Browse >
Home / Archive: June 2008
by Derek Harmsworth…
Maple Leafs Will Open Season in Motown
As first reported by Howard Berger, the Toronto Maple Leafs will open their 2008-2009 season on October 9th in Detroit against the league’s defending champions.
The Maple Leafs vs. the Red Wings. An original six match-up that will be featured on a special edition of Thursday night Hockey Night in Canada on CBC.
Also revealed today were some details on the rest of the schedule.
The new look format will feature home and home games against Canada’s Western teams. The road trip is expected to take place in early November.
The Leafs will host the Vancouver Canucks, and Kyle Wellwood, at the ACC on February 21st as part of Hockey Day in Canada.
The full schedule is to be released in Mid-July.
More Thoughts on Wellwood
Kyle Wellwood’s time with the Toronto Maple Leafs ended today, signaling the end of a promise, potential filled career that has been stricken by injury and accusations of laziness.
I really hope Wellwood lands on his feet in Vancouver. If he can stay healthy and put up points like he did a few years back, he will replace Brendan Morrison on the second line.
However, I am cautious about this move for the young center. The Western conference is known as a harder hitting league than the East and if Wellwood isn’t prepared mentally, and physically, players like Dion Phaneuf and Brent Burns could eat him up all year long.
As for the Maple Leafs, I think if there isn’t an addition through free agency (a young, inexpensive free agent) then Alex Steen, or even natural center Jiri Tlusty will likely slide to the second line center role.
Fletcher’s Shape of Team Taking Shape
Cliff Fletcher made quite a few promises when he took over for John Ferguson Jr. last season. Among those promises was what he described as “half a dozen changes.”
Well, with July 1st free agency under a week away, those changes are well underway.
Since Fletcher has come to this team, gone are Kyle Wellwood, Darcy Tucker, and more than likely Andrew Raycroft.
Add to that players like Andy Wozniewski, John Pohl, and Scott Clemmensen not being brought back, Bates Battaglia toiling down in the minors, and the trade deadline deals that saw Chad Kilger, Wade Belak, and Hal Gill leave town, and the Maple Leafs GM has made already ten changes.
This doesn’t include Mats Sundin, Pavel Kubina, and Bryan McCabe’s potential departure, and whoever else Fletcher doesn’t feel is a fit for the club.
These players have been replaced so far with Jamal Mayers, who will provide grit, leadership, and the toughness this team was lacking last season, at a cheaper price. He also added Luke Schenn, who will be given every opportunity to back the big club come this fall.
He has made some real solid moves so far and it will surely be an interesting time in Leafs’ Nation once free agency opens for business.
A mint condition 1954 Hank Arron Rookie card by Topps which got auctioned last week sold on ebay for $28,100.00. When this was made, people were sticking them in bicycle spokes to make it sound like motorcycles, now they’re a down payment on a house.
You’ve had a rough day when you get gored by a bull, in the groin, like this poor fella here. In this battle however, its Bull 1, Matador 0. He received medical attention, and walked away from the ring.
by Adam “Sully” Sullivan…
What is it about Toronto Sports Media that drives the entire city mad? I can’t have a conversation with anyone even remotely interested in sports without being dragged down into a depression rivaling post WW1. Regurgitation is at a premium and the food for thought has gone bad. In Toronto, talking with someone about our teams is about as productive as reading the sports page. I do that when I’m alone and bored, not when I’m seeking meaningful human interaction. It seems that we’re only happy here in Toronto when we win back to back championships. Well dynasties aren’t easy to come by. That’s what makes them dynasties. Grow up. Everyone. Be a realist. You want heartache? Move to Chicago. Yeah the White Sox won a World Series and if anyone in Southside Chicago stopped pretending they ever gave two squirts about them, you’d see just how meaningless that really was. The only person that was excited about the White Sox winning a title was that kid we all knew in school who showed up with a Sox hat that year and a Red Sox hat the year before and a Marlins hat the year before that, and a…you get the point. I’m getting off topic. The point I’m making is that every year in each sport there is only one winner.
