Choices

Selecting Team Canada is an onerous task and I don't envy Steve Yzerman and his assistants. If their team fails to deliver a gold medal on home soil, the backlash from not only the hockey community, but Canadians as a people, will be tremendous. If one of the players has a poor game, his selection to the team will be questioned. If Canada fails to medal, the Prime Minister will have to come out of hiding to declare a state of emergency. There is a lot at stake for them, let's leave it at that.

I think that, for the most part, Stevie Y. has done a good job. The three goalies were clear choices, so I won't even go over them here. The top 9 forwards were also fairly obvious, and he seems to have chosen correctly:

Nash - Crosby - Iginla
Heatley - Thornton - Marleau
Staal - Getzlaf - Perry

Those would be my combinations, though I think you could put the names into a randomizer and still come out with three dominating forward lines. The theoretical fourth line, to me, would be:

Morrow - Richards - Toews

Those seem like good choices to me. Mike Richards is debatable, and maybe the other Richards deserved it more, but I like Toews and Morrow quite a bit. It's certainly a whole lot better than the Kris Draper selection, or my personal favourite, the immortal Rob Zamuner. I bet you'd forgotten about that one. In 1998, Rob Zamuner played for the Canadian Olympic team. Let's pause to consider that one, friends.



[Pause]



Okay, pause over. Also, in that famous shootout against the Czech Republic, the Canadian shooters were Theoren Fleury, Raymond Bourque, Joe Nieuwendyk, Eric Lindros and Brendan Shanahan. While Wayne Gretzky sat on the bench, those five were charged with scoring on Dominik Hasek at the pinnacle of his powers. RAYMOND BOURQUE! Sorry, that just kind of slipped out. BOURQUE! As you can imagine, it's still a touchy issue.

Back to the subject at hand. I think the only questionable forward selection is Patrice Bergeron, and since he's probably the thirteenth forward, that shouldn't be a big deal. The person that should be up in arms over this is Marc Savard. How do you look at those numbers and choose Bergeron? Or the best part, how do Team Canada executives go to scout Bruins games, and then miss Savard? How does that happen? Did he somehow offend Yzerman personally? I am flabbergasted.

The choices on defense are a little stranger:

Chris Pronger, Scott Niedermayer, Drew Doughty, Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith, Shea Weber and Dan Boyle.

I think that Duncan Keith, Dan Boyle, Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger are locks. I am not a big Pronger fan, but he's played well so far this year. He's +11 on a Philadelphia team that's only scored three more goals than it's given up. Weber is certainly a defensible choice, but the Seabrook and Doughty choices are a little weird. The conventional choice would have been Jay Bouwmeester. He's soaking up almost 27 minutes per game, mostly against the opponent's top line, and he's a solid + 9.

However, I think the real missed opportunity was Mike Green. Okay, I know he is not super defensively. Well, maybe I know he's mediocre.... okay, okay, he's not good, alright? Everyone knows that. He's also a point a game player with an outrageous level of skill. No one makes a better breakout pass in the NHL. No defenseman carries the puck better than him. And no one, no one, runs a power play better than him. How does Brent Seabrook and his magical .37 Career Points/Game average get the nod over Mike Green? Yes, Rick Nash dangled him that one time. Yes, he had a bad run in the playoffs last year. But if Canada's power play goes bad, Green will be sorely missed.

On the whole, I do respect the fact that they didn't go for old veterans that had more experience than some of the youngsters that were chosen. Any of the forwards is markedly better than say Ryan Smyth or Shane Doan. And resisting the temptation to create a true checking line is a stroke of genius in my mind. Even the hypothetical fourth line will be able to generate offensive chances. So, on the whole, kudos Steve Yzerman. You did a very credible job. Now, if this teams mucks it up, none of it will matter, you'll still get kicked out of Canada.

NB

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I am taking a brief Christmas hiatus. I'll be back early in the New Year. Safe and happy holidays to all!

