A New Look

Carlyle behind the bench last night against the Canadiens

The Maple Leafs had good leadership with the new Randy Carlyle, and defeated the Canadiens 3-1 last night, with Toronto taking 42 shots at Carey Price, compared to Montreal's 22. Compared to what we saw of Wilson for most of his 310 games, Carlyle was lively, up and down the bench, and did a great job in his first day on the job. Grabovski certainly had a great showing, collecting the game winner, and then his 20^th of the season. Toronto has a legitimate chance of still making the playoffs, though they've got to pass 4 teams in the standings in order to do it, Buffalo, Tampa, Washington, and Winnipeg, who they sit only 3 points behind. It's a tight race.

Gustavsson failing to stop Erik Cole's wide open shot in the first period. Cole scored his 23rd goal of the season on this one.

One thing Carlyle needs to improve first is the play of Toronto's defense, and their recent shaky goaltending. The first few minutes looked like a complete joke last night, not only did Gustavsson slip all on his own against the boards, he tipped the puck right in front of his open net! Had to have been the biggest clown moment of the year, I thought I was already watching SNL at 7:30 or so. If defenceman like Schenn flub their passes, and Gustavsson continues to misplay the puck, or keep falling over, Toronto, as Bob Cole once said, “won't last three games!” (in the playoffs, of course if they make it)

Speaking of Buffalo a minute ago, Vancouver sure looked like a joke in the first period last night, especially for the best team in the league right now. Toronto has to play Buffalo twice more before the end of the season, so they'll have to deal with Ville Leino, of course if he's still scoring like that in a month.

Grabovski scored two goals last night, joining Lupul and Kessel  this season at the 20-goal mark. Clarke MacArthur is next up to potentially reach the mark, currently sitting at 19 goals.

New Leafs Head Coach

Burke recently said Wilson was being "tuned out" by his players, it sure looks like it in this great perspective of a shot

1-8-1 in their last 10?

Well, that about does it for the Maple Leafs once again, I'm giving up hope on them for the 2012 playoffs. For a team that was in 7^th/8^th place and is now 5 points out a month ago, it's over. I've seen enough attempted comebacks and seen them all fail, each of the last 4 or so springs. Poor Toronto will be without the NHL playoffs once again.

As we look ahead to tonight's match-up against the Canadiens, Ron Wilson is no longer with us. After coaching 310 games for the Leafs with a mediocre record of 130-135-45, he's been ousted, a move I'm not surprised has come. (FI-RE-WIL-SON being yelled at home games probably helped, plus Schenn's awful pass a couple of nights ago) The Leafs look for some last-chance leadership with Randy Carlyle, coach of the Anaheim Ducks from 2005-2011.

Doesn't look too bad in blue and white, does he?

I'm not too worried about the coaching shift, Carlyle isn't a bad choice, since he was once a Maple Leaf himself, for a short time back in the late 1970's. He went on to have tenures with both Pittsburgh and Winnipeg. He has also coached Anaheim to a Stanley Cup, and who was working as his GM at the time? None other than Brian Burke. They obviously go way back, I feel this move could be one of the “missing pieces” for Toronto. Hey, maybe they have a chance after all.

NOW we're gonna win a Stanley Cup!

The Interview

Saturday, October 21^st, 2006.

That was 5 years ago today. An anniversary that I remembered was coming up only about a week ago. But it immediately rang out with significance and nostalgia. I was in 9^th grade, and my Social Studies teacher assigned a big project, or at least one that seemed daunting to me at the time. Coupled with our textbook lessens of World War I/the Great Depression/World War II, we needed to interview someone, age 55 or older, and ask them 20 questions relating to their life/the world at the time/how it affected them. Right off the bat I didn’t want to do the assignment, I was fairly shy at the time and didn’t know any seniors that well.  From what I can remember, I think the interview had to be in person. So right off the bat I had to scratch my Grandpa off the list, as he was 5 hours away in Toronto, and I was in Southeast Michigan. The idea of using him for the project seemed like a great idea, but didn’t look like it was going to happen.

It was October 14^th, and I was watching the Maple Leafs play Calgary on HNIC. (The game where Sundin scored his 500^th NHL Goal) When I told my mom that I would totally interview Grandpa if I could, she remembered that she was visiting friends in the Toronto area next weekend. Sure enough, it was going to happen, I was actually going to Toronto next weekend, and getting dropped off to spend a day with my grandparents, all by myself, and to get this project done the way I wanted to. I was really excited.

That morning of the 21^st in Toronto, my Grandpa came in his big ’85 Buick and picked me up from another relative’s home, and soon there I was. Sitting at the dining room table with my Grandpa, I had him fill out some permission form or something, I almost thought he’d get annoyed and not want to be interviewed with how much there was to fill out! Finally, with my camera charged, full memory stick with 22 minutes of space, I set it down in the middle of the table, faced it at the wall, and pushed record.

I asked 20 questions, the first 5 or so were about growing up in Poland and what it was like, the next 5-10 were about World War II, (and his part in it, serving in the Polish army) and what followed the war for him. The last 5 were questions about culture/war that had taken place over the past 50 years or so. The interview was about 19 minutes, and I learned a bit about my Grandpa that I didn’t know. It opened my eyes to the fact that he served in World War II. WORLD WAR TWO. I think I had much more appreciation of my family history after that, and more drive to learn about my entire family tree. Another fun fact, I learned his name is actually Zdzislaw. (A Polish name) At the time I thought the interview was one of the coolest things I had ever done.

