That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

Top 10 Items I'd like to See Banned from Leafs Coverage

10. Ubiquitous references to 1967/40-x years (and counting).

I don’t see 1975 in the Flyers headlines, 1955 in every article about the Black Hawks or "never" in write-ups of the Blues, Canucks, Sharks, Sens, etc. Seems most people who remotely follow hockey know the Leafs haven’t won the Cup in over 40 years.

This descriptor is about as fresh as the box of baking soda that went into the freezer with Walt Disney and about as insightful as Charles Duell’s most famous quote.

9. Tank v. Try

Pretty much the epitome of false dichotomy. Or is it Morton’s Fork?

8. Reducing the Leafs cup count to 11.

We get it. Yes the Arenas/St. Pats won 2 cups prior to officially becoming the Leafs, but removing those cups belittles the media more than it does the team or the fans. The owner and team name may have changed, but the bulk of the rosters remained with the team the following season.

Does anyone think the Twins can't count their World Series win as the Washington Senators; the Colts can't count Super Bowls won in Baltimore; the 76ers can't count titles won as the Nationals; and poor Sacramento should lose their NBA title from 1951?

Must trophy counts be re-set every time a team is bought, sold, moved or has a name change?

7. Any discussion of Sundin's future.

If and when he signs, there will be entire forests wiped out to generate newsprint for the resulting coverage. Until then, I don't think we need another special filmed at his dock or bad translations from Swedish newspapers...

6. Fan-centric "reporting"

The Ottawa media doesn't work the locals' apathy/insecurity into every story. The bandwagon isn't the lead item in Vancouver. Arson, white flight and a deep-seated love of Beef on Weck don't make the Sabres' game recaps.

So why do the day-to-day concerns, worries and wallets of Leafs Nation get such prominent play in every article from game summaries to in-depth features?

If I wanted to know what Tony from Woodbridge thought about the state of the Leafs specialty teams, I’d listen to a phone-in sports radio show and hear it directly from the source.

It's lazy, doesn't add value and it's not telling me anything new. Lose it.

5. Turning 1 or 2 game results into major trend pieces

It’s like identifying NFL trends based on a single quarter or half of a football game. How about a little perspective and some big picture analysis?

4. Complaining about the Leafs being on HNIC.

There are so many things wrong with these type of stories.

First: the Leafs play in Canada’s largest media market and the number five or six market in North America. There are more people in the golden-horseshoe than can be found in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta combined.

Second: Ratings don’t lie.

Third: Let’s look at who this really affects: if you’re in the Ottawa valley, you get Sens games. If you're in Quebec, you get Habs games (RDS also carries all 82 Montreal Canadiens matches). If you’re in Alberta or BC, the HNIC early game is on at 4 or 5PM and one of the Flames, Oilers and Canucks will be on during Prime Time.

That means the only people “stuck” with the Leafs live between Winnipeg and Belleville. If they don’t like that ratings, market size and demand are enough to make the Leafs the default HNIC game, they can subscribe to RDS, Center Ice, or explore on-line options (if I can get an NHL game over the web in New Delhi, and the World Juniors in Hyderabad, I'm sure there are ways to avoid the Leafs every Saturday night).

3. Pretty much anything Don "Bochenski for Calder" Cherry has to say.

Someone much smarter than I am called him the Ann Coulter of hockey. Is it a schtick or is he really old-man crazy? Either way, there must be better things to report on that what an old show-man had to say on Saturday night.

2. The "When will Ron Wilson go nuclear on the media?" stories

This media angle is the equivalent of repeatedly poking something with a stick and then filing a sensational report on what happened. It's also a good reminder to never underestimate the media's love of writing about themselves, interviewing fellow journalists or covering existing coverage. This meme is a perfect case in point and a little more than a media-created mess.

Given the inanity of the questions, the size of the media contingent and the lack of quality of much of the end product there is only one right answer here: not soon enough. But let's look at the crux of the story angle here: what does it matter if Wilson snaps? What does it mean if he doesn’t? What value does this potential story bring to our understanding of hockey?


1. Plan the Parade Jokes

My daughter’s favourite joke goes like this:

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Banana

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Banana

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Banana

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Banana

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Banana

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Banana

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Banana

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?

I hear this joke about three times a day, seven days a week. It was funny and sort of cute the first time, but now it’s just white noise.