NB

The Impossible Search for Clutch

A lot of this piece comes from a discussion I had with a friend of mine. We'll call him D-aunt-a. There, that should sufficiently hide his identity. Lord knows that if you are featured on my wildly popular website that you'll be fighting off the paparazzi within an hour of the posting. My unidentified friend is of the opinion that there is such a thing as a "clutch" skill. I do not share this opinion. In fact, I am of the opposite opinion. I'll put it bluntly:

There is no such thing as a "clutch" player. There is such a thing as a "clutch play", an instance during the game wherein a sometimes difficult play is executed that is crucial to determining the outcome of the contest. But the ability to make clutch plays as a skill? Does not exist.

The players that are typically identified as clutch are already the best players in the game by any metric. What I am about to produce is, obviously, a somewhat flawed metric, but I think it conveys the general idea.

Link 1: An all-time ranking of NHL players in terms of points per game in the regular season
Link 2: An all-time ranking of NHL players in terms of points per game in the playoffs

N.B: I have set minimum requirements of 300 games played in the regular season and 40 in the playoffs, so as to have somewhat significant data points. The main flaw in this system is that Alex Ovechkin has not yet played 40 playoff games and Evgeni Malkin has not yet played 300 regular season games. Otherwise, both would be in the top 10 in both categories.

You will notice a lot of similarities about this list. You can throw a few individual cases at me if you want, Joe Thornton and Johan Franzen(though Franzen, at 51 points in 63 games isn't even THAT good, yet I digress) are the classic examples, but on the whole, one has to admit that the best playoff performers are the same guys that are the best regular season performers.

Which brings us to the following question: Why is the "clutch ability" a commonly-held belief? Why do we glorify some, and mock others? Why do we long to make tangible something that is clearly not?

It's the impossible quest to explain randomness. The playoffs, in any sport, are such a tiny sample size that they are inherently random. Anything can happen, anyone can win. Literally. But we need a story, we need heroes and villains. Successes and failures. John Elway was considered one of the greatest choke artists of all time until his Broncos won those last two Super Bowls. Is he now clutch? Can we retroactively remove his choker title? How about Alex Rodriguez?

To me, it ultimately boils down to this: the best predicator of a player's success in the playoffs is his body of work in the regular season. There's no voodoo. If you are a good player in the large sample of the regular season, you are more likely to succeed in the playoffs than a player who experiences less success during the regular season. There are exceptions, and weird things do happen. But the "clutch skill?" Might as well believe in UFO's.

NB

Tiger Woods Connects All The Dots

I haven't written anything about the Tiger Woods scandal so far, and up until I read this piece, I was not intending to. The whole story is such a soap opera, and frankly, I don't care that much. Not to say I condone cheating on your wife, but so many people have already written about it, some better than others, that I don't feel like I need to get up on my high horse and reprimand Tiger. But an article about bookies taking bets on the size of Woods' divorce settlement? Now that was just too much for me. The article in question, and the rest of the media frenzy surrounding it, should tell us a number of things about ol' Tiger.

1) Tiger Woods is the most popular, and important, athlete in the world.

Lots, and I mean lots, of athletes are unfaithful. When their infidelities are made public, some get more coverage than others. Kobe Bryant's whole sordid affair in Colorado was very big news, but not nearly the monstrosity that this story has become. It's literally impossible to visit any news website and not have a Tiger-related story somewhere on the front page. Admittedly, the shock of the whole situation had something to do with it, I don't think there were too many people that saw this coming, but the fact that it happened to TIGER WOODS is the biggest story.


2) Tiger Woods is a unifying force.

One of the reasons that the article made me laugh is because of the section wherein they explain gambling odds. Here's the excerpt:

At odds of 25-1, people who bet $1 and win will get $25 plus the $1 stake back. At 6-4 odds, a $4 bet will get $10 in return.

It is innocuous and, if you are familiar with gambling odds, it seems like a throwaway. You probably just glossed over it. Now, what it actually tells you is that TSN thinks that it needs to explain how gambling odds work to its target audience for the article. They don't think gamblers are going to be particularly interested in the article. No, this is for a much broader audience. If Auntie Lynn who is a golf fan, but who watches only the majors, and only when Tiger's in the hunt, is going to read one column this year on TSN.ca, it'll probably be about Tiger. So, we need to explain this sort of thing to Auntie Lynn. If you have a relative like this, you can think of this as a family bonding opportunity. Tiger Woods: bringing people together through his shame.