I don’t think I need to tell anyone that the last time the Leafs won the cup was the last time the NHL only had six teams. In this day and age we have 30 teams, on average, per league. Someone has to be the loser and believe me, it’s all cyclical. Was 1993 that long ago? Put on a Cubs hat and wait 100 years. Better yet, get in your time machine and go back to 2002 and ask a Boston sports fan about their teams. If you could decipher the God-awful accent, it would be a slew of expletives with the words “Celts”, “Sox”, “Paaaaats”, “saaaacks”, and “haaaaarrible” sprinkled in there. Look at them now: On top of the sports universe. They have a championship basketball team, perennial contenders in baseball, a dynasty worthy NFL squad, and yes…delectable clam chowder. It’s all about patience. You need patience to be a sports fan. If for any reason, have patience because you don’t want to be mistaken for being from Boston.
We all just need to exert a little patience here. The Raps have a capable Bryan Colangelo at the helm and are a decent center away from going to the finals. The Leafs have cleaned house and finally conceded the inevitability of rebuilding. The Jays are spending money and they’re ready to spend more and that’s all that counts in baseball. Hell I’ll even go out on a limb and say their season isn’t over. The playoffs? Probably not. Respectability? Yes indeed. We needed offensive production and Cito Gaston, as much of a gimmick as he has become, will provide us that. So put on your shiniest smiley face and bear through the hard times because Toronto sports is not on the decline; and at the end of the day, when one of these teams does start winning when it counts, you won’t look like a jackass hypocrite for enjoying it. The media doesn’t dictate your passion, and it sure as hell doesn’t buy your ticket. It’s okay to be down on your team once in a while, but it’s a whole other hockeybasebasketball game to be a run of the mill Toronto sports fan. If you can’t take the bad with the good, maybe you can ask that kid back in school to buy his White Sox hat; he’d sure as hell sell it to you now.
Her first notable appearance was in the U.S. edition of FHM magazine in December 2002; since then, she has modeled for many other men’s magazines.
Born in Havana, Cuba, she moved with her family to the United States soon after, ending up in the town of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. While growing up, she entered several fashion shows modeling swim wear, and appeared in a few music videos. Her first national exposure came when she appeared in a lingerie spread for FHM in December 2002. The magazine later reported that following its publication, almost one-third of their mail was from readers demanding more photos of her. She was called back for more photo shoots and became “FHM’s Model of the Year” in 2004
Carolina Ardohain has been modeling since 2001. Born in the La Pampa region of Argentina, she is nicknamed Pampita, although now she lives in Santiago in the neighboring country of Chile. Her fantastic body is the result of good genes and Carolina’s passion for dancing…she was a Professor of Aerobics at the Instituto Argentino de educación Física. Carolina said that her bust became five centimeters larger as the result of breastfeeding her first-born. She also said that she planned on having two more children.
by Bryan Thiel…
Do you ever look into the future and wonder what’s going to be meeting you there? What new faces will there be? Which old ones will have stuck around? Will you still be as passionate about the same things in the future that you are now?
Well, in fourteen years, what do you think will be happening?
Will the newest Maple Leaf be leading a burgeoning Blue and White defense, or will we as fans be wondering—as we have so often—what might have been? Will we have witnessed a team who finally got the idea and started to formulate a competitive attitude, once again taking the league by storm, or will we be just where we are now—middling amongst the layers of mediocrity?
Alright, so maybe fourteen years is a little two long—we’ll probably know within the next six-to-eight years the impact that this specific weekend had on the future of the Toronto Maple Leafs, but at least we started the next chapter in the book the right way didn’t we?
Instead of just aimlessly dumping the draft pick for another spare part (or goalie), we witnessed our GM (Interim or not) implement his plan and work to get who he wanted, stopping at nothing to get there. Instead of going slightly off the board and catching people off guard with our choices, we took a player who the experts picked to be a difference maker among the options out there this year.