This is what the “plan the parade joke” has become.

But, in the case of the parade joke, it's not coming from an exceptionally adorable five year old who has no idea how tired and played out a joke can become. No, the joke is coming from a cadre of supposedly professionally trained journalists who have been hired and are compensated to provide insight and analysis on Canada’s favourite sport.

It's time for this one to be retired until the Leafs win at least three in a row.

29 Years Later

When I was a boy, the Toronto Maple Leafs and McClelland and Stewart (don’t look for them, they’re not there anymore) published a cloth cover book on the upcoming 1979-80 Leafs' season.

I read that book so many times the spine is broken, the pages are frayed and the dust jacket is a nothing but a long-lost memory.

It was published at a time of real optimism for the Leafs. The team was just two years removed from their playoff upset over the New York Islanders and, even though they had gone down four straight to the dreaded Montreal Canadiens in the Quarter Finals, game 3 had gone to double OT and game 4 was lost in OT on a questionable call against Dave “Tiger” Williams.

This was a time when Sittler still wore the C, MacDonald patrolled his wing, an optimistic Ron Wilson started the season on IR and a porn ‘stached Palmateer protected the pipes.

As thoughts turn to this year’s training camp with its new coaches and new rosters, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this book and its in-depth player profiles including expectations for the 79-80 season and a day-by-day précis of the Leafs training camp.

Now, I’m not suggesting this year’s Leaf season will have any resemblance to that horrible one 30 years ago.

First of all, the year ahead for the 2008-09 Leafs certainly isn’t starting off with the same patina of optimism. Secondly, I seriously doubt the Leafs could hit the same low points as that fateful year that saw the MacDonald trade, Sittler ripping off his C and the start of a twelve year run of the team posting a losing record (yeah, you read that right – the Leafs were under .500 for twelve straight seasons: 1979-80 to 1992-93. Keep that in mind when the media wring their hands over the past three years.).

That summer also saw Ballard and Imlach pursue legal action all the way to the Ontario Supreme court in an effort to keep Sittler and Palmateer from participating in Showdown - a televised skills competition between NHL players. (There's a great collection of Showdown videos from the CBC archives here. Man I LOVED this show as a kid.)

With that caveat out of the way and in anticipation of the Leafs training camp to come, I thought I’d go back through one of my favourite childhood books, violate all sorts of copyright laws, scan a few photos, and have a look at some interesting quotes, thoughts and anecdotes from the Leafs 29 years ago this September…

The World From on High: An Interview with Harold Ballard

The book begins with a long, very wide-ranging interview between Time Magazine reporter John Gault and Harold Ballard, including a lengthy discussion between Gault and Ballard on the Neilson firing, re-hiring (the infamous paper bag incident). I promise I’ll post that whole exchange soon.

There are some interesting echoes in this interview - meddling owners, bad trades and the need for better scouting, as captured in the exchange below:

John Gault: Who’s been traded away, in the past five years, say, that you wish you had back?
Harold Ballard: Well, Rick Kehoe for instance, who went to Pittsburgh. Carlyle should have been kept here. And I think that probably Jack Valiquette should have stayed.

Gault: The return on players you’ve sent to other teams hasn’t been that great in the past while, has it?
Ballard: No. We’ve traded away some pretty good hockey players.

Gault: Yes, and it could be argued that you didn’t exactly get your return on your dollars
Ballard: You don’t have to argue about it, it’s a fact.

Gault: Why?
Ballard: I don’t think our scouting system was that good or they wouldn’t have agreed to make those trades. Now you’ve said that I try to run everything. I don’t. When they were going to make a deal, I’d say to [former GM Jim] Gregory ‘Are you sure you’re going to do it?’ You see, they would have gotten rid of Turnbull if I hadn’t asserted myself last year and stopped it. Roger and Gregory wanted to get rid of Turnbull and I wouldn’t allow it. He couldn’t get along with the coach, so the coach wanted to get rid of him. As a matter of fact, Roger was quite adamant about it and I said: ‘Look, if he’s going to go, you’re going to go to.’ It was that bad.

Gault: I doubt that Neilson would have argued that Turnbull wasn’t a good hockey player
Ballard: Well he did. He had these ‘points’ He was a great guy with those replays, those little pictures you know. And he used to pick out all the bad things Turnbull did, but he didn’t pick out many good things...