3) Bookies will take bets on ANYTHING.

I mean look at some of those possible bets. Note that his wife hasn't even filed for divorce yet. Also, people like betting on pretty well anything. I think it's fascinating. I could debate the odds on the divorce settlement for at least 20 minutes with someone, not necessarily because I think the divorce itself is interesting, but because making up the odds would be highly entertaining. I don't think I'm alone in that.


4) There's been a certain gleeful "We got you! You tried to shut us out forever and we got you!" attitude to the media's coverage.

For years, Tiger Woods did his darndest to keep everyone out. And I mean everyone. His yacht is named Privacy. Privacy! So when he finally slipped up, it was a feeding frenzy.

Now I've never been chased by the paparazzi. I've never had mics shoved in my face from weird angles. I've never been expected to be a role model to millions of people. Maybe Tiger Woods' approach makes the most sense. But, I have to believe that you can't pretend not to be human forever. You can't act like you don't have real emotions or that you're not a real person. Because eventually, you are going to be exposed as being a real human being. And when that happens, it's gonna hurt worse than anything you were hiding from in the first place. I can't say it like Jay Smooth does, so I'll close this piece by throwing it over to him. Give it a watch, and let's get some more comments going!


NB

Telling Stories

Today, reports have surfaced that Roy Halladay has been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. The rumours have not yet been confirmed, but that seems like a mere formality. In the world of sports reporting, where there's smoke, there's almost always fire. It's awfully hard to keep something of this magnitude under wraps forever.

I was well aware that this moment was coming, I even wrote about it earlier this summer. Roy Halladay and the Blue Jays were going in vastly different directions (Roy was good and the Jays were awful). My plan was to write a snarky, sarcastic piece about the folly of trading arguably the best pitcher in baseball. I might still write that piece. But, I also have to write this one.

I wouldn't consider myself a die-hard Blue Jays fan; I watch a lot of the games, but I've only been to a handful in my life. I've only ever seen Halladay pitch twice in my life. And yet, I feel like I know him. He was undyingly loyal to the Jays. He always, always, performed like a pro. Even as the franchise that employed him was self-combusting all around him, he went out and did his job. At the end of every spectacular outing, as the crowd rose to their feet to applaud the pitching genius, he would tip his hat in a way that seemed so sincere. It didn't hurt that he was one of the very best pitchers of his generation.

For the most part, I am a rational man. I would consider myself more objective than most when it comes to sports analysis. I don't "hate" my favourite teams' rivals. I don't lose sleep based on the outcome of a game. I follow attentively, but somewhat dispassionately. Or so I thought.

When I first read that Roy Halladay had been traded, I didn't have the reaction that I expected. I couldn't even muster a word of sarcasm. I couldn't write something funny here, it wouldn't be sincere. I don't know him, I never will know him, but it still feels like someone in my life is leaving. I'm left to marvel at the attachment I formed with a man that I watched go out and simply do his job once every five days for seven months out of the year. How did I ever get this attached to him? Was his loyalty contrived? Did he go about his work so professionally because he believed in honouring his contract, or because he truly did love the game and the fans?

In watching the sporting spectacle unfold, as fans, we can only ever guess at the motives of the players before us. As the Tiger Woods fiasco demonstrates, an image can be manufactured. As long as we're held at arm's length, we can never truly know the person in question. We are left to guess at who they really are.

Why do I think I know Halladay well enough to be saddened by his trade? I think it has something to do with telling stories. All of our lives are filled with stories. Some stories are private, and some we share with others. As you become more comfortable with someone, you share more of your stories with them. And, in turn, you hear more of their stories. Every five days, for seven months a year, Doc Halladay told stories for us to share in. It always felt like he wanted the fans to share in his stories. It never hurt that he was the best story teller around. And he was our story-teller. Being a fan of a baseball team not named New York, Boston, L.A or Philadelphia is a challenging proposition. Eventually, the talent is going to leave your team for greener pasture. They will be too expensive to keep around, and will probably be traded before they are lost for nothing in free agency. Halladay stuck with the Blue Jays through thick and thin. When J.P Riccardi made his plan to trade Halladay public, Roy remained professional throughout. A lot of people would have taken shots at management for the p.r nightmare that ol' J.P created, but not Roy. Maybe he has very good advisers, or agents, or lawyers, that help him keep his agent so clean, but I don't think so. I am just guessing, but it would take a lot to change my mind about Halladay. That's the story I created for him. Now that he's gone, I'll have to write a new one, about some new hero. I doubt it'll be as good because I won't have as good a co-author.

