Mar. 17, 2011

I am a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I grew up a fan of the Detroit Red Wings but after a couple of years of living in "the big smug", I decided I would support the home team.

I lived through the "Ballard years" when the selfish and infantile Harold Ballard dismantled the team for reasons only Sigmund Freud could guess at. I endured the "see no evil" refereeing that knocked the Doug Gilmore led Leafs out of the Stanley Cup Finals in '93. I, like other Leaf fans, have been hung out to dry so often by the management of this team that I have to shower twice just to get wet.

I'm sick of it.

Last night, the Leafs beat the Carolina Hurricanes in a gutsy game that kept their playoff hopes alive. They did it playing in front of goalie James Reimer, the guy who came from nowhere in the minor leagues after the two picks of the hockey experts in Leaf management came up rubber legged time after time all season.

It's almost as if God himself elbowed aside the knuckleheads in Leaf management and provided Leaf fans with a real goalie. The real goalie who was under their noses all the time but that they only decided to try when all else was failing.

Tonight, hockey genius, Ron Wilson, decided to take the wind out of the sails of the team, to stifle whatever momentum they had coming out of last night's victory and to put J.S. Giguere, an old war horse, near the end of his career, in goal. Completely demoralized, the Leafs lost to the Panthers and didn't score a goal.

Ronny, you need a kick in the pants. Now is not the time to help Giguere try to secure a decent contract for next year. That kind of crap has been killing this team for decades.

You should be treating these last few games of the season as if they are the playoffs!

You should be playing James Reimer in goal, every night and pulling out every stop to make the playoffs. In Toronto, for Leaf fans, the run for the playoffs, is the playoffs, you nitwit.

Memo to the coach and general manager of the Leafs:

You have a young team. You should be treating the last few games of this season like playoff games. Even if the Leafs do not make the playoffs, these young players should experience a playoff like battle as the season comes to an end. They have managed to get within reach of the playoffs and should be coached as if they were in the playoffs. That is the way to build the fighting spirit of a team toward the end of the season.

The end of the season should mean one thing to a team: the start of a titanic struggle, every night, to claw their way to the league championship. That should be ingrained into them and it should be ingrained into you.

That is the way it always is for a championship calibre team. The season never winds down for a championship calibre team. It always DIES, hopefully with a bang and not a whimper.

At this stage of the season, no coach should be doing favors for players on their way out. The old sleazeball NHL management ways should not be indulged in by people trying to build a championship team.