Balsillie's plan to buy the Phoenix Coyotes (which is still very much a going concern).

Meantime (and there is a damned-if-you-do element to this space blogging on hockey on the 24th of June), there are a couple fish to toss out there.

• Have you heard the one about Dany Heatley being traded to Vancouver for the Daniel and Henrik Sedin? It would not come as a shock, after reading Bruce Garrioch's story, that the Senators might end up getting stuck with Heatley.
  
  
• Ex-Senator Martin Havlat Twittered that he is "only thinking about singing with Chicago."
  
  
• Actual words from an actual FAN 590 caller:

  "Any real Leafs fan knows the only way to get better is to suck."

  Believe it or not, people are already entertaining the idea of finishing dead last and earning the right to draft Taylor Hall No. 1 overall. That would certainly explain why the Leafs would have interest in bringing in ex-Senators Wade Redden and Peter Schaefer: They're planning to tank the season.
  
  
• Further to the point about the fault-finding mission with John Tavares, check out an interview that OHL coach Dave Cameron did with Islanders Point Blank:

  "As a head coach in the OHL, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes we over-play our best players. These young men play too much. It is impossible for them or for anyone to go full-out over a 100-game season as a teenager. We ask too much of them. So if anyone - the scouts, the experts, the fans - want to focus on gaps in a young player’s game, there will always be areas to pick apart."

  Meantime, someone actually said Tavares and Victor Hedman might be the same dyad as Alexandre Daigle and Chris Pronger in 1993. That's rough, man. The only common thread there is Daigle and Tavares were both left-handed shots.
  

Fronts: Werek to Boston talk, Gilmour the closet Canadiens fan

Rest assured, the Kingston Frontenacs are still generating post fodder, even though it's the off-season and they haven't announced a trade or whether they have signed any draft picks beyond the first-rounder.

New England Hockey Journal has a look at whether Ethan Werek being drafted — irony alert! — by the Boston Bruins. Meantime, there's the ripple from coach Doug Gilmour telling Sun Media he would "one hundred per cent" want to work for Jim Balsillie if he brings a NHL team to Southern Ontario, right in the Toronto Maple Leafs' backyard.

It seems best to start with Werek, since it's less likely Fronts fans have seen it:

" 'He had a tough start to the year but really picked it up as things went along,' said another NHL scout, one who has followed Werek since his days with the Stouffville Spirit of the OPJHL. 'I think Doug Gilmour taking over behind the bench helped bring out the best in Ethan; he’s big, thinks the game well and has a quick release and accurate shot. He can both set up the play and finish it off, and he finishes his checks and plays with an edge.

" 'While his skating isn't the best, I wouldn't say that it's poor either. He could stand to get quicker, but he’s also showed that he can get there when he needs to.' "

The irony of Werek being a possible pick for the Bruins is that he was bound for Boston University before he opted to report to the Frontenacs.

As he has previously, Werek touched on why he didn't go to Boston U:

"Werek was picked ninth overall in the 2007 OHL Priority Selection by Kingston. At first, he spurned the OHL, determined to join legendary coach Jack Parker’s BU squad, even going the extra step to graduate from high school early. However, when there wasn’t enough room for him at BU in 2008-09 and, faced with another year of junior hockey, this time with Indiana of the USHL, Werek altered course and embraced the opportunity to play for one of the OHL's most storied franchises.

" 'It was a tough decision ... I wanted to go to BU and be a part of that great hockey tradition and outstanding academic institution. When things fell apart, and it was looking like I would have to play another year of junior hockey, it was just something that I felt would hurt my development. I give all the credit in the world to Coach (Jack) Parker and his staff; they were all extremely supportive and understood my decision, but it was one of the most difficult things I've had to do."

That does put the lie to any claim that Werek reporting was any validation for Frontenacs management (ignore the folderol about the Fronts being "one of the OHL's most storied franchises," since they are certainly in the top 20, keeping in mind the OHL has only 20 teams).

