Below is a transcript of the Prime Minister’s speech today at the Tim Hortons Innovation Centre in Oakville.

If I ever get round to writing a book about this time in Ottawa, I may very well argue that this, in content, setting and context, is the quintessential speech of Stephen Harper’s premiership. Continue…

Dear Mats Johan Sundin,

You must be pretty torn up right now about your decision to leave our Leaf Nation family and begin a new relationship with the mountains of British Columbia. I’ll be the first to admit that things fell apart between us in the end: three seasons without a whiff of post-season play, constant family issues that saw several members exiled and publicly scolded, and of course that fruitless pursuit of trying to find someone half decent to play on your wing. The writing was on the wall when you left last spring, then confirmed soon after when you put your house up for sale, again, and disappeared to your fishing boat in Sweden.

Yet I can’t help but feel that you were somewhat dishonest with us, that in some dark corner of your soul during last year’s trade deadline–when you refused to date another to help us through a tough, self-imposed jam in order to provide our family with some draft picks and prospects that we’d squander anyway–you were just playing with our emotions. What I really mean, oh God I’m trembling as I write this, is that I think you lied to us and took advantage of Cliff’s generosity, all the while knowing that you had no interest in returning. You always said that your heart was here, that you loved us and were a Maple Leaf through and through. Apparently that was just a crafty little guise that you brewed up to keep us happy. And to rub it in, last weekend I had to watch you smiling and really laughing it up in the New York Rangers press box during HNIC. I was so mad I threw your bobblehead doll across the room harder than that angry journalist threw his shoe at George Bush.

But I don’t want an apology. You can stick those in a sack. I was stupid enough to have thought that we might be able to pick up the broken pieces of our relationship and that you would come home and lead us back to the promise land, even if our chances of making the playoffs in the near future are as slim as Sean Avery shutting his trap. But I must warn you that somewhere down the line, not too far from now, you will regret what you’ve done. It might not happen this year, especially if your sipping out of Lord Stanley’s mug on the deck of your fishing boat, but mark my words it will happen. You see, Leaf fans are an ignorant, vengeful lot who are led by an incompetent organization that has a weird way of sticking it to its heroes. (Just ask Dave Keon, Darryl Sittler, or your fellow countryman Borje Salming, who told you that he deeply regretted not retiring in a Blue and White jersey).

So what can you expect? Well, for starters you might hear a few boos from the cheap seats when you come to town in February as a member of the Canucks. That shouldn’t hurt much. What will hurt is when the organization decides to retire your number…in 2031…and your invitations to the hall of fame games get lost in the mail. You see, we’ll still love you and call you our own. We just won’t be in any rush to honour your achievements and build statues of you around town.

Longingly yours,

Cameron

Folks, I’m as pumped about the Habs centennial as the next guy. But when six of the seven Montreal Canadiens on the All-Star ballot are leading the vote their categories, even nutters for La Sainte-Flanelle like me have to admit the system has gone pear-shaped. This isn’t ballot-stuffing. This is a cyberfarce that risks turning the mid-season classic into an exhibition game for the host team. Saku Koivu has three times the votes Ovechkin does in the Eastern Conference. He’s got double Alex Semin’s total—and Semin’s the hottest forward in the league, with 27 points to Saku’s 13.

You could blame this on the NHL’s all-too-gameable online voting system, which opened for business yesterday. I blame it on the league’s skewed fan base, which confers an obvious advantage on big-market Canadian teams whose fans are foaming-at-the-mouth crazy about their finally-competitive club (the fact that Tomas Kaberle is the sole Toronto player in the top 10 in his position tells you only that the so-called “Leafs Nation” is in hibernation for the season).

For fan balloting to work, you need a functional league. The NHL is a dysfunctional league. Continue…

Hey, how did this YYZ tag get on my bag?

The Anaheim Ducks have “fired” Brian Burke as GM. Or they couldn’t agree on a contract extension with him. Or something. What a shock!

Weren’t the Ducks one of the putative powerhouses of the West, bolstered by the presence of last-minute signee Teemu Selanne and the timely salary dump of Mathieu Schneider? That’s, like, good managing right? Weren’t they 6-3-0-1 in their last 10? Weren’t they the team that won the Stanley Cup season ‘for last, looking well nigh invincible in the process? Weren’t they the team with whom Burke claimed he was oh-so-eager to negotiate a new contract?

If you didn’t know better, you’d almost think there was some other team in the picture … some dastardly, deep-pocketed franchise that for some reason views Burke as the solution to its persistent mediocrity.

We emphasize the “for some reason” part.

It’s a widely held joke across this country that Leafs fans view the world with rather distorted blinders. But this whole Luke Schenn love affair has gotten a little out of hand. There’s no doubt that the kid is going to be a stud in the NHL for a long time. Everyone can agree that he has the skills and desire to succeed. (His fight with tough guy Chris Neil on Saturday is ample evidence of that). Yet I think it’s a bad move to keep him in the NHL this year for several reasons. Firstly, despite the fact that he looks comfortable on the ice, his stats are brutal: zero points and a -3 rating through eight games. Secondly, the Leafs are going to go through some tough times this year–let me rephrase that, horrible stretches–and Luke would probably be better served to avoid the Leafs serious growing pains in year one of the rebuilding process. Thirdly, the Leafs have way too many D on the back end and are desperate to trade either Ian White, who hasn’t played a game because of the log jam and is thus difficult to move, or Carlo Colaiacovo. Carlo could be a star in the NHL if he just avoided the injury bug and was given some ice time. But Ron Wilson is convinced that this is the best move for Schenn and the club. Time will tell, but let’s pray this doesn’t turn into another Drake Berehowsky experiment. Last I heard he was playing for the Berlin Polar Bears.