I love that Ballard seems totally put off by Neilson’s use of video replay, or as he calls it: “those little pictures.”

A Guide to the Opposition

The late Frank Orr, formerly of the Toronto Star, provides an overview of all 20 NHL teams the Leafs would face in 1979-80, including the four new WHA teams that joined the NHL: Edmonton, Quebec, Hartford and Winnipeg.

Here are a few of the highlights:

The Sabres are trying something new with a “coaching staff” approach - Scotty Bowman hired Roger Neilson and Jim Roberts as Assistant Coaches. Don Cherry said of the approach: “Scotty wants assistants so he’ll have someone to blame if something goes wrong.” Bowman’s take: “I agree with the Europeans. They can’t understand why NHL teams have figured one coach could do the job. It’s just too complex for that now.”

1979-80 was the first season for the Oilers and they sold 14,600 season tickets within 11 days of tickets going on sale. Coach Glen Sather says he has his highest hopes for young Swedish forward Bengt Gustavsson [who never played a game for the Oilers, the Capitals claimed him at the expansion draft in June, 1979.]

The Whalers roster included a 51 year old Gordie Howe and coach Don Blackburn says he wants to experiment with moving left-wing Mark Howe (42-23-65 in 1978) back to defence.

The New York Islanders (that season’s Stanley Cup champs) only had one skater over 28 on their roster and their entire core (Trottier, Bossy, Gillies, Potvin, etc.) were under 25.

The Penguins were having attendance problems and were facing red ink.

In the 1970s, free agents were anything but. The Red Wings signed “Free Agent” goaltender Rogie Vachon from the LA Kings and had to compensate the Kings for the signing. The teams couldn’t agree on fair compensation and the Kings asked for, and were awarded, Dale McCourt – the Wings’ leading rookie scorer. McCourt refused to report to LA and the dispute ended up in the US courts. The lower court upheld the original compensation. McCourt and the Wings appealed the decision, but before a second court date was set, the Wings and Kings agreed to an alternate compensation and McCourt was “dealt” back to the Wings.

The Flyers got a first round pick for what has to be the oddest named twosome ever dealt: Orest Kindrachuk and Ross Lonsberry.

Training Camp September, 1979

Leaf veterans arrived in camp with a new coach (Floyd Smith) and a new GM (Punch Imlach) as GM Jim Gregory and Coach Roger Neilson were both fired over the summer.

When Nielson returned to the Gardens as the assistant coach of the Sabres for a pre-season game, the Leafs refused to let him sit in the press box. Imlach said, "If Neilson wants to coach, let him coach from behind the bench. He won't be able to do it from our press box." (You stay classy Imlach!)

Looking to add some grit to the line-up, Imlach offered Jim Dorey a try-out with the Leafs. Ten years earlier, Dorey set an NHL record with nine penalties - four minors, two majors, two 10 minute misconducts and a game misconduct - in just two periods of play. [After being cut by the Leafs, Dorey would go on to play 32 games that year for the Nordiques and then call it a career.]

The Leafs played 12 exhibition games including matches in Moncton, NB; Ottawa, ON, Kitchener, ON; and against the Canadian Olympic team in Calgary (the Leafs lost to the Olympians 6-5, Lanny had a hat-trick. Apparently the Leafs had trouble with the Olympians speed. And no, I didn't just make that up...)

The Leafs played the Habs in game 11 of their pre-season and actually won. It was the first time the Leafs had beaten Montreal in 25 straight meetings. The Leafs hadn't beaten Montreal in an exhibition, regular season or playoff game since November 1, 1976.

Future Washington Capitals coach Bruce Budreau was amongst the Leafs last cuts at camp, getting sent to Moncton on day 17.

Interesting to note that this club would produce at least four NHL coaches in Quennville, Anderson, Boudreau and Ron Wilson (and one cottage-country bar owner in Walt McKechnie).

Money quotes:

"I guess having a new coach always creates a little feeling of unrest because you wonder about the style of hockey he'll want the team to use and how you'll fit into it." - Ron Wilson.

"There are some holes in our team, aren't there?" - Floyd Smith

The Players



Each of the 24 Leafs who made the team out of training camp are profiled at the end of the book. It's the standard 20 questions format - why hockey, what would you be doing if you weren't in the NHL, superstitions, activities away from the rink, personal goals...Here's a look at the highlights:

"I like the hours. It's not a nine to five job. You have the summers off to do what you want and, of course, the money isn't bad." - John Anderson on the Pros and Cons of Sports Celebrity.

