PPPPodcast

A few weeks ago, Chemmy and PPP from uber Leaf Blog Pension Plan Puppets were kind enough to ask me to join them in a weekly podcast where we talk hockey, whether or not we'd sleep with Queen Elizabeth and how our favourite Colombian soccer teams are doing.

We've got three up and posted so far. If anyone wants to hear me stutter, stammer and basically not say all that much, you can access the podcasts at PPP:

PPPPodcast Episode 1
PPPPodcast Episode 2
PPPPodcast Episode 3

You can also subscribe to the PPPPodcast via iTunes. At one point our podcast was ranked #8 in the Sports category. I'm pretty sure that means the #1 podcast has all of 14 subscribers.

Call it the Curse of Stajan?

In the nine months since the Pittsburgh Penguins hoisted the Stanley Cup, Brian Burke has shipped out 12 Toronto Maple Leafs. That's over half the Leafs roster in a single season.

Incredibly, just two of those 12 former-Leafs are on teams that are heading to the post-season:

1. Jason Blake, Anaheim
2. Joey MacDonald, Anaheim
3. Pavel Kubina, Atlanta
4. Anton Stralman, Columbus
5. Jiri Tlusty, Carolina
6. Matt Stajan, Calgary
7. Niklas Hagman, Calgary
8. Jamal Mayers, Calgary
9. Ian White, Calgary
10. Vesa Toskala, Calgary
11. Lee Stempniak, Phoenix
12. Alexi Ponikarovsky, Pittsburgh

I wonder how many of these guys thought a ticket out of Toronto meant a taste of the playoffs?

A First Leaf Game

The first time I saw the Maple Leafs play live was in April 1977. They tied the Sabres 1-1. I sat in the greens near centre ice. My father wore a tie.

It was the first time I’d been in Maple Leaf Gardens and my dad must have taken me down early as we had enough time to wander around the ground level to look at all the old photos of the Leafs. Teeder Kennedy and the Queen. George Armstrong embracing the Cup.

My dad was a big Dave Keon fan and I’m sure he pointed out a few photos of #14, but Keon to me was a foreign entity, a guy with a big moustache who played in the WHA. I was so Leaf obsessed that Keon might as well have been a cricket player.

I’d like to think I remember the startling site of the bright white ice that you could glimpse through the doors in the reds or the size of the score clock hanging over centre ice. I certainly remember the skinny stuttering single file escalators with their crenulated round tube-like handles that took you up from the golds through the reds and into the greens. I doubt those memories came from that first game but they’re certainly something I still carry with me.

I do know we were in our seats for the warm up. So many pucks on the ice, the silence of shots hitting mesh, maybe a little Jimmy Holstrom on the organ.

I don’t recall much about the game. I have no idea who scored, who started in net or who carried the play. I can picture the Sabres in their road blues and the Leafs in their beautiful home whites with those giant silver TV lights shining down…

Tonight, I’m taking my six year old daughter to her very first Leaf game.

We’ve been to the ACC for the Leafs skills competition and a Raptors game, but somehow those events don’t carry the same weight. They don’t seem like milestones in the life of a Toronto kid.

I won’t be wearing a tie, but we will get down to the rink early. I’ll show her pictures of Sittler and Salming; hopefully I’ll be able to find one of Palmateer, my favourite boyhood Leaf. If there’s one of Keon, I’ll be sure to point him out too. Her grandfather might like that. I know she’ll look for one of Mats Sundin, who remains her favourite Leaf.

We’ll take the thoroughly modern and boring escalators up to the Purples in time to watch the warm-up.

I don’t know if she’ll manage to stay-awake for the whole game, I don't even think that matters. I do hope the night creates a strong memory or two that she’ll carry with her the way I carry that memory of a long ago night in a hockey rink, sitting in the greens with my dad.

Olympic Hockey - No Halo Effect for the NHL

I’m not a fan of the Olympics.

It’s not that the IOC is a litigious, corrupt, and venal organization, nor is it the fact that so many of the events aren’t even sports (why aren't darts, shuffle board or ballroom dance IOC sanctioned?).

Who am I kidding? It’s all of these things.

I thoroughly enjoyed the men’s hockey. I watched just about every match and sincerely hope the pros are back in the winter games in 2014 (nice that the NHL is holding back on that decision in what I can only presume is a bargaining chip for the next round of the CBA).

But I can’t say I’m even remotely surprised that the Olympics didn’t have a halo effect on NHL ratings. And now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that NHL ticket prices, which surged immediately after the gold medal game, are leveling off:

The Olympic bump in NHL ticket prices was short-lived. After the U.S. beat Canada in the preliminaries, above, resale NHL tickets were selling at an average of about 170% of face value, according to resale-ticket price aggregator SeatGeek. Tickets are now selling for less than 130% of face value, on average, which is below where they were in the week the Games started. The NHL declined to comment.

If anyone out there thought the Olympics might be a turning point in terms of increased interest in hockey, I have a few questions for you: how much of the World Cup Super G did you follow this week? What about the recent Ski Cross events at Norefjell, Norway? Who won the 30 kilometer men’s pursuit and women’s 15 kilometer women’s pursuit in Lahti, Finland last Sunday?

Exactly.

Millions didn’t tune in because it was hockey, they tuned in because it was the Olympics.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Can We Call Games 63-82 an "Exhibition"

Ponikarovsky is a Penguin, Stempniak is a Coyote, and the Toronto Maple Leafs are overwhelmingly Brian Burke’s.

As of the trade deadline, 70% of the current Toronto Maple Leafs roster has been acquired by Burke. That’s a huge amount of turnover in about 18 months. To put it in perspective, after five years on the job, JFJ was responsible for acquiring 60% of the Leafs roster. Pat Quinn’s peak was 66%.

And there’s potentially more turn-over to come.

John Mitchell, a Pat Quinn draft pick, and Nikolai Kulemin, a JFJ pick, are pending RFAs. Jeff Finger, a Cliff Fletcher UFA signing, is rumoured to be a future Toronto Marlies great. Many of the players acquired by Burke (Exelby, Wallin, Lundmark) will likely not return next season.

But before we can get to the next stage in the on-going make over of the Maple Leafs, Leaf fans will have to suffer through the balance of the season. The team is so dismally thin on talent upfront that they’ll be hard-pressed to win many games the rest of the way.

Consider:

• Only three players on the club have hit double digits in goals.
  Of the top five scorers on the team, three are defencemen, one is Phil Kessel and the other is injured.
• The Leafs top four centres are Bozak (rookie); John Mitchell (has regressed faster than Getzlaf’s hairline); Rickard Wallin and Wayne Primeau. As a group, they have scored 10 goals in 143 games played this season.

With the youngest roster in the NHL, the upcoming 20 game run will give the Leaf brass the opportunity to evaluate the players as they play in all situations (well, the most likely situation will be “trailing badly” but you get the idea).

With the holes on the roster and the lack of talent up-front, perhaps the best mind-set for Leaf fans is that the next 20 games are an extended exhibition season: a chance to see who’s working, who’s not; a time to hope for an entertaining game and to remind yourself that this is hopefully the last time in a long time that the points and standings don’t really matter.