The unlikely partnership behind MLSE deal

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Friday, December 9, 2011 at 1:36 PM - 0 Comments

Content has long been King. But in the wake of the joint Rogers Communications/BCE takeover of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, it has been upgraded to Emperor, if not Supreme Galactic Ruler. How else does one explain two of Canada’s fiercest business rivals coming together to pay an astounding $1.32 billion for the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s 79.53 per cent share of the company that owns the NHL’s Maple Leafs, NBA’s Raptors, major league soccer’s Toronto FC, the minor league Toronto Marlies hockey club, and the Air Canada Centre?

It is a premium price, for what the rival communications giants and broadcasters—Rogers owns Sportsnet, and Bell TSN—believe is a premium TV product. And the driving force for the surprise deal was clearly self-preservation.

When the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan let it be known that they were willing to sell their 80 per cent stake in MLSE last spring, (purchased 17 years ago for $180 million) it was obvious that it would take very deep pockets indeed to seal the bargain. Both Rogers and Bell kicked the tires, fearing the other was motivated to buy. Regional TV rights for the Toronto Maple Leafs—a team that attracts viewers and advertisers like no other in Canada—currently split between the two sports networks were to come up for renegotiation in 2015. The national broadcast rights, shared between TSN and CBC, are up for grabs in 2014. In Canada, any sports channel without NHL hockey—and more specifically the Leafs—wouldn’t last for long. And in wedding themselves in MLSE ownership, BCE and Rogers have gained perpetual access to the most sought-after content in the land. Continue…

What do you get when you mate a Leaf with a Lion?

By Dave Bidini - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 4:01 PM - 0 Comments

Never mind the wins and losses—well, at least for a moment—and consider the most significant news to come out of bluebloodland last week: the deal between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Zurich Lions of the Swiss League. In the 1970s, Peter Ustinov said Toronto was like “New York run by the Swiss,” and while things are a lot more lively these days, much of the city still operates like the reliable and steady gearworks of a Geneva pocket watch. Partnerships with teams in Lisbon, Barcelona, Assiago, and Paris would have been more alluring, but these are still your father’s Leafs. Few are allowed either in or out of the room with the velvet rope.

I’ve been wondering what might have precipitated this engagement and why this was celebrated as a significant event in Leaf media land. Was it to distract fans from that which has been rumoured over the past few weeks: James Reimer’s brain injury. Another thought: I think if we started calling concussions “brain injuries,” it might get people wising-up to the seriousness of this business. It’s easier to conjure notions of dementia and madness out of brain injuries. Calling them concussions is like calling them pulled hamstrings or separated shoulders. “Brain injury” is a more frightening term. And if the bluebloods aren’t already frightened by Reimer’s, they should be. Continue…

This is the Leafs fan’s weakness: we get way too high and way too low

By Dave Bidini - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 7:07 PM - 0 Comments

The editor is laughing. He is laughing and holding his Habs belly. He is laughing and slapping his Habs knee and pointing at the screen with his Habs finger because he knew this would happen. He bet some friends that it would. He is filling his Habs wallet with his winnings. He is getting a beer. This is too funny. Way too funny.

The editor is laughing and I am writing, and that the Habs have struggled to find themselves over the last few days is beside the point. By contrast, the Leafs have completely lost themselves, and even though the writer knew that he would eventually be forced to write this column, he thought that maybe his instincts would betray him; maybe luck would sway and a new day would find him and the team and the land. Continue…

Everything that goes wrong in the world, I blame on the Montreal Canadiens

By Dave Bidini - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 1:12 PM - 8 Comments

F—in’ Habs. There, I said it. It’s not like I don’t say it at least 30 times a day. The paperboy misses the porch: F—in’ Habs! The Windows and Doors people wake me up from my afternoon nap with one of their incessant calls: F—in’ Habs! I burn the noodles: F—in’ Habs! An earthquake levels Bali: F—in’ Habs! Everything that goes wrong in the world, I blame on the Montreal Canadiens. It’s convenient and it fits. I believe we would all be much happier and the world would work better and there would be no more stress or pain or misfortune if only the Habs would throw their skates into the river already. But this isn’t going to happen. I am realist and, yes, I am learning to cope.