Incidentally, the article provides some material for the spin doctors in K-Town, noting "23 of the club's 40 losses were by one goal." That kind of ignores they lost 50 games when you count overtimes and shootouts. Really what 23-of-40 talk says is that this team was no good at winning tight games in the third period. Also, eight of their 18 wins were by one goal. Come to think of it, they won in overtime in Gilmour's debut, with Werek scoring the winner in the dying seconds, and beat London when Werek scored the tie-breaking goal with four seconds to play, on a crazy bounce. Thank goodness for randomness, or it might have been a 16-win season.

The hope, of course, is that the Frontenacs will be improved enough to at least treat Kingston fans to some playoff hockey at the K-Rock Pot next March (and maybe even the first week of April). Hope is tempered by being honest about the organization and not echoing the party line about Larry Mavety being an "astute hockey man" or landing the OHL All-Star game goes farther toward hosting a Memorial Cup than icing a competitive team.

(Owner Doug Springer, of course, said at the outset of last season the team's goal was "top four" in the Eastern Conference. Does this mean he won't celebrate if the Frontenacs finish anywhere from fifth to eight in the East and make the playoffs? Don't hold your breath.)

As for what Gilmour said, it was music to the ears to hear a decorated former Leafs captain say, "First and foremost I played for the Leafs ... but for hockey fans in this area it would be great. From the Leafs standpoint it would create a rivalry. I'm not here to go against the rules or start fighting with Gary Bettman. All I'm saying is that it could work. I don't see a downside." It shows he cares.

From a Frontenacs fan's perspective, though, it's just idle talk. The understanding all along, as it always is with a junior coach, is that if a NHL or AHL team comes calling, you pretty much bid him adieu and wish him good luck. It's the same as it is when a player moves up to The Show. Besides,Mark Potter noted on Kinger's radio show six months ago that pro teams would be quick to show an interest in Gilmour once he showed the barest sign of success. Meantime, he seems

It would be a hoot if Balsillie succeeds in moving a team to Southern Ontario and ends up having a couple former Leafs in the organization. It would be just like how the WHA Quebec Nordiques raided the Montreal Canadiens for players in the 1970s. A lot of dominoes have to fall for that to happen. Gilmour will be there in September ... beyond that, well uh, a man makes a contract with an eye to breaking it, not making it.

It has been 599 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.

(Digression: It's not clear if Gilmour necessarily was raised as a Leafs fan. Kingston was always Switzerland when it came to the Canadiens-Leafs rivalry. Geographic distance, general resentment toward the big city and a local conceit than Kingston was of a more discerning taste than other cities of similar size meant it was never really part of Leafs Nation. It had Leafs fans, Canadiens fans and lots of Boston fans, since the Bruins had a farm team there in the 1960s and there was a connection with Harry Sinden, Wayne Cashman, Don Cherry and Freddie O'Donnell having coached or played for Boston in the 1970s.

Gilmour was born in 1963, so he's too young to really remember the Leafs' last Stanley Cup, but he would have been coming of age while the Habs were winning six Cups in the '70s and the Leafs were mediocre, my how times have changed. The Whig-Standard once ran a childhood photo of him in full hockey gear, wearing a Canadiens sweater. Those colours don't run, just sayin.')

Morning with Mr. Canoehead ...

Stuff that should bounce off you like raisins off an Oldsmobile ...

Alex Rodríguez told a Cleveland columnist that "basketball and golf" are his favourite sports — two weeks after he told a Toronto writer he "can't get enough of" hockey. It's like someone — call him Steve S., no, too obvious, S. Simmons — got sucked in Rodriguez's PR spin.

The fact the prison (Pittsburgh Instition) that Mike Danton has been moved to is actually closer to David Frost's house than the one he was at before.

Being over 30. It means 29-year-old MP Pierre Poilievre is no longer your generational representation in the House of Commons. When the best defence for someone is that he is not necessarily racist, just an idiot, maybe he shouldn't be in Parliament.