The Best of the NHL Decade in Review: Part 1

Sports Illustrated started a feature this week whereby they collected the best and the worst of the past decade for every sport. Well, I thought it was going to be every sport at least. They started off with football and baseball, which makes sense, they are the two most popular, and then went straight to pop culture....which isn't even a sport. So they skipped over basketball and hockey, which means that I get to completely rip-off the idea for the NHL. That's how copyright works right?

I'll clarify that I mean the decade as being from the 1999-2000 season through the 2008-2009 season. This, unfortunately for them, disqualifies players like Mario Lemieux and Peter Forsberg that were clearly some of the best players of their generation. Mario only played 170 games and Forsberg only played 440. Sorry guys, no one is disputing your place in the hockey pantheon, but in this discussion, you have to take a back seat. And so, without further delay, I give you my Best of the NHL Decade in Review:



Player of the Decade:Nicklas Lidstrom.
Runners-up: Martin Brodeur, Jaromir Jagr

This proved to be a most difficult choice indeed. For me, it really came down to three players: Jaromir Jagr, Martin Brodeur and Nicklas Lidstrom. Jagr is unquestionably the best forward of the decade, racking up 864 points in 692 games. Even more impressive is to consider how much damage he did before the lockout, when you were basically allowed to cut an opponent's arms off without being penalized. His 1999-00 and 2000-01 seasons are just outrageous. Some called him a floater later in his career, but you just cannot argue with the numbers. Jaromir Jagr flat out dominated.

Brodeur's case will always be hampered by the fact that some of those Devils teams he played on were impenetrable black holes on defense. Like it or not, hockey is a team game and Brodeur benefited from having very good teammates. Does this diminish everything he's accomplished? Not at all. He still had to play very well to achieve what he did, I just think you could have probably swapped him with Luongo or Roy, or maybe even an Ed Belfour-type goalie and gotten almost identical results. So, sorry Marty, but this is my list and your all-time wins record just don't cut it here.

Nicklas Lidstrom wins my fantastic fictional prize because he was unquestionably the best defenseman of the decade. Consistently excellent, he only had one down year in 2003-2004 when he mysteriously only scored 38 points, but was otherwise beyond comparison. He quarterbacked the powerplay AND the penalty kill on some of the best teams of the decade. He won the Norris 6 (!!!!) times and the Conn Smythe once. He's also generally regarded as one of the classiest players in the game. It was close, but it's got to be Lidstrom.



Best Franchise of the Decade: Detroit Red Wings
Runner-up: New Jersey Devils

This, again, was a very hard choice, though only between two real contenders. Both the New Jersey Devils and the Detroit Red Wings can make very strong cases for having been the franchises of the decade. Now, I think it's no coincidence that the two finalists were, and still are, lead by two of the finalists for the prestigious No Heart Ball Player of the Decade Award.

Really, there's no other franchise that can match the consistently excellent teams that these two put on the ice for all of those years. Both won two Stanley Cups and lost once in the finals. Both had highly publicized flame outs in the first round of the playoffs. But, to me, one of the true marks of their continued excellence is their outstanding regular season records: both teams made the playoffs every year in the decade. In fact, neither missed the playoffs during the span.

In the end, I decided to go with the Wings because they had more truly outstanding seasons. While New Jersey averaged an impressive 103 points per season during their run, the Red Wings rang up 113. Let's go over that number slowly. Over the entire 2000's, the Detroit Red Wings averaged 113 points a season. They averaged 50 wins, 19 losses and 13 ties. That, my friends, hurts my head to think about.



