NOW WITH 25% LESS CARING

I can barely contain my enthusiasm at this point. Besides the fact that I am contractually obligated to provide 25% Norte content on this site (and am floating around the 21% area). The 25% I write about is the Toronto Maple Leafs. Usually that’s a good thing. I could, as they say, talk about the Leafs till the cows came home. Unfortunately at this point….I am about as inspired as a Maple Leafs power-play. That kids, is what you call, a burn.

All joking aside this is going to have to be dismantled. It’s very difficult for me to remove my heart when it comes to the Leafs…but I think the time has come to offer up the pick of the litter. The thought makes me ill. I don’t even want to say it. I am not jumping ship, nor losing faith, rather, I am looking at the problem laterally. Last year at this time, my Toronto Maple Leafs a full 7 points ahead of where they are now, fought their way to not making the playoffs. I can’t even go on. I literally cannot finish that thought.

This team is like that promise you make to quit smoking, It’s always after Monday or after the next pack. After the Holidays. Its never right now. Now is never the time. The Toronto Maple Leafs are at their last pack, in fact I think the Leafs are down to their last ciggie. This is it. Really it was after this past back to back (sadly not sexy at all.) Losing to a team like Dallas is one thing. That POS no show against the Coyotes, on Hockey Night In Canada no less…was disgraceful. Listless, uninspired, beaten. They looked like an OHL team out there.
This team has more give aways than a showcase showdown. I have never been too keen on the ‘I don’t want it, you take it’ school of passing. To paraphrase Bonnie Tyler, I need a hero, I’m holding out for a hero ‘till the end of the night and he’s gotta be strong, And he's gotta be fast, And he's gotta be fresh from the fight. I'm singing at you Ian White.

You know what. Nope. I am not writing anymore. I am angry at the Toronto Maple Leafs. I have the Toronto Maple Leafs pinned against the wall, and I am right in their face and scowling, “you better win tomorrow.”
I poke the Toronto Maple Leafs in the chest.

JFJ: Soon to Be Resting in Peace

John Ferguson Plank Watch '07 is on in earnest in Toronto right now; the firing of JFJ being as inevitable as another Paul Maurice shopping spree at Hakim Optical. A head will roll for what's happened this season (and last season, and the one before that), and that head just happens to have a little too much gel on it. Since the millionaires at MLSE are all rocking the dry look, that means Ferguson.

Are any of you like me in thinking that the most relieved person after the firing will be Ferguson himself? I'm not a full blown psychiatrist, as I really only went semi-pro, but when I look at JFJ, I see someone who secretly just wants out of the misery that is GM'ing the 07/08 Toronto Maple Leafs. Fergie, seen here internalizing his rage, speaks now in talking points only. With the tight, compressed voice of a man with 90 years of history standing on his chest.

Never being fully qualified for the job, Ferguson stepped into the biggest office in hockey already with two strikes on him. With half the board never wanting him to begin with, they've never allowed for him to operate free and clear of corporate interference. All MLSE has ever done for John Ferguson Jr. is give him enough rope to hang himself.