Doug Gilmour was interviewed on Rogers Sportsnet during the Red Sox-Jays game last night. Talk about timing: The Jays had lost nine in a row, so they talk to the coach of the Kingston Frontenacs. And what happened during the same inning Gilmour was interviewed? The Jays scored five runs and won the game, so Gilmour was responsible for a turnaround that might only last one game — just like with the Fronts.

(Actually, Peter Zezel must have been pulling some strings.)

Christian Lacroix filing for court protection. It's tough to feel symapthy for a company which sold clothes which people couldn't fit into even if they could afford them.

Something to be grateful for is the British practice of listing the home team first in a sports schedule, which opposite to how it's done in North America. It eliminates the confusion that arises when the TV listings say, "Breakfast at Wembley." Sometimes it takes a second to realize there's no team called Breakfast.

Lastly, the line of the week from TV Feeds My Family, on the morally bankrupt Save Local TV campaign: "The Canadian network program buyers are down in LA right now, doing their damnedest to save local television. Somehow — even though they all say they're broke — they'll come back from the annual LA screenings with most of the 22 new U.S. network offerings."

Where were you in '93? (And some Zezel memories)

Down Goes Brown has a reminder: Kerry Fraser still owes Leaf Nation one Stanley Cup.

It is 16 years to the day of Wendel Clark's greatest game and Wayne Gretzky's quote, unquote accidental high stick on Doug Gilmour. OK, so as injustices go, it's pretty small-scale, but it was as close as the Leafs have got to the Cup since you-know-when.



The amusing part is it only became a big deal after the fact, when the Leafs lost Game 7 on home ice two nights later. What everyone forgets is that fateful Game 6 started at 10 p.m. (it might have been 10:30). It was after 1 a.m. in Ontario when Gretzky high-sticked Gilmour, then scored the overtime winner a few seconds later (the L.A. Kings had started OT on the power play, but there's no need to look up the fact the Leafs had six more power plays in the series, 33-27). The way it's remembered is the next day, almost no one in school (I was in Grade 10 in the spring of 1993, but was able to grow a reasonable facsimile of a playoff beard) knew what had gone down.

Meantime, and there is no easy way to segue, it is hard to fathom the sad news about Peter Zezel, who was the second-line centre on that 1992-93 Leafs team. Kurtenblog had a very nice post about Zezel, touching on the fact he had potential to play pro soccer. Who knows, maybe if he had been born 20 years later, he would have ended playing pro soccer in Europe.

He was a memorable player, cool last name, solid two-way game, and by most accounts, was a good person. (A personal favourite bit of Zezel trivia is that he was an extra in the Rob Lowe hockey movie, Youngblood. Zezel was the Hamilton Mustangs played whom Dean Youngblood takes off before the final faceoff, so he can fight the other team's enforcer. Only in Hollywood do hockey enforcers play centre instead of on the wing.)

Zezel cut his playing career short to support a niece who was dying of blastoma. How many people would do that? Not to be preachy, but is noteworthy that as Sun Media reported, Zezel donated his organs, which more people in Canada should do.

Related:
Hockey loses Zezel (Lance Hornby, Sun Media)
Zezel's little niece gave mom the last tulip; Player knows he did right thing by leaving season for dying girl (Tony Gallagher, Vancouver Province, May 19, 1999)

Everything cool the '85 Bears did, the 1992-93 Leafs ruined

The music video the 1992-93 Maple Leafs made was kind of an oral legend, passed from one member of the tribe to the next, in a sort of you-had-to-see-it-to-believe-it tone — until now. Far be it to think hockey would ever get on a sports/pop culture bandwagon nearly a decade late.



There is half a mind to stand outside Doug Gilmour's house, Lloyd Dobler-style and play this on a boom box until he buys a majority stake in the Kingston Frontenacs from Doug Springer. (Clip via Puck Daddy.)

Blog blast past: Doc, taking dead aim on the rich boys

The best way to sum up how good it feels to be a Jays fan during this 24-hour news cycle is to remember when it didn't feel so good. From July 15, 2008, please keep in mind that this grew out of sitting at home alone watching "the last All-Star Game ever at Yankee Stadium" that also dragged on for 14 innings, here's a post written for Epic Carnival expressing separation anxiety about one Harry Leroy Halladay.

