Baby Eater of the Week

Today I have a special gift for all five of you dear readers inspired by a wonderful and snow-filled Christmas weekend, which included a Star Wars marathon Christmas day (much thanks, Spike TV) the routing of Russia in Canada's first game of the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship, and the Leafs finally winning a game.

This is the first installment of what will be a weekly (well... we'll see) series honouring the roughest, toughest, and all-around most terrifying players in the league. However, today I am straying from the more stringent definition of "league" to include the ECHL, which is where this week's hands-down winning entry hails from.

DISCLAIMER: To the hypersensitive delicate flowers among you, I do in fact consider entertainment value when selecting a winner. If that offends you, please understand that if entertainment was not part of the criteria, there would be very little keeping me from posting the video of the Phaneuf-Kovalchuk fight from last night and nobody wants to see that.

So without further ado, via Puck Daddy, I give you the very first Baby Eater of the Week: Bobby Goepfert, goalie for the Florida Everblades and two words: GOALIE FIGHT!

 

For continued enjoyment, follow the link to the original video posted by SwampHockey on YouTube for a full list of the penalties that resulted from these glorious few minutes. Hint: there are a lot.

Merry Christmas!

Seriously, fire Ron Wilson

I promised myself when I finished exams that I would try to get better as this blog posting thing. But then the Leafs kept on losing, and I didn't want this to turn into an angry or passive aggressive outlet for a frustrated Leafs fan (yet, anyway) and couldn't bring myself to comment when the Leafs managed to go down to Atlanta by a margin of four goals heading into the third period. I just couldn't.

But then I realized, why do I have a blog if not to rant about the team that is slowly driving me to the brink of insanity? So brace yourself. I didn't get a chance to air my grievances on Festivus, but as a Jew, Christmas will do just as well.

I've been on the Fire Ron Wilson train for quite a while now. Let's call it all season. I understand that the roster he's working with is lacking depth and, you know, goal-scorers (Grabovski obviously excluded, as he has been in beast mode for the last month). However, the team does seem to have the capacity to play well, and have shown in many a third period last-ditch effort that they're not completely hopeless. They just consistently forget to show up for the first forty minutes of every game, digging  holes too deep to recover from in those last ten minutes when they suddenly realize - Hey! We're in the middle of a hockey game!  

If you look closely, his opponent's fear is reflected in his visor.

And this is why I have issue with Wilson. I'm not a hockey player, so I don't really understand what goes on in a locker room, or how different coaching techniques and personalities impact a team. All I know is that the current team is young, inexperienced, and (hopefully) only going to get better. The team has potential, if not to make the playoffs then to at least get out of lottery-pick territory, but Wilson doesn't seem to be able to get them there. 

Burke completely revamped the roster last year in an effort to build a team around the notions of truculence and speed. This is that team, for better or for worse, and it's highly unlikely he has many more roster moves up his sleeve for the near future. So now the onus is on Wilson to work with these players and somehow make a competitive team out of them. Unfortunately, his key move seems to be to shuffle the lines and hope that players step up and gel. It's gotten to the point where he took Lebda off the blue line (which would have been tremendous news had he moved him directly to the press box, or better yet, the AHL) and stuck him on a line with Kessel and Mitchell. I mean, come on. If that move wasn't Wilson's way of saying "fuck you" to the fans... well, then to be honest I have no idea what the hell he was doing, which is even more disconcerting. Like an irritating child, he is testing his boundaries and rapidly discovering that there are none.

It comes down to one thing: as coached by Ron Wilson, the Leafs are thirteenth in the Eastern Conference. They are in lottery position. There is no risk in getting a new coach - either they finish in a lottery position anyway, or somehow manage to claw their way up to twelfth. Maybe even eleventh!

Brian Burke needs to do his job and makes the moves that are necessary to get the Leafs out of the gutter, even if that means firing his bestest buddy and ex-roommate. If he doesn't, we're all going to have to listen to the Toronto media whine about the Phil Kessel trade for another excruciating year while the Bruins get another top draft pick. Quite frankly, I don't know if I can take it.

But I suppose it could always be worse. Times like this I love to imagine how much fun the Sutter family Christmas dinner must be. Nothing says Merry Christmas like shipping your nephew to another team, while his father struggles as the coach of your franchise. Must be a blast.

In which I ignore the outcome of unfavourable games

This last week saw the Leafs playing the Penguins and the Flyers in back-to-back games, both of which were on TSN. This meant viewers were treated to the delightful musings of one Pierre McGuire, hockey analyst extraordinaire. As someone who is quite sensitive to irritating voices to the point where I can't be in the same room as an episode of True Blood and probably won't be able to watch Fargo ever again (for the record, I do think it was a great movie), I find Pierre's voice mildly grating at the best of times, and about equivalent to being subjected to a plane-full of colicky babies while being stabbed repeatedly in the skull with a dull screwdriver at the worst.