"I would have liked to get into a veterinary line of work or work with wildlife" - Dan Maloney on alternate career prospects.

"I never set personal goals for myself; the only goal is the Stanley Cup. When you start setting personal goals you're putting pressure on yourself and that kind of pressure you don't need. When I get my first goal I'll go for number two and so on. You take whatever comes. Winning the Stanley Cup and playing international hockey: that's the ultimate, to play for your country. I've already done one and, hopefully, befoer the end of my career, I'll accomplish the other." - Lanny MacDonald

"Amityville Horror and Penthouse are favourites." - Joel Quennville on what he likes to read.

"Mr. Ballard. Yeah, I'm serious." - Dave "Tiger" Williams on his favourite opponent

"I'll just play until I stop enjoying it. If I don't play a lot this year or next year I may hang up the game because it's no fun sitting on the bench." - Ron Wilson

Nine Tips for Media Types

I really appreciate the quality of the comments on this site, they often make me stop and think.

Case in point: The feedback on my Cox post deserved a response and my comment mushroomed into this (rather long) post.

I think we'd all agree that there certainly couldn't be much more Leafs coverage. There are upwards of 30 reporters covering the Leafs. To put that in perspective, the entire media contingent covering Queen's Park (the Province of Ontario's legislature) is just 31 journalists.

In addition to having their own TV channel, the Leafs are the lead item on each and every TSN and Sportsnet broadcast. Each paper has columnists and staff reporters covering the team. There are lunch time radio broadcasts devoted to all things blue and white. And then there's the comments at the Globe and Mail, filled by people who seem to spend more time complaining about the amount of Leaf coverage than they do cheering for their own teams.

So the quantity is unarguably there, but the quality side seems to be a bit lacking. How hard is it for a reporter or editorial staff to use a search function to scan the NHL CBA? How many times are reporters going to miss that both Tucker and McCabe have NMCs? If the media are unsure about a no-movement clause, why not phone the NHLPA, the agent or ask the player? Isn't that one of the benefits of being a trained professional with full access to sources?

That said, I do feel some sympathy for the media who cover the Leafs. There's so much media competition in this town (and with this team) that I can't imagine the pressure they're under from their editors and producers to cultivate sources and land big scoops.

I think this combination of editorial pressure and competitive media marketplace is the big reason that Cox has been publicly fellating JFJ in so many of his columns. Cox knows Ferguson will eventually land on his feet in the NHL and, if Cox has laid on enough adjectives, he may have cultivated an inside source in Ferguson - one that will be very helpful in fueling Cox with plenty of material for his faux-indignation-fueled tirades against MLSE.

That or Cox is looking to land his next book deal and has JFJ in his sites (admittedly, Cox did file a pretty solid piece in yesterday's paper).

Still, given the pressures and competition, it's hard to believe the amount of misinformation, poor fact checking and general lack of imagination that permeates so much of the Leafs media coverage. I'd like to think with their access, the reporters who file day in day out on all things Leaf might be able to come up with something more compelling then who's wearing the red jersey at practice, fake trade rumours or faux panic over the lack of formal job interviews conducted by MLSE.

Rather than just bitch and moan about the state of Leaf coverage and without much thought (like most of my posts) here are 9 ideas, off the top of my head, that I'd love to see followed-up by those who cover hockey and/or the Leafs:

1. More first person source reporting. This was one of my favourite articles last year - a Brian Burke first-person diary during the trade deadline. Could we get something similar from anyone at MLSE? Please? If not, I'd settle for any first-person insight at the GM level.
   
2. Use your access to really take readers behind the scenes. The consensus is the Leafs need to hold on to their draft choices and draft wisely. Can fans maybe get a profile (or two or three) of the Leaf scouts that will be helping make the decisions on draft day? What gems have they discovered? What do their peers on other clubs think of them? What's the hierarchy in the scouting department and how do draft day decisions get made? Maybe a day in the life of a Leaf scout...or a day in the life of a top OHL prospect. Gare Joyce's work on this was great stuff and surely demonstrated there's an audience for it. Wouldn't it be nice to get a bit more on these kids than Don Cherry and four or five of the top ranked 18 year olds passing around a microphone during a 45 second spot on HNIC?
   