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

On Monday, Halladay likened playing for my perennial 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' high-priced 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 2½ 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 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, even if he's actually a decent GM? 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 time 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?)

(* An amalgam of the Kevin Mench/Brad Wilkerson platoon, let us never speak of it again. Travis Snider, God's gift of sunshine, does look like he could stand go out to Las Vegas and crush a few pitches out of those high-altitude Pacific Coast League parks, though.

** Plus the Rays have one of MLB's best owners.)

Cooking the Books: Feschuk, Grange lampooning Leafs

Mike Myers failed to wring great mirth from the Toronto Maple Leafs' 40 years in the hockey desert, but Toronto sportswriters Michael Grange and Dave Feschuk are going to try.

Hockey Book Reviews has the low-down on their joint effort, which will be published at the start of the 2009-10 NHL season:

Leafs AbomiNation: The dismayed fans' handbook to why the Leafs stink and how they can rise again - Dave Feschuk and Michael Grange have an interesting book coming. It looks like it could almost comical - the listed price: $19.67.

This could be a big seller in Ottawa, especially at that price.

It is the first book for the Star's Feschuk and The Globe & Mail's Grange, if memory serves. Each of them, as you know, usually has the basketball beat at their papers, so they probably should bring a fresh take on MLSE's hockey operation.

Their vigour and willingness to take this all the way should be saluted. It beats becoming passive-aggressive about the Leafs, or having to pretend not to care about Canada's dominant sports franchise, save for occasionally being prolix about the permanent stain of Harold Ballard or the legacies of Wendel Clark and Doug Gilmour.

Incidentally, on the sports publishing front, you should check out the excerpt from Jeff Pearlman's The Rocket Who Fell To Earth, his biography of Roger Clemens. All efforts are being exhausted to secure a review copy.

Ron Wilson has Berger for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Please enjoy Leafs coach Ron Wilson messing with the FAN 590's Howard Berger tonight before TSN and Sportsnet ruin it tomorrow.



Absolutely brilliant, since Wilson owned every moment. You ask a question like, "So, were you annoyed by all those penalties?" and you have it coming. Hockey beat reporters do invaluable work for those on the other side of the rope, but once in a while they need to be reminded they're completely incidental to the whole operation.

Related:
Ron Wilson is a bad man (Cox Bloc)
He had it coming (Norman James Sports)

Laugh 'cause you can't cry; Top 10 comforting thoughts after watching Canada get curb-stomped by Italy

10. Unlike Guy Carbonneau, you still had a job to go to today.

9. Don't worry, almost no one (12,411 in attendance) saw it happen.

8. Downtown Toronto bar owners still stand to reap a windfall from the Leafs and Raptors playoff runs ... in 2025.

7. Something tells us you have probably seen your last Canada Bombs Out headline in the National Post.

6. Number 10 should be valid for another two, maybe three weeks.

5. At least the coach or manager didn't spoil the game for everyone by not starting Martin Gerber ... unless Martin Gerber is Swiss-German for Scott Richmond.

4. Stubby Clapp's pity pinch-hit appearance (glove tap: The Blue Jay Hunter) allowed everyone to coo like they do with a newborn baby. Ooh, he's so cute, and he's sixty-eight inches long.

3. Grandma was able to get reacquainted with jamiecampbell -- such a nice, polite young man -- three weeks earlier than usual.

2. Everyone still has their health, especially Scott Richmond.

1. Hey, you still have as many as 78 Blue Jays wins to look forward to this summer.

Related:
Shark Sandwich (Mike Wilner, Miked Up)
Canada bombs out (National Post)
Montreal media strike again (Ottawa Sports Guy)

Pulling for ya; we're all in this together

Don't criticize what you can't understand. It's always seemed like a good rule, one the sports journalists of a certain vintage would do well to follow (maybe they need Red Green, sitting his workshop: "I wanna talk to all you middle-aged hockey writers out there.")

