Falling Toronto Maple Leafs Representative Of Flaws In Professional Hockey

“Wanna know what Gordie Howe got as a signing bonus?  A team jacket…now everyone wants the summer house in Bora Bora..” -Ed Lauter as coach Murray Chadwick in the movie Youngblood

Awhile ago writing for Rocco De Giacomo’s then Latchkey.net, I wrote a column entitled “BasketBall Sucks” how in the 90′s I used to be a basketball fan, and now I don’t watch it as much because for me there are aspects of the game that just don’t do it for me anymore.  One of the more passionate comments in retort on that column came from Dave Silverberg, who to this day is a passionate basketball fan, and it’s because of a poem that Dave read a few months ago about his sports addiction that inspired me writing this blog entry. A part of the poem referenced the Leafs and MLSE and alluded to how some teams exist solely to make money.

I have to say I didn’t like what he said, but all summer long I couldn’t shake it, and I have to say that more often than not, even before Dave performed that poem, I have been not only critical of my Leafs, but critical of the game of hockey itself.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the game, I really do, and I know that with time everything changes, but if you ask me, when it comes to professional hockey, there are too many aspects of the game that are used for commercial purposes that can simply be done away with. 

 

Too Many Teams

Your grandparents grew up with the original six, I grew up with the original 21…remember those days? After the Leafs were finished playing the Red Wings in the Norris Division match-up, the next game would be the Hartford Whalers vs. the Quebec Nordiques.  Man, I miss that, I miss the divisions being named after respective figures that were responsible for conceiving the NHL, and if you ask me I liked the Leafs in what’s known now as the “Western Conference” cause there will be no chance of the Leafs and Habs meeting again in the Stanley Cup final.  But please tell me why we have so many teams, and why are they located in places that people don’t care about hockey.  They took teams away from Quebec and Winnipeg, and now there’s a team in Nashville?  There’s a team in Phoenix? And even though those markets are suffering, Bettman still insists on doing everything possible to keep those teams there.  I remember the last time the NHL went on strike they asked players and former players for their opinions, and if you ask me sometimes I think Guy Lafleur had it right “Blow it all up and start from scratch with six teams.”

 

The Buildings Have No Soul

Go see a Leaf game at the ACC, and you’ve pretty much seen every building in the NHL.  Well of course the ACC does have something that the other buildings do not….the quietest crowd in all of hockey. But with more teams, came the onset of more of these multi-purpose entertainment complexes adorning the name of some greedy corporate sponsor. Maybe it’s just me but I think it meant something to go face the Flyers at The Spectrum in Philedelphia, to face off against Bruins at the Boston Garden, to feel the intimidation sweep across you at the old Forum in Montreal.  But sorry, there is no mystique left in the buildings anymore.  With the exception of Joe Louis Arena, and Madison Square Garden, I don’t know what would be so special for a player of a visiting team to play at GM Place?

 

What’s With All These Rules?

I’m sorry, I know that Bettman is trying to pimp out the game to make it that much more interesting to watch, but if you ask me all Americans should keep their grubby hands off of hockey.  Every time they touch something when it comes to our game, it just ruins it that much more.  Remember the time they tried that blue and white streak cause Americans had too hard a time following a black puck on a white ice surface?  I don’t like all of the over officiating when it comes to clutching and grabbing, I don’t like the instigator rule, I don’t like the trapezoid area, I don’t like the delay of game penalty for shooting the puck out of play, and I most definitely do not like shootouts.  I was more than satisfied with a tie when at the end of that fourth five minute period, it was much more entertaining considering teams had the option of picking up two points, and leaving the other with zero.  Now I have to say it just plain confuses me that a team loses a game, and gets a point for it?  Also teams tend to coast in the overtime frame, cause they know the shootout is just around the corner, and yes the shootout is interesting to watch, but it diminishes the fact that you’ve spent sixty minutes watching a team sport, and now you’re seeing one guy going down the ice with a strip of zambonied ice against one goalie….I don’t know but to me something is a little off.  Also because of all the emphasis on clutching and grabbing, and the addition of a second Referee on the ice surface during a game,  I wonder really how much of a game we are seeing.  With two referees on the ice and players not even able to touch each other, penalties are called left, right, and center, there are few even strength goals, more often than not now, it’s a special teams game more than anything. Whatever happened to those games that went end to end?  It seems that when they happen now it’s a rarity

 

Truly, Are The Best Players Really Playing?