3. Stop telling us what Leaf fans think. Leafs Nation is not a homogeneous entity and does not think with one mind. Even if Leaf fans did all agree, would anyone care? Moreover, it's a lazy literary device at best and completely misleading at worse.
   
4. Help the fans get insights from the coaches. The Leafs have the worst PK in the league and it's killing them. When was the last time anyone saw an interview with the special teams coach, or even with Maurice, where the Leafs approach to the PK was analyzed? What's working, what's not? Compare and contrast the Leafs' approach by interviewing special team coaches on more successful clubs. (And it doesn't have to be just the PK. There's the whole issue of zone v. man-to-man defence; team toughness/ use of enforcers; the shoot-out; power play; adapting to opponents; etc.)
   
5. Less of the trade rumour BS. Before the trade deadline there were, what, maybe 4 trades in the NHL? Yet every columnist weighs in with trade rumour after trade rumour, none of which come true and none of which advance a story of any relevance. (And can someone fine Dreger every time he uses the questionable at best "Sources are saying..." approach. If he had to put a twoonie in a jar for every time he used it he could make a hefty-donation to a worthy cause.)
   
6. More long form player profiles please. Joe O'Connor has being doing this masterfully with retired players over at the National Post, why not do it with the current or retired Leafs? (Or how about an update on Boyd Devereaux's record label?)
   
7. Help demistify the CBA. This is one of the best posts I've seen on the matter, it's by a blogger and it's over a year old. Why can't newsrooms create similar content? How about top 10 CBA myths (e.g. players with NMC can't be bought out; injured players don't count against the cap; etc.). Since the signing of the CBA has the frequency of offer sheets to RFAs increased? What steps can clubs take to protect their RFAs (e.g. team initiated arbitration)? With Wellwood and Stajan as the Leafs main RFAs, what odds do agents and other insiders give that another club will tender them a contract? How does the fact that the Leafs traded their second round pick to Phoenix for (gulp!) Perreault, limit their ability to tender RFA offer sheets?
   
8. More on the Big Picture. Where does Leafs management sit on the the Moneyball vs. "Intangibles" spectrum? I've read great stuff about the San Jose Sharks and Columbus Blue Jackets innovative use of statistics. What are the Leafs up to? What do they make of this? On another topic: how does player development work, why is Buffalo so amazing at it and what are the Marlies doing to help develop Leaf prospects?
   
9. More on the Business of Sport: What has the impact of moving the farm club to Toronto been? What do players who played both in St. John's and at the Ricoh think of the move? Crunch the numbers - what has it meant for the salary cap being able to send guys across the street? Has it had any impact on the Leafs ability to recruit and retain management? With precedents in Chicago and Philadelphia is this a model we should expect to see more of? How does the Leafs system compare with clubs that don't have their own AHL affiliate? On-glass advertising, are the Leafs for or against? Same goes with advertising on jerseys, where does MLSE stand?

As Leaf/hockey fans, I'd love to know what stories do you think we're missing out on and what type of coverage would you like to see more of?

If you were the editor/producer for a day what would you tell your reporters to work on?

Are there any guys out there who stand out? Anyone a must-read for you?

Further evidence that Don Cherry is a moron

Tonight on Coach's Corner (11/04/07) the man that picked Brian Bochenski to beat Crosby and Ovechkin as rookie of the year said Raycroft ran into trouble this year because he played too many games. It's fatigue he says.

Uh huh.

Mr. Cherry, let's look at Raycroft's stats on a month by month basis:

October: 11 GP; 5-4-2; 3.09 GAA; .894 SV%
November: 10 GP; 6-4-0; 2.50 GAA; .904 SV%
December: 10 GP; 4-4-2; 3.20 GAA; .867 SV%
January: 12 GP; 8-4-0; 2.500 GAA; .901 SV%
February: 12 GP; 5-4-3; 2.917 GAA; .854 SV%
March: 13 GP; 8-3-2; 2.69 GAA; .909 SV%
April: 4 GP; 1-2-0; 3.50 GAA; .829 SV%

So when exactly did the fatigue kick in?

Actually, looking closer at the numbers, Cherry might be on to something - maybe Raycroft is best utilized by only being allowed to play every other month. I'd be happy with his numbers for November, January, March. The Leafs just need to find a keeper who can play October, December, February and April...