There's no malice here, but it tickles the giggly to see, just one day after joking about how it is already passe to comment on Twitter (it's No. 24 from Stuff Journalists Like), that globesports.com's David Shoalts kind of morphed into Sam the Eagle -- is nothing sacred?! -- over the fake Brian Burke on Twitter. Granted, everyone else saw the fake Burke saying stuff lines such as, "Wade Redden looks disinterested, worn down and flat out terrible against the Leafs tonight. Or, as he calls it, playoff form,' " as pretty scandalous, if scandalous is a synonym for mildly amusing.

(Update: Sean at Down Goes Brown has confessed it was him; there is more at Puck Daddy. It will all come out in the wash, or hogwash.)

Shoaltsy, though, kind of lost it:

Leaf president and general manager Brian Burke is the wounded party this time, as someone has been impersonating him on Twitter, a social-networking and mini-blogging service. Twitter allows its users to send and read short posts, functioning as a message board for those who think, for some unfathomable reason, their random thoughts need to be inflicted on others.

Shoalts has a point. People have been doing way too much of inflicting random thoughts on each other for the the one to two hundred thousand years. Please stop sharing your random thoughts, unless you're claiming Raleigh isn't a hockey market because a security guard didn't know a team's lineup off by heart:

"During the Hurricanes' morning skate on Friday, a security guard approached a man sitting in the stands. 'Excuse me, sir,' he said, 'are you with the Leafs or Hurricanes or the media?'

" 'Well,' the man said, 'I'm with Bret Hedican.'

" 'Who's he?' the guard said." - some guy, April 28, 2006

Point being, technology is only that to people who were born after it existed, different people have peculiar tastes and anyone with a room-temperature IQ could see it was not actually Brian Burke. It is passe (and pedantic putzery if ever it was) to make this point. At least Jeff Blair gets it:

"So they have me Twittering, and today we're going to start up a new blog called Unwritten Rules. We'll see how it goes. The online world is a lot of fun."

Everything is relative, like the Sennies playoff hopes

Back In the Booth With Trent and Jay (Uncensored)
by truthiness03

Three Razzies for The Love Guru. Stephen Colbert and Jim Gaffigan might have been the best part of the movie, but that's not saying much.

Dougie defined us, fully completely

The analogies with Doug Gilmour fall short, just like the Leafs have so often.

The best stab at fighting through any ambivalence on the eve of Gilmour's big night in Toronto, is that for two years, 1993 and '94, he embodied something that courses through Canadians on a chromosomal level. Plain and simple, he was embodied by what he didn't have, which is like next to godliness in the Great White North, eh.

There's a passage in Roy MacGregor's cult hockey novel (hacky to be quoting, true), The Last Season, which better explains why "great and being loved can be two different things" in sports, hockey in particular (assist to Cox Bloc). A small-town hockey coach, Ted "Sugar" Bowles, closes a pregame pep talk to the protagonist's team, "What makes a shark truly unusual is what he doesn't have. And that's a swim bladder ... A shark has to keep moving constantly. A shark does not float, like other fish. He has no swim bladder, see. He can't let up for a minute and that's what makes him top dog."

Gilmour, in 1993 and '94, was our shark. Either you got him or you never could. It's just like how five of Kingston's other favourite sons, the Tragically Hip, are rock gods in Canada but have seldom charted in the United States. Both were too particular to their time and place to translate very well.

He had to keep moving. In the end, that gets a player more attention than those who have the supple arrogance of grace, which is what doomed Mats Sundin to being Tall Poppy Syndromed. There were better playmakers in the NHL during Gilmour's prime years, such as Adam Oates, or Pat La-La-Lafontaine. There were comparable good undersized players, such as Theo Fleury. For two-way centremen, Steve Yzerman and his three rings come to mind.

None of them stretch across 1993 to 2009 like Gilmour, now the Manchurian Coach of the Kingston Frontenacs.

Please keep in mind it was the Leafs, post-Harold Ballard and pre-Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. Down in Kingston, where ol' Pal Hal had been in the clinker for a couple years in the '70s (he was in Bath Institution, next door to the "Millhaven maximum security" that the Hip mention in the first verse of 38 Years Old), there were boys and girls willing to cheer for the dismal Leafs, instead of the still majestic Montreal Canadiens or the Edmonton Oilers.