Someone once said that great clubs need great enemies, but why it can’t be Dallas or Florida or Buffalo, I don’t know. Instead, it has to be the most arrogant and self-satisfied of all teams grinding against that which I love. It has to be the (F—in’) Habs. Argghhhh. Once more, only longer: Arghhhhhhhhh! Continue…

Prospect Porn: Leafs v. Colorado

By Dave Bidini - Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 4:47 PM - 1 Comment

Okay: I like porn. But not just any porn: Prospect Porn. I can’t get enough of it. I spend way too much time tapping on a screen in the dark—actually it’s more mouse-thumbing then tapping; screen over screen over screen—staring at young men from distant places; gifted young men; lithe, goofy-looking with sculpted arms and stats to drool over. Thirty year olds with long careers are one thing, but give me the hairless fulsome buck who has emerged as if from a fine mist. Give me his promise. Untested, pure. Maybe a little overbitten and acne’d. A prospect.

To this end, the Leafs have done nothing to satisfy my urges, which is why I’ve had to look elsewhere: Colorado, Long Island, and Edmonton. For this reason, I couldn’t wait ‘til (last) Tuesday, which promised a visit by the Avalanche, the league’s youngest and Prospect Porniest team. Not only that, but the Leafs—young, too, I suppose, only not so Prospecty—were hop-skipping along on a three-game unbeaten streak, so my interests were two-fold. I poofed the throw pillows on the couch and prepared popcorn and beer. I sent the kids to bed. Actually, I did not. My kids are baseball brats and they don’t love hockey. Between the two of them, they’ve lived through exactly one Leaf post-season. In 2009, I prepared a chocolate milk chart in honour of the year: two Leaf wins in a row got them gumdrops, three wins got them Twizzlers and four wins got them— yup—chocolate milk. “You’re teaching them about disappointment, aren’t you?” asked my wife, approvingly. But I wasn’t. This is the sad and torturous environment in which they’ve been raised. Continue…

The biggest losers in hockey

By Dave Bidini - Friday, October 14, 2011 at 11:33 AM - 13 Comments

The morning after the Chicago Blackhawks defeated the Philadelphia Flyers to win the 2010 Stanley Cup—their first in 49 years—I shuffled downstairs in my pyjamas. It was a warm morning, early June, and the NHL hockey season was over. I pressed my fists to my eyes, yawned, and yelled upstairs for the children to get out of bed. Actually, that’s a lie. My wife, Janet, did the yelling while I stood there in the living room looking under pillows for the remote. Finding it, I kachunked the tv and a station bzzzed on. These words were written across the screen:

LEAFS BIGGEST LOSERS IN HOCKEY Continue…

Wade Belak’s final hours

By Charlie Gillis - Friday, September 9, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 17 Comments

Glenn James/NHLI/Getty Images

In broadcasting, as in hockey, reliability ranks high on the list of professional virtues. Dead air or squandered studio time are radio sins on par with an empty dressing-room stall before practice. The responsible party can expect retribution and, if he keeps it up, a ticket to the bush leagues.

Some athletes-cum-commentators take a while to grasp that, so the text Wade Belak sent Jeremy Bennefield last Tuesday night came as reassurance to the Nashville radio producer, who had been tasked with grooming the former NHL tough guy to host a weekly show on an all-sports FM station. “I’ll be there on Friday night,” wrote Belak, who was in Toronto at the time. “Staying until Sunday. Any way we can tape a show in that time slot?” The time signature on the message read 11:29 p.m. ET. Bennefield didn’t pick it up until 9:15 a.m. the following day, and he made sure to fire off a quick reply: “Yes, we’ll make it work.”

Three hours later, Belak was found hanging in his hotel room in downtown Toronto, the victim of an apparent suicide (though authorities have not confirmed the cause of death). And Bennefield has been pondering that text exchange ever since.“Somebody actually asked me whether I thought this was a reach-out,” he says from Nashville. “You know: whether Wade was seeking some sort of reassurance that he had something to live for.” But that doesn’t square with the man he had seen at a taping just days earlier, ribbing staff at 102.5 The Game, cracking jokes at his own expense. While recording the inaugural episode of his weekly show and podcast “The Game Changer,” the 35-year-old had enthused about setting down roots in Nashville, where he’d just wound down his playing career. “Based on my conversations with him, based on the texts that I got hours before the fact,” he says, “my impression is this wasn’t a guy looking for a way out.”