Early on in the Pens game, Sjostrom proved his dedication to Leafs Nation and everyone else with ears by nearly taking off Pierre's head with a wayward puck. Sadly, no such luck the next game, during which I could have sworn I had somehow been transported back in time to the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals (hint: it wasn't because of what was happening on the ice). I get it, Pierre. You're a Mike Richards fan. A really, really big Mike Richards fan. But please show some restraint, it's starting to get embarrassing. And to answer your question to Gord Miller, no, Mike Richards is not underrated. He won a gold medal in February and dragged his team (disclaimer: Pronger helped) into the Cup finals in June. He's good. I get it. Now shhh.

Other Pierre highlights included him mispronouncing Grabovski's first name and referring to Chris Pronger as an "everyday defenseman". Regardless of one's opinion on Pronger, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that when choosing ways to describe him, "everyday" doesn't quite do it.

Other than that, Leafs won 3-1 over Montreal last night. Trash bins surrounding the Air Canada Centre overflowed with soggy waffles. What a waste.

On never turning off a game

In addition to convincing me during the playoffs that if the Leafs scored a goal while I was out of the room it was completely logical to not let me back in until something terrible (read: opposing goal) occurred, my father also insisted on never turning a game off early. He'd yell at the television, throw things, and storm out threatening never to watch those useless, good-for-nothing, overpaid, sacks-of-shit-on-skates ever again, but he never actually turned the game off. This led to many an excruciating night when we'd watch the clock tick down on a blowout and he'd be forced to explain, once again, why exactly it is that god hates Leaf fans and wants me to suffer (see also: why I am not religious).

I have recently found myself explaining to fans who turned the Leafs off after the second period when they were down by 3+ goals this season just how awesome it was to watch the team claw their way back in the third and win it in overtime more than once. To clarify, by "fans" I mean the one Leaf fan I know in Los Angeles and a coworker who doesn't seem to have the heart to tell me that she really doesn't care, and by "more than once" I mean twice.

But man, it is games like the one last night against the Caps that make all the torment, mocking, and pathetic attempts at self-deprecation that actually just make me sad worth it. I'm sticking with this team until the bitter end. And by "bitter end" I mean inevitable Stanley Cup Parade down Young St this summer because obviously after last night that's totally going to happen.

But seriously, fire Ron Wilson.

Hockey is back. And the Leafs are right where we left them.

Hide your kids. He's got that look in his eyes.

Hockey's back folks, and with it comes the Leafs' inability to run an effective power play. But tonight is not about analyzing how a team can go for a total of three minutes and nineteen seconds with two different two man advantages and not score. No. It's a night of celebration.

I chose to spend Monday night watching disc nine of the "Toronto Maple Leafs - 10 Great Leafs and Their Most Memorable Games." Disc nine is the third game of the 2002 Leafs/Senators second round series in which Roberts scores the winner in triple overtime. Needless to say, I went to bed all warm and fuzzy inside, full of Maple Leaf love, hope, and blind optimism. This in no way prepared me for the game that took place Tuesday.

Now obviously the game was a disappointment, and not just because I had to stream it online on a 13'' laptop because the powers that be in Los Angeles don't think there's a huge demand out here for a preseason game between two Canadian hockey teams on the opposite coast. Over the summer I had managed to convince myself that the team we have now could not possibly be worse than the team that started the season in blue and white last year and despite the score, I was right: Vesa Toskala was not in net, and Rosehill and Brown destroyed Smith and Spencer, respectively. The first point obviously needs no explanation. The second really shouldn't either. Hanson got a shot at Lee in at the end as well, which was great fun for all the people who find they don't get nearly as many opportunities to reference Slap Shot in day to day life as they would like.

What was awesome about the Rosehill and Brown battles is that they showed that the Leafs - despite their obvious issues with basic hockey-related skills such as passing, shooting the puck on net, and skating - are not letting themselves get pushed around. This team gives a shit. They finally seem to care. They're not quite at Gary Roberts level caring, but it's a step up from the team that was defined by the players who seemed content to play out their contracts and retire without ever participating in another postseason game.

So yes, tonight is a night of celebration. After 20 years of watching the Leafs I can handle the losses, the blow-outs, and the shut-outs, but I will never be able to handle a team full of losers who can't be bothered to throw a punch.

Heart and spirit. Roberts had them both every single night. Here's hoping the team out there on October 7th has them too.