There was no pinpointing the low point. My best friend Neil Acharya often talks of the day in 1988 when Mark Potter, the sports anchor at CKWS, led off with, "You'll never believe what the Leafs have done this time," alluding to the infamous Russ Courtnall-for-John Kordic trade. There is an argument it might have been a good deal for the Leafs.

In '89, Floyd (Trader) Smith dealt away the draft choice which the New Jersey Devils used to draft Scott Niedermayer. Ballard died in '90. In '91, Cliff Fletcher came in as GM. In the early hours of '92, Fletcher made The Trade to get Gilmour.



Go ahead and laugh, but the Game 7 overtime win over the Red Wings in the first round in 1993 was, wait for it, legendary. They could have played that series 10 times and the Red Wings, with Yzerman, Paul Coffey and Sergei Fedorov, would have won eight or nine times. Bob Cole's sum-up at the unlikelihood of it all, "I am going to talk to Cliff Fletcher and Pat Burns and I am going to ask them to pick my numbers for the lotto next week," still raises chill bumps.



It is pretty easy to see Gilmour and look back at '93 and get bogged down in bathos. It could never be so linear at age 16. You're such a jumble of hormones, half-thoughts and trying not to get your ass kicked just for living. (Aside: That's different from being 32 how? Well, the ass-kickings only come in the figurative sense.)

It was a pretty good place for an average guy to start self-medicating with sports, music and such. Kingston's Doug Gilmour had the year of his life leading the Leafs sadistically close to the Stanley Cup final. The Hip — there was a young, hockey-haired Gord Downie in a team picture from 1978-79, the goalie on the far left of the front row, hanging at Henderson Arena in Amherstview — had just come out with Fully Completely. The Blue Jays were on their way to back-to-back World Series championships in baseball; Queen's had won the Vanier Cup in football. After Wayne Gretzky's high stick-Kerry Fraser's no call-Dave Ellett's skate happened, the hockey gods came through with a makeup call. Another good Kingston boy, Kirk Muller, scored the Stanley Cup-winner for the Montreal Canadiens a couple weeks later.

Doug Gilmour was defining, no two ways about it. He was a smart player and he had the look, the one that landed him the nickname Killer. He'd worked for everything, from making it to the NHL after being a seventh-round pick to playing his way on to Team Canada in '87. He made hockey seem a little closer just as it drifting away from people in heartland Canadian towns (remember, the year of Gilmour was also Year 1 of Gary Bettman). Maybe it is like seeing your high school yearbook photo, especially when you see the clips from Don Cherry's Rock 'Em Sock 'Em videos, but there's no deniability.



Sixteen years later, it might be just random accessed memories. It is no more important nor more interesting than the Winnipeg Jets of the '70s or the 1982 Vancouver Canucks are to people who grew up in another time or place. There is still the burn every Leafs fan has to live with, knowing his best was not enough to silence the "Sixty-seven!" chants.

For me at least, it is complicated further since, as a rookie coach, Gilmour is now of an embarrassing gong show being perpetrated by Doug Springer, owner of the Kingston Frontenacs. The joke making the rounds is that Gilmour, can no longer be called Killer. That nickname belongs to Brian Kilrea in Ottawa.

There is a symmetry to Gilmour's foray into coaching. Say whatever you want about him as a coach (and people have), but like a lot of ex-jocks, he's just trying to figure out where he fits in, like everyone else. It makes him one of us, OK sure he has a lot more money, but Saturday we will be applauding one of our own.

Related:
Getting a lift; He may not be a distinguished coach just yet, but Doug Gilmour the player is that and more (Michael Traikos, National Post)

Afternoon snark break ...

Today's theme, "You'd be excused for thinking ..."

... Senators owner Eugene Melnyk and the crying Giants fan are one and the same. ("Anybody that says we should blow up this organization should get their own bomb and go blow themselves up." Brutal.)