Another part of Dave’s poem that struck me was where he said “Why am I watching millionaires playing sports?”  Indeed, and better still why are they making millions?  I started this column with a quote from rather horrid and campy eightees film Youngblood, about life in the OHL with Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze. In the scene coach Murray Chadwick, is pep talking the players giving them the perspective to just be happy they’re playing the game they love rather than look for the extras. Gordie Howe’s signing bonus was a team jacket, and he wore number 9, not because he got to pick it but because the Red Wings assigned team numbers by the places that they had on the train.  The Leafs could very well be another example of this aspect that for me has tarnished the sport.  The Leafs roster has two players that should be stars but are not, a bunch of middle of the road rookies, and a goalie who did have a couple of moments in the sun but is on the down slope of his career.  Now don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of natural talent in the NHL, I am not taking anything away from the likes of names like Crosby, and Ovechkin, however I left a little puzzled as to when I look at my Maple Leafs team why I am seeing a player such as Colton Orr on the team?  There’s more where players like him came from?  And you know full well, that the NHL is littered with players like him, or middle of the road players that truly make these stars look like some immense superstars.  But as talented as those guys are, gone are the days when being a star truly meant something.  Players like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Guy Lafleur, Gordie Howe, and Bobby Orr gained their notoriety not only for the natural hockey prowess they possessed, but because of the fact that they made the players around them better, and it’s sad to see but that kind of inspiration is sorely lacking in professional hockey nowadays. If I could use my Leafs as an example, the presence of Mats Sundin on the Leafs is truly missed.  I’d love to believe that Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf were worth the price of two first round picks, but those two aren’t even close to the type of player Sundin was, a guy that could turn around the mood of a game on his own.

And here in lies the problem, the philosophy behind running a team has drastically changed.   I spoke with a former OHL player awhile back, who had a lot of natural talent, and gave it his all to make the pros, but in the end he said there were a lot of politics, and it turned him off so much that he walked away from the game entirely.  His biggest criticism?  The best players are not playing, there are superstars, goons and middle of the road players, but the ones with talent for some reason just don’t get through.   You could blame it on the Gretzky trade perhaps putting things in motion, or you could blame the further Americanization of the game for it, but it’s rare to see that teams develop their players anymore.  It doesn’t mean much anymore to have a scout with a good eye for a good player, because everyone and their mother is looking for the next Gretzky at the age of thirteen.  So long as the dollars keep rolling in GMs have it in their minds that all they really need is a couple of stars and let any other players coming up the pipeline fall by the wayside.  Even the addition of a salary cap has not deterred from GMs firing that spending cannon to get a star on their team that they think can instantly buy themselves a Stanley Cup, rather than be patient, and let the team build on it’s own accord.  The Leafs are an example of the former.  Brian Burke talked all tough and gruff and squandered not one but two first round picks land two watered down stars that if you ask me can’t even compare to some of the talent that is in the league.  The Chicago Blackhawks, are an example of the latter.  This organization reached an unbelievably sad level with an unbelievably hated owner, and the fans simply didn’t come to the games anymore.  A lot of games in Chicago had empty seats, and bare in mind this was an Original Six hockey club.  They had no other choice but to get good, so they went the route of development, they let the young kids like Kane, Toews, and Keith come up and were patient, and the result of that?  They broke the longest drought in Stanley Cup history and bestowed it to the Toronto Maple Leafs….fourty-three years ladies and gents…soon to be fourty-four.

I know that this blog entry may very well look like sour grapes, but don’t get me wrong, I still like to plunk myself in front of the television for Hockey Night In Canada.  I still like to celebrate a Leaf goal, and call them bums when they go offside or take a dumbass penalty.  I still watch the playoffs religiously whether or not the Leafs are in it, it’s nice to see the players wake up that time of year and actually see what hockey should look like at the professional level.  I haven’t missed a Stanley Cup presentation as far back as I can remember.   I still love to be around the game, I love going to the Ricoh Coliseum and seeing the Marlies take on some unknown AHL team from Peoria, or Hershey, it’s cheap, and it’s good hockey.  If I ever got off my ass and lost fifty pounds I’d consider joining a men’s league again just cause I loved playing so much.   I have to say though, I do indeed acknowledge that with time things change, but I can’t say that when it comes to professional hockey that it has changed for the better.   I am also saddened that a storied franchise like the one we have here in Toronto is pretty well representative of that change.  I like other Leaf fans, season in and season out, have lived and died with them, and I don’t know that I exactly plan on changing that anytime soon.  But if things stay the way they are, and one day pigs fly and southern Ontario gets another franchise….could I be swayed to possibly change allegiances and support a new team from the ground up?….Until then…I guess I’ll bleed blue and white…literally.

~ by sicilianspokenword on November 28, 2010.