Continue…

The End: Gilindo Marcocchio | 1909 – 2010

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 4:40 PM - 5 Comments

Illustration by Ian Phillips

Gilindo Marcocchio was born on Dec. 10, 1909, in the small Italian town of Castions di Zoppola, near what was then the Austro-Hungarian border. His father, Antonio, was a cook for a wealthy family who offered to adopt Gilindo. But his parents refused to give him up. By the time Gilindo was 12, though, he was orphaned: his mother Maria died of the flu, and Antonio of a heart attack. After that, Gilindo’s three brothers left Italy in search of work in Canada and Mexico, and the young boy was left to be raised by two sisters, in a modest house they shared with chickens and pigs.

During the First World War, Gilindo had to flee his town and move inland, away from the border area, which was under siege. Just after he crossed a bridge near his home one day, it was bombed by the Germans. Gilindo watched in horror as horses and carriages were tossed into the air, and people he knew perished instantly.

By 16, having survived the devastation that characterized wartime Italy, he joined his brother Isadoro in Windsor. Since Gilindo never attended school, and didn’t know how to read or write at the time, he learned a trade: bricklaying. After five years, when jobs dried up with the Depression, he headed east. In Toronto, during the 1930s, Gilindo worked as a tradesman, and soon became known as Lindy. He helped build Maple Leaf Gardens, and in 1931, attended the first-ever hockey game played there (the Leafs lost to Chicago, 2-1).

Continue…

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 12, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Doggone it
Cesar Millan, TV’s “Dog Whisperer,” was a hit with the crowd at sold-out Scotiabank Place in Ottawa last week, even though Ontario law deprived him of a key cast mate—Junior, the two-year-old American pit bull that recently took over from the dearly departed Daddy as Millan’s “right-hand man.” Millan, halfway through a tour of Canada, demonstrated training techniques on local dogs and expounded on his philosophy of calm assertiveness, but took time to criticize Ontario’s 2005 ban on pit bulls. “In the ’70s, the breed that people were afraid of was the Doberman,” he told the audience. “In the 2000s, it’s the pit bull. It’s not the breed, it’s the human behind the dog.”

Absolute powers of persuasion
Chinese authorities may not have much success persuading European governments to boycott the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honouring jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, but they’re having better luck at home. Author Yu Jie, a friend of Liu’s, said he and his wife have been stopped from leaving their Beijing home by security officers, for fear they plan to go to Oslo. Meanwhile, Guo Xianliang, an engineer from Yunnan province, disappeared while on a business trip in Guangzhou. He’d been detained for distributing flyers about Liu, according to fellow activist Ye Du. Police have also reportedly detained a young woman, Mou Yanxi, who tweeted her support for Liu. “If such behaviour goes on,” her friend Zhang Shijie tweeted last week, “it will eventually happen to all of us.”

Continue…

The Commons: Don’t get your hopes up and you won’t be disappointed

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 7:45 PM - 19 Comments

A mere 58 minutes. That’s it. That’s all.

We were promised an hour, perhaps as much as an hour and a half. And yet here was Michaëlle Jean, solemnly invoking “Divine Providence” at precisely 3:47pm this afternoon, just about 58 minutes after she welcomed “honourable senators, members of the House of Commons, ladies and gentlemen.”

Some 6,000 words passed in between, each delivered in that breathy, deliberate way of the Governor General’s. But this was not quite the excruciating test of endurance for speaker and listener alike, not nearly the epic we were told to expect. Once more we are faced with a government full of ambition and promise, unable to ultimately deliver. Once again we see the danger of unrestrained hope. Continue…

The Interview: Gary Bettman

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 12:23 PM - 52 Comments

In 16 years as NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman has shaped pro hockey in numerous ways—U.S. expansion, two lockouts, rule changes, the salary cap, the participation of NHL players in the Olympics. The past year, however, counts among the most troubled of his tenure. The league’s tug-of-war with billionaire Jim Balsillie for control of the Phoenix Coyotes put Bettman at odds with many fans, highlighting the combative side of the commissioner’s personality. Earlier this week, he discussed the fallout of Phoenix, fan antipathy toward him, and other hockey-related matters with the Maclean’s editorial board.