... Nothing Doug Gilmour — Dougie! — did before he played for the Leafs matters . It's forgotten that he was nails in the greatest hockey series ever played, the 1987 Canada Cup, which seems to have been left out of the official hagiography (give Steve Simmons credit for noting he was just as good in Calgary as he was in Toronto).

... The biggest Super Bowl story is how many or how few middle-aged sports columnists have been sent there by their newspapers. No disrespect to the heroes on Prime Time Sports who chewed this over for far too long yesterday, but it's a non-issue. Super Bowl coverage is paint-by-numbers pack journalism and the best stories are found someplace else.

... All the sportswriters who referenced John Updike's famous essay about Ted Williams probably never read any of Updike except his famous essay on seeing Ted Williams' last home run. Poz is a glorious exception. Anyone who would call it "the Ted Williams article" (Maclean's) needs to do more reading.

... the shorter version of CBC's defence of Mike Milbury using the word "pansification" was that, "People are so stupid they don't even realize it's a gay slur."

... Everything about the Detroit Lions organization has to be changed, but they must not touch the Honululu blue colour scheme.

... Friday Night Lights is the one prime-time show which is most willing to dig into the effects of the recession on average Americans, but it will probably be cancelled before it can.

... The reason the press conference announcing the end of Ottawa's 51-day transit strike was delayed was because everyone had to walk. Apparently, the drivers' union reps left for the press conference in a 40-foot-long limousine — well, they couldn't take the bus!

This post is worth nothing; this is worth noting

• Check out The Tao's thoughts on William Houston leaving The Globe & Mail.

Snark break ... Yamarin away

The Snuggie is being advertised on prime-time TV ... there's an omen.

Minnesota Wild GM Doug Risebrough, coming clean on the Doug Gilmour deal with the Leafs 17 years ago, "This general manager does know one thing. The only Stanley Cup Doug Gilmour ever won was as a Calgary Flame." The nerve of him. How dare someone who was on five Stanley Cup-winning teams take a dig at Leafs Nation.

The Atlanta Braves signed high school pitcher named Yoshinori Yamarin. Presumably he was the Japanese pitcher the Blue Jays were said to be pursuing the other day. (What's Japanese for Tnstaapp?)

Apparently the NHL is equivalent to Spam, or something.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• Please note that ex-Leafs captain Rick Vaive told globesports.com, "If they had a questionnaire for each player, I think people would be surprised by the number of players in the NHL who would say they don't want fighting."
  
  It's too bad NHLPA boss Paul Kelly would never do that. Since when do union leaders ask workers about safety concerns
• Cox Bloc expanded its scope to the hinterlands of Ontario outside the 416 area code for its most recent post and well, a lot of innocent people were harmed.

Fronts: Paging Dr. Cox; time to talk some sense into the newbie

Only in Leafland can a coach's celebrity count for more than whether the celebrity can coach.

The OHL needs to pass a new rule: Teams can't honour a visiting coach who's been behind the bench for fewer games than the Ottawa 67's Brian Kilrea has seasons. It's on another level of fail when said coach works for Doug Springer. (Irony: Kilrea's last visit to Kingston is on Wednesday.)

Perhaps Barrie Colts owner Howie Campbell, given that half the teams in the OHL are down at the gate this season, can be excused for honouring Kingston Frontenacs coach Doug Gilmour Saturday before his Colts pinned another loss on the league's donkey team. Anything to sell tickets, right? He shouldn't be, though.

Speaking as a Frontenacs and Leafs follower, Gilmour has to be looked at as a newbie coach in in the OHL's worst organization. That is what he is today. The Fronts have four wins in the past two months, even though they are an improved team. People have to stop looking at what Gilmour did for Toronto back in 1993 and '94. It's like The Sopranos: It's over.

It was a rookie mistake for Gilmour to take part in something that has almost nothing to do with his current role in hockey.