Luke Schenn is Toronto’s difference maker. Today, Luke Schenn is the future for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
With the seventh pick, the Maple Leafs could have gone in a variety of ways: Some had the Buds trading down in the draft, while others had them trading up as they did, while there were some who thought that Cliff Fletcher would ship the pick away for some immediate help.
There were others, like myself, who were praying that whatever happened, it’d be for the better of the franchise.
Talk was that the Leafs would take a forward with their highest pick—one of Colin Wilson, Mikkel Boedker, or even Nikita Filatov if it would work out, and based on the thinness of the forward corps this didn’t seem like a bad idea, especially if one of those three were able to compliment the likes of Jiri Tlusty and Nikolai Kulemin.
But Fletcher shut out the media, stuck to his own plan, and went with a kid that has a ton of talent. Schenn can play the body, he can shut-down the opposing teams’ best forward, and with a little development, his offensive game may really gain some steam as well.
What’s more is that with Anton Stralman already in the mix, it seems that Schenn may be the perfect piece to compliment the young Swede atop Toronto’s defensive unit for years to come—the stay-at-home presence with a nifty outlet pass and adept ice vision necessary to balance out the offensive gifts of number thirty-six.
But what of the seemingly un-fillable hole that could be left by the departure of long-time Captain Mats Sundin? Well—even though I won’t actually accept this until the ink dries on a contract with anyone other than Toronto—if Sundin is to leave, Schenn has the experience leading a team, and the winning pedigree to succeed in a hockey-mad market.
The youngster from Saskatchewan was an assistant Captain with the Kelowna Rockets while being mentored under the watchful eye of Shea Weber. Although he was a year removed from Kelowna’s Memorial Cup Championship in 2003-04, Schenn was asked to accompany the team to the Championship the following year in London, Ontario in an attempt to help him soak in the atmosphere and get accustomed to the team.
This past season, Schenn even tasted International success as he and team Canada finished atop the hockey world once again, claiming gold at the past World Junior Championships.
Granted, when I first heard the news I was a little uneasy—I mean this is still the team that drafted Jeff Ware, Luca Cereda, Eric Fichaud, and Landon Wilson in the first round, so any first round pick gets me a little edgy—and I was a little disappointed it wasn’t a forward.
But after hearing so much about Schenn, I’ll let myself get a little excited—the sunshine had to start peeking through the drapes at some point didn’t it?
by Jeremy Visser…
Admittedly, I don’t follow college basketball much from April through February. From what I understood though, Andre Iguodala was a solid NBA prospect – an athletic swingman expected to go anywhere as high as third overall in the 2004 NBA Draft. So when Iguodala was still available when the Raptors chose eighth, I was excited.
It was then that David Stern delivered those fateful words: “With the eighth pick in the 2004 NBA Draft, the Toronto Raptors select Rafael Araujo from Brigham Young University”.
Sweet. I can’t believe Iguodala was still available that late. He’ll definitely help out our perimeter defense, considering Vince Carter stopped trying a couple years ago. Wait…hold on…Rafael Araujo? From Brigham Young University?
It was true, and Rob Babcock officially became “Lord of the Idiots”. Iguodala, who was drafted by Philadelphia with the following pick, led the Sixers to the playoffs last year, averaging 19.9 points and 2.1 steals per game. Araujo, in the meantime, also enjoyed his best professional season in 2007-08, averaging 11.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game – for Spartak St. Petersburg of the Russian Super Basketball League.
That answers the question of “Where is he now?”. However, in order to fully grasp how horrible of a pick Araujo was, it’s important to look at how he did with the Toronto Super Raptors of the National Super Basketball Association.
Araujo was drafted following his senior season, supposedly “NBA ready”. Ready, that is, to average 3.3 points and 2.7 fouls per game for the 33-49 Raptors. “Hoffa” took a slight step back in his second season in Toronto, averaging 2.3 points and 2.0 fouls while shooting 36.6% from the field, despite the majority of his attempts coming from within three feet of the basket.