Little did I know there would be another project later in the school year, in the same class, about World War II specifically. We had to pick an event from World War II and present about it, so I chose the Invasion of Poland. When we visited Toronto as a family in April 2007, I had a interview with both my Grandma & Grandpa about the Invasion, and life during the first few years of the war. My Grandpa lived only a few kilometers from the border the night of the invasion, and said tanks rumbled right through the town overnight. The next few days for him were the beginning of his German education…My Grandma worked on a farm in Germany during the war, and after the war was in the Red Cross with the Polish Army. Both of them immigrated to Canada after the war, and met in Toronto.

That interview was not even 7 minutes, but incredibly in-depth compared to the original interview back in October. I had learned such valuable stuff because of those two projects. Whenever it’s October 21^st, I always think back to my grandparent’s house, and the stories they had to tell…

Phil Kessel

I have almost no time to talk right now, but all I have to say is this.

This makes me feel quite accomplished. Phil Kessel currently leads the league in goals and points. 5 goals and 8 points in THREE GAMES! For this very brief time, let's celebrate the fine performance done by Phil Kessel. WOOHOO. The Leafs are 3-0-0 because of him!

Also, congrats to Nugent-Hopkins on the hat trick on saturday night. Glad you're putting on a show right off the bat.

As for the jets, I see your 0-3-0 start and hope you get the ball rolling sooner or later. The fans might only put up with so much losing. (But of course, they put up with a lot of it back in the 80s and 90s)

Leafs fans should be treated better than this

Playing pond hockey in 2008

Living in Michigan and being a die-hard Leafs fan is a hard thing to do. First of all, you have to actually care, and try to follow them as best as you can. The only Canadian TV channel I ever get to watch is CBC from Windsor, meaning those games are almost always the only ones I will ever get to watch. To keep up, I do watch every Game-In-Six on the Leaf’s website, basically a highlight reel of the game, goals, fights, etc. Though I may only get to watch about 15 live games during a season, I watch ALL the Game-in-sixes. If you don’t call that die-hard, I at least call it passionate.

Second of all, you’ve gotta have the balls to openly be a Maple Leafs fan, and take all the shit that goes along with it. Going to high school with a Leafs jersey on would sometimes even be an unpleasant experience, especially during playoff season. In my time at grade school, I only saw ONE OTHER PERSON ever wear a Maple Leafs jersey/sweater, back in 9^th grade. The one time we both wore ours the same day, and stood next to each other in the hall, was likely one of the coolest things I had ever done. Sadly that guy moved away about a year later, so I was now the lone Leafs fan.

A few days ago, I got a facebook message from a friend still in high school, she walked into her Law & Society class and there was a kid with a Leafs jersey on. When I read this I literally yelled at my computer, “WHAT??? Nawwwwwwww, THIS IS NOT HAPPENING…….THIS IS AWESOME!!!” I’m telling you, this kind of occurrence doesn’t happen much. Hats off to that kid, he probably got a lot of hate, just like I did. Even the Pittsburgh fans gave me hate! And they’re already in metro-Detroit of all things. Why are you telling me Canada sucks when over half your team is made up of Canadian players? (Or European, which doesn’t constitute American either)

Third, and the most obvious, you have to continue to be patient, as I have. The first season I caught onto hockey was right after the lockout, 2005-06. The Leafs had been making the playoffs consistently until the lockout, since then everything went downhill. After two 9^th place seasons, Toronto started to fall apart. Players started to leave, most importantly Sundin, leaving me quite disappointed in ’08 when he sat out half the season considering retirement, then simply joined the Canucks for millions. 2008-09 and 2009-10 were sad years for the Leafs, not even a team captain, the only club worse than ours was the Oilers. (And I felt bad for them too) We didn’t make the playoffs in 2011 either, so that’s six straight years. Many years of saying “we’ll make it next year” have never amounted to anything.

My teenage years of being a sports fan mainly consisted of my team letting me down, year after year after year. Though I have also been a fan of the Red Wings, the passion isn’t there like it is for Toronto. I get sick of bandwagon hockey fans, ones that simply yell at the TV and tell the players to “GO THE OTHER WAY” and get all pissed off at the goalie when he lets in one goal. That pretty much describes half the Red Wings fans I know, sadly. Who knew that when you have a classy hockey team like Detroit, who’s been in the playoffs every season since the early 90’s, you’d spoil all your fans in the process. Well, if anything, I can proudly say that I’m still proud of my team, even when they suck. I still watch every Game-in six, every game I can catch on CBC, even when they get curb-stomped by Boston or Buffalo or the Capitals, I’m still tuned in, because that’s all I get to watch.

Which brings me to my point. Yeah, lookin’ at you Leafs TV. If you check out a good amount of NHL team websites, you’ll find that many of them carry their preseason games online, live stream, for free. For Toronto, one of the biggest hockey cities in the world, Leafs TV thinks it can monopolize even PRESEASON GAMES for Christ sake, and make you subscribe to Leafs TV Interactive to watch them. Their “freeview” feature is only available to LeafsTV customers, so it’s actually not even free.

What a bunch of scumbags. I remember curling up in a blanket next to my desktop 2 years ago, eating a bowl of ice cream, watching the Leafs & Wings in a preseason game. They won it 5-4 in a shootout, had to be one of my favorite memories of the Leafs. What a shame that the Maple Leafs organization doesn’t give back to the fans. They’re the most valuable franchise in the NHL, at $505 Million, with an operating income of 82 million. Is there no room in the ACC for some love for the fans? Fans like me, who after following the team like mad, even when they’ve been mediocre the whole time, get shit on like this? A 2008 poll on all the teams of the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL finds Toronto ranked 121^st out of 122 in rewarding fans. And LeafsTV is now part of the problem. So fuck it, I guess I'll just go to Joe Louis Arena and see a Red Wings game for $30 a ticket, while Morbidly Obese Cats in Toronto continue to price the same type of ticket at over $200. Us fans can only do so much!