So what if "the Colts organization wanted to do something special for Gilmour, to quote the Barrie Examiner? You could read into that that the Colts highers-up are such big Leafs fans that they thought gosh darn golly gee what the heck, let's honour Number Ninety-Three, Dougie Gilmour so we can say Barrie did it before our big-city cousins in Toronto do it Jan. 31. (About that: Gilmour says he bought the Kingston players' tickets for that game; one report suggests otherwise.)

Kilrea, who is in his final season, deserves every tribute he gets for what he's done in the OHL for more than 30 seasons. It cheapens what's being done for him and long-time assistant coach Bert O'Brien around the league when OHL teams get carried away with honouring ex-players on the flimsiest pretense.

The Mississauga St. Michael's Majors held a sweater retirement several weeks ago for Hall of Famer Dave Keon, on the premise that he played for the original Majors decades ago when they were based in downtown Toronto. The Colts were even more out of line — the team didn't even exist when Gilmour played in the OHL.

Granted, the Colts might have something akin to executive privilege. They have the right since they have won as many OHL championships as the Frontenacs have playoff series in the past 13 seasons — once! Also please keep in mind, Barrie started as an expansion team in 1995, while the Frontenacs, under their oblivious owner, Springer, and GM-for-life Larry Mavety on, have merely been reduced to an expansion outfit.

Not knowing much about Howie Campbell, it's presumable he, like anyone with a measure of sanity, would plan major changes if his team was dead last in the 60-team Canadian Hockey League. Springer won't even comtemplate that, which has given rise to a persistent rumour he's sabotaging the Frontenacs so that the city-owned K-Rock Centre's revenues will fall so low that the city council will put up it up for sale, where he'll swoop in like Rogers did with the Skydome.

Well, what other explanation is there for why the owner of a 9-31-8 team with the worst goals-for and goals-against totals in OHL carries on like the only change fans deserve is from the arena's vending machines? Paraphrasing someting Dr. Cox (the character on Scrubs, not his Toronto Star namesake) once said, the only way Springer could be more useless right now is if he actually were the wall of the K-Rock Centre.

Springer is on record as saying Mavety is an "astute hockey man," which has become an Internet meme among Frontenacs fans. In light of the fact Gilmour let it drop late last week that he would be "consulting with Mav," about how to improve the team, Springer seems dead set against making any changes. To once again quote Sacred Heart's prickly Perry, that makes him worse than useless.

(Scrubs references, Sagert? Someone is single and works odd hours.)

Last summer, when everyone and her/his dog knew that The Royal Mavesty was returning as the permanent interim coach, but Springer held off on any announcement until the deadline passed for season-ticket holders to renew their seats. That might not happen again. A humble suggestion might be that season-ticket holders should start letting the team know how they feel about renewing..

(Typical of the no-account Kingston front office, the only e-mail listed on the website is that of Jeff Stilwell, the P.R. man. In other words, the P.R. guy is more accountable than the general manager and owner-president-governor who signs his paycheques.)

In other words, in light of all that, it's impossible to sit idly by and watch the Colts contribute to the charade that having Gilmour behind the bench is making any big difference in Kingston. As a sidebar to this, it's kind of funny that Gilmour told the Toronto Star that he got the Frontenacs players "all tickets up in the nosebleeds," for his tribute night. He might have been joking, or maybe this is just gossip dignified in print:

"When Doug Gilmour's jersey is honoured at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night, his Kingston Frontenacs players will be in attendance. But he had nothing to do with getting them tickets. Turns out, Mike Zigomanis of the Penguins, as a goodwill gesture to his former junior team and knowing nothing of the Gilmour ceremony, bought 34 tickets for the Fronts players to watch the Pens play."
— Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun

Who knows and who cares bought the tickets for the players.

It might have been a joke that has backfired on Gilmour's part. Well, nine wins in 48 games is a joke, but one cannot say the Gilmour experiment has backfired.

It's worked perfectly. The big reason Springer and Mavety hired Gilmour, in the absence of being able to get quality applicants because the word is out on those two, was to trade off his celebrity and deflect attention from the ramshackle organization. Shame on the Barrie Colts for helping the sham seem legit.

(Simmons link via Torontosportsmedia's Weblog)