Q: It’s been a tumultuous couple of years for you, at least publicly. Do you still enjoy your job?

A: I love the job. I’m passionate about the game, and the people around the game, the way we as a sport connect with our fans. Every job has challenges, things that make the job interesting. I’m not exactly sure, by the way, that I buy into your characterization of tumultuous. That seems to be a little dramatic, perhaps media-centric, as opposed to the reality. But every business has day-to-day challenges, and that’s part of what gets those of us who work going every day.

Q: We want to give you a chance to respond to the broad perception here in Canada that you feel the future of the game lies in the United States—and that the real reason the NHL was in court this summer was to keep Canada from getting more teams.

A: I’ve got to ask you a question about your question. Where does that perception come from? What is it based on? Give me any factual basis and I’ll answer the question. Continue…

When the beat goes off

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 11:20 AM - 2 Comments

Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Jonas Gustavsson is not a likely candidate for heart trouble. For months, the 24-year-old Swede, whose six-foot-three, 192-lb. frame and quick reflexes have earned him the moniker “the Monster,” geared up for his NHL debut with a rigorous schedule of weightlifting and long shifts on the stationary bike. But after a fitness test on Sept. 12, Gustavsson’s heart would not stop racing. He was taken to hospital, underwent minor surgery to correct the problem, and was back at practice within a week.

But despite his quick recovery, many remain puzzled: how could this happen to someone so young, under close medical scrutiny? While the organization remains tight-lipped, according to experts, many of the conditions that cause the heart to race often go undetected, and are far more common than one might expect. Continue…

Donuts, hockey, tax cuts and Afghanistan

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 4:36 PM - 86 Comments

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…

What happened to Leaf Nation?

By Michael Travers - Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 11:06 AM - 11 Comments

I was on Bay Street in Toronto to watch the line of convertibles carry my Maple Leaf heroes as they drove to meet the mayor at City Hall following their Stanley Cup victories in 1962, ’63, ’64 and ’67. There used to be a black and white photo of the 1962 parade hanging on the wall on the second floor of Maple Leaf Gardens. I was the kid hanging from the lamppost in the bottom right hand corner of the picture. Just my being there, as a fan during the Leafs’ glory years, probably qualifies me as a member of Leaf Nation.

Last week in Port Colborne, the 12th captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ted “Teeder” Kennedy, was laid to rest in his 84th year following a lengthy illness. The downtown church was crowded with friends and relatives. His wife of 61 years was there. His son delivered a wonderful, funny tribute. It was more like a conversation with friends than a speech. Those in attendance did not include Richard Peddie, Larry Tannenbaum, Tom Anselmi, or Brian Burke. There were no Leafs suits and no Leafs Alumni Association executives or members at the church’s funeral liturgy. Continue…

A goodbye letter to Mats

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 6:20 PM - 10 Comments

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

NHL All-Star comedy

By Charlie Gillis - Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 3:48 PM - 13 Comments

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…

Start the clock ticking

By Charlie Gillis - Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 2:37 PM - 2 Comments

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.

Keeping Luke Schenn with the big club? Bad idea.

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 11:37 AM - 10 Comments

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.

Should Toronto have two NHL teams?

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 12:22 PM - 71 Comments

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.

Prediction: Leafs will finish last in NHL

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 10:56 AM - 7 Comments

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.

Gainey chats up Sundin

By Charlie Gillis - Monday, September 8, 2008 at 10:47 AM - 1 Comment

… 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…

Brian Burke…not so good.

By Steve Maich - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 6:08 PM - 0 Comments

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…

Small Balls: Cut that hair you hippie!

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 11:46 AM - 0 Comments

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…

Samll Balls

By Steve Maich - Monday, June 30, 2008 at 10:58 AM - 0 Comments

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!