GUNTER GLIEBEN GLAUCHEN GLOBEN

Two billion years ago a meteorite 10km in diameter hit the earth about 100km southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. The impact of the 1000 megaton blast of energy created an enormous impact center now known as the Vredefort Dome or the largest crater in the world. That was nothing compared to the sound of the collective jumping from the Leafs bandwagon Saturday night.

In the same amount of time it would take you to spell Sergei and Andrei Kostitsyn properly, the Montreal Canadiens had the Leafs beaten.

Admittedly, it wasn't pretty. Actually is was kinda terrible. So terrible in fact that I am shocked I didn't see Mats on the ice wearing the C. Or Paul Maurice behind the bench, shammy in hand, cleaning his latest frames from the Elton John Collection in frustration. Or McCabe scoring on us.

There was a stink to Saturday's game that reminded one of the Leafs circa 2005 - 2008. With Blake second guessing himself as he did on the 2 on 1 with Antropov. (Halak was beaten and instead of a one timer high (Halak was down) Blake took a second (to think about it) and Halak stopped it.) And with more giveaways than a double winner on showcase showdown and 3 periods of tentative, undisciplined hockey; not to mention Leafs forwards who, by re-enacting the comfy chair sketch from Monty Python all night, doled out less punishment than having to sit through a Ben Affleck movie.

It was just the opening night of Hockey Night In Canada, in front of a sold out home crowd, recent Olympians, the ubiquitous 48th and Alex Trebek. Just two days after a win so uplifting that they could have held up a pair of tits.

This is exactly what people want from our team. Losses that humiliate. Self-congratulatory viper Damien Cox wants it, asshole with a moustache Howard Berger wants it. Habs fans want it, and we know how those sanctimonious and truly awful people who live in this nation's capitol feel. You know that old phrase, "I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy"? They're the worst enemy. And guess what friends, those GDCSers wish it on you.

To those capitol fuck-faces, I would say: you with 1 line, no secondary scoring, shitty goaltending, weak chins, girlfriends with fat legs, a slow defense with no offensive ability and absolutely zero team identity, I would worry about your team, not mine.

But there was a difference between last night and those dreadful years I mentioned earlier. First thing was that I didn't feel humiliated like I did last year when the Leafs lost similar games. This team looked engaged, especially in the third, right to the final buzzer. I like when people don't give up. Van Ryn looked great, and so too did Luke Schenn, getting into a fight sticking up for Stajan. That's the kind of shit that makes a team tight.

A big problem is that the Leafs have no game breakers. But this is a team with 10 new players on its roster, 5 of which have never played in the NHL before, its going to take time and patience to find that.

You have to look at them exactly like scoring in competitive diving; where the highest and lowest scores are erased. What you are left with is the middle, and the middle is a pretty accurate estimation of what you're dealing with. Similarly, the way you cannot judge this team by how they performed against Detroit can you by how the played against the Habs. You want to get a more accurate view of the team? Watch tomorrow's game against the similarly troubled St Louis Blues.

And finally the anti-'atta-boy to the powers that be at the NHL and or MLSE for cutting off the 48th Highlanders, thus not allowing them to play themselves off to the Maple Leaf Forever, but for allowing Def Leppard time to play cuts off both the Pyromania and Hysteria albums.