If the rest of Canada doesn’t already hate Toronto for thinking it’s the centre of the universe, this story ought to do it. According to the Globe and Mail, NHL governors are talking informally about the possibility of placing a second hockey team in Toronto alongside the Maple Leafs. One source in the article reported that prospective owner Jim “I’ll eat my own pants to get a team” Balsillie might be rewarded with the new franchise after helping the Nashville Predators deal with their financial woes. But the big question is: Should Toronto have two NHL teams? As for a name, my choice is the Toronto 67’s. It will be a nice reminder that it’s been 41 years since the Leafs won Lord Stanley’s Cup.

I thought long and hard about really letting it out in this blog entry and telling the world how woeful the Leafs will be during this upcoming season. But every time I sat down to write, staring lovingly at my Rick Vaive circa 1983 jersey that my great-grandmother bought me, my eyes filled with tears and I just couldn’t keep writing. So, I figured it was best to let an expert (the FAN 590’s Howard Berger) explain the situation and what fans of the mighty Blue and White can expect over the next seven months. Please note that viewer discretion is advised.

… for two hours, according to a diligent blogger’s account of a public appearance Gainey made in St. John’s. If you want to see a rare, useful example of “citizen journalism,” check it out. According to the blogger, known to her readers as J.T., Gainey laid it on the line for Mats during a meeting Saturday in Toronto: ”I told him to make a decision. I said, if you feel like you want to retire, then retire. But if you’re not sure, you should play and the emotion will come.”

That’s an echo of Steve Yzerman’s publicly proffered advice of five weeks ago. Which, of course, Sundin ignored. Continue…

Al Strachan has written what will henceforth be known as “The Definitive Hatchet Job on Brian Burke.”

Ol’ Al doesn’t think Ol’ Brian is such a hot general manager and he dredges up a few of Burkie’s less-stellar moment as GM of the Canucks. He also makes the totally legitimate point that Burke gets a lot of credit for an anaheim cup winner that was largely built by his predecessor.

I went back and took a closer look at Burke’s major trades with the Canucks and it’s true, on the big splashy ones, he was only fair-to-middling at best.  Continue…

La première étoile: Toronto Maple Leafs. This might be the only time all year that the Leafs receive the first star in our daily updates, so enjoy it. But by adding an extra pre-season game (Sept. 22 against Buffalo) and giving away tickets for free (Coca-Cola is picking up the bill), the Leafs are giving a nice little gift back to fans who can’t afford a ticket to a regular game, or steal one away from a season-ticket-holder. The other perk of such a move is that the entire arena will be filled with rabid fans instead of listless fat cats who would rather drink espressos and play with their Blackberries than watch the action on the ice.

Two minutes for … for not getting with the program. Samuel Dalembert was tickled pink last August when he was finally sworn in as a Canadian citizen, but apparently the 76ers’ centre had little interest in helping Canada qualify for the Olympics and was kicked off the team earlier this week prior to the team’s game against Korea.

Who’s got tickets? British Open at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England. No Tiger, who cares! Sergio Garcia is being targeted as the favourite but Continue…

La première étoile: The entire nation of Spain! Viva Espana! Spain Spain Spain! Land of fine hams and lovely weather! Also, really good at soccer! Hurrah!

Two minutes for… Indecision. Really Mats, It’s not that hard. I know that the trendy thing to do, these days, is to go all Niedermayer, and spend the summer on a deck someplace, doing a Hamlet impression. But really…you’re a multi-millionaire athlete, and there’s really only one question to answer: do you want to play or not?  Kindly come up with an answer while there is still one lonely strand of DNA in my being that gives a crap.

Who’s got tickets? Wimbledon. Big day on the grass courts. So big, in fact, even I have heard of several of the players in action: Federer, Nadal, Murry.  And, courtesy of the great sports time machine: The Williams Sisters! I thought they were full time fashion designers by now

Fun police: A swimmer has swum faster than any swimmer before. Splendid. Good for you Michael Phelps. You are the envy of aquatic animals everywhere. But I still share the late, great, George Carlin’s view.  Swimming is not a sport.  Swimming is a way  to keep  from drowning.

Extra bases:

Kevin Lowe is quietly building an interesting team in Edmonton. Newest addition Lubo Visnovsky from the L.A. Kings gives them some real fire power on the blueline, especially is Souray can find a way to stay healthy…. Chipper Jones is hitting .394 at the end of June, and is heading for a (hopefully-brief) stay on the DL. Get healthy chipper, and make a run for .400….   Let me say that I love Manny Ramirez. But manny is starting to act even crazier than usual. And it’s not that endearing “isn’t Manny so wonderfully strange?!?” kind of crazy. It’s, like, unstable crazy.  If I’m Terry Francona, I want to fix that….  No…No…No…No…Noooo!