Indifference

There was a time when the hiring of a new President for the Toronto Maple Leafs would have mattered to me. I would have passionately researched the new hire's history, draft records, trades, business deals, professional associations -- just about everything materially imaginable to gain some insight into what the move might mean for the blue and white.

That time has passed.

I haven't watched a game in almost three months.

The Leafs changed the culture but I don't think many of us contemplated that it would be a change for the worse.

Being wilfully ignorant, arrogant, consistently wrong, and unable to budget is now way to go through life and it's no way to run a sports team. 

I presumed Leiweke would hire Gretzky to coach, buying the Leafs more time in their never ending attempt clear the low hurdle of mediocrity and more goodwill from the all too obsequious media. In my haste to make the Gretzky prediction/ joke, I didn't stop to consider the Leafs might hire a former jock with zero head office experience.

In hindsight, the Shanahan hiring is as predictable as Steve Simmons guffawing at spreadsheets or Darren Dreger devoting yet another day to spackling over Dave Nonis' deficiencies like the Leafs' own Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

Shanahan's arrival is as meaningless to me as possession metrics are to Carlyle. 

There was a time when what the Leafs did and even might do mattered to me.

That time has long since passed.

It's up to the Leafs to win me back. Some off-ice accountability would be a terrific place to start.