With Babcock gone following the 2005-06 season, new general manager Bryan Colangelo was able to dump Araujo on the Utah Jazz, where he averaged 2.6 points in just under eight minutes per game. When Utah opted to fill their roster with mighty Ukrainian Kyrylo Fesenko prior to last season, Araujo signed a one-year, $500,000 deal with Spartak St. Petersburg.
I get upset every year around draft time. Still, I suppose you can’t blame Araujo – I’m sure he’s a good enough guy and I know he tried his hardest (those foul per minute numbers don’t lie). With the 17th pick in this year’s draft, it’s unlikely Colangelo will drop the ball the way Babcock did in 2004. That is, unless he trades for the first pick and grabs an Andrea Bargnani clone.
TMZ.com — Shaquille O’Neal took the mic at a NYC club last night, unleashing a freestyle verbal assault directed at his arch-enemy Kobe Bryant — blaming his former teammate for ruining his marriage and imploring him to “Tell me how my ass tastes.”
After spending several verses shredding Kobe apart for losing in the NBA playoffs, Shaq drops the line, “I’m a horse, Kobe ratted me out, that’s why I’m getting divorced.”
Now thats funny, the song has a nice ring to it, finely I can get rid of that song thats been buzzing in my head “I’m the cash man, I’ll give you money for your gold, yeah. I’m the cash man!” I need to go to bed before midnight, so I don’t watch this crap! “I’m a horse, Kobe ratted me out, that’s why I’m getting divorced.” YEAH
Shaq may really have something here with this rapping thing.
To hear Shaqs new hit click here.
by The Angry Sports Bastard…
Now that Euro 2008 has moved into the semi-finals stage I can’t wait for this little tournament to be over. I’m not going to act like some of those in the mainstream media – you know who you are – who feel it is their lot in life to bash football (I’m not going to dummy it down and call it soccer) just so “Joe from Woodbridge” will call into their silly radio show. Get over yourself. I like international football. Sorry but that thing they are trying to sell in Toronto (Toronto FC) or Vancouver (Whitecaps) is simply not world class; these guys are playing in the MLS for a reason.
Worldwide, football is know as “the beautiful game” but from where I’m standing she’s just a three dressed up as a nine; simply a waste of my time. (Shameless Trooper plug). Watching these games made me understand just why North Americans will never gravitate to football.
First of all there’s just not enough scoring. When a 2-1 score is considered an offensive explosion you know you have problems. It’s bad enough that about 50% of school kids are taking some attention deficit disorder drug but now they are being asked to tune in for 90 minutes to see two goals? Not going to happen. Then there is this whole notion of extra time and if nothing is decided it’s the dreaded penalty kicks. That would be like an NFL game ending in a field goal contest; a baseball game being decided on a home run derby; a hockey game ending in a shoot out. What? They already do this in the NHL? Shows you how out of touch that league is.
Another issue I have with the game are the rules regarding substitutions. Let me see if I have this straight. Each team carries a roster of 23 players – enough for two teams – yet they are only allowed to make three substitutions in a game. You want goals? Get fresh bodies in there. When the lone striker has gone from walking (which he does 95% of the time anyway) to crawling on his hands and knees, well you get the picture.
Finally, and this infuriates me more than anything else, the offside rule. I’ll cut a cheque to anyone who can explain offside to me. I barely made it through high school English so I’m looking for the Coles Notes version. Defense in football is a whole line of defenders throwing up their arms to signal that the guy who just got on the end of the only scoring play I’ve seen in over thirty minutes is really offside. Are they players or referees? I won’t even get into the rolling around on the pitch that takes place when the slightest challenge is made.
Note: Notice how I can easily weave in the language of soccer into my writing. Reading this you might actually think I know what I’m talking about.
The best part of Euro 2008? It’s got to be the English commentators. The men and women on this side of the pond could learn a thing or two from these cats. Primarily, that it doesn’t take three knuckleheads in a booth falling all over each other, talking at about 120 mph to deliver play-by-play and analysis. Hey, sometimes silence is golden.
You’ve been great. Keep listening to Thin Lizzy.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
Recent Comments