Best Canadian Franchise of the Decade: Ottawa Senators
Runners-up: Everyone else is remarkably similar

This being a (mostly) Canadian sports site, with a (mostly) Canadian audience, I figured this should be addressed. Now, as a Sens fan, I suspect I will catch some grief over this. Believe me, I wouldn't make this argument if it wasn't completely air-tight. Obviously everyone, and twice from those pesky Leafs fans, would point to Ottawa's "disappointing" playoffs record. Well, friends, Ottawa actually has the best playoff record of the lot. Shocking, I know. Let's break it down:

Ottawa: 8 playoff appearances, 7 series won, 8 series lost, 1 Finals appearance, 1 Conference Finals appearance
Calgary Flames: 5 playoff appearances, 3 series won, 5 series lost, 1 Finals appearance
Edmonton Oilers: 5 playoff appearances, 3 series won, 5 series lost, 1 Finals appearance (Weird coincidence!)
Toronto Maple Leafs: 5 playoff appearances, 5 series won, 5 series lost, 1 Conferences Finals appearance
Montreal Canadiens: 5 playoff appearances, 3 series won, 5 series lost
Vancouver Canucks: 6 playoff appearances, 3 series won, 6 series lost

The regular season number speak for themselves, so I won't even bother with those. If those Sens are playoff chokers, then we have a goddamn epidemic of choking amongst our Canadian hockey teams.

The second part of this piece, featuring my selections for the All-Decade team, will be posted sometime in the next couple of days. I am choosing four forward lines, three defense pairings and two goalies. Post your teams in the comments section and we'll do a comparison when mine goes up.


NB

New Post!

TONIGHT!!!!!





Woo.

The Code...

...Is the Worst Part About Hockey

There's a lot about hockey that I love, but a lot of those good things are often overshadowed by the actions of a stupid few. Hockey is a sport that requires a great deal of toughness to play at any level of competitiveness. Racing back to retrieve a dump-in at full speed, all while the opposition's forechecker breathes down your neck, just waiting to crush you into the boards, is not for the faint of heart. The physicality often crosses the line into violence. Every season, there are innumerable incidents in which "dirty" play causes injury, precisely because it's so hard to tread that line without crossing it. Your clean, open ice, hit to the chest was probably just a step, and a couple of inches, away from being an elbow to the head that causes a major injury. Accidental injury is a part of the game. It's possible to commit an infraction without ever intending to. Not every high stick that cuts a player's face open was deliberate, and those types of plays are unavoidable. The real issue stems from what most people would term "cheap shots".

To hear some people tell it, the best way to steer the game away from the cheap shots is to allow the players to police themselves. In this world, all players would abide by The Code. The Code, for those of you that aren't familiar with the term, is a completely ambiguous definition for how to "play the game the right way". I hate The Code. I defy anyone to clearly articulate to me what, exactly, The Code entails, and who, exactly, abides by it. Most of the time, it's about how a fight between two aggrieved parties will prevent any further escalation. Let boys be boys. Except that it doesn't work. And nobody abides by it.

Last night, Dan Carcillo sucker punched Matt Bradley after cross-checking him twice. It was a completely gutless act. Most sensible human beings watch that clip and see Matt Bradley is essentially the victim of assault. After hitting Carcillo, cleanly, both Bradley and Carcillo fall to the ice. Carcillo gets up first and cross-checks Bradley in the back. As Bradley gets up to skate away, Carcillo cross-checks him again. Bradley turns to face him, Carcillo grabs Bradley by the jersey with one hand and sucker punches him with the other. The whole thing happens in about 10 seconds flat. Bradley has zero chance to defend himself. He's starting to take his gloves off to fight, but Carcillo has already cold-cocked him by the time he gets one glove off. For his transgressions, Carcillo received 19 minutes in penalty. The Capitals scored 3 goals on the ensuing power play and won the game going away. Today, the NHL suspended Carcillo for 4 games. And yet, there are people that are defending him.

If you are a masochist, you can try to read through the comments on the video link. There are a surprisingly large number of people that defend Carcillo's actions. Any hockey related website that allows comments will feature a fair share of the same sort of message. The claim goes that Bradley should have been ready to fight, that Carcillo was just defending himself. Carcillo is tough, and Bradley, as YouTube commenter GNR27J puts it "Bradley you are a pussy and had it coming to you". Nice. Somehow, the victim is the problem because he didn't adequately defend himself.

Why is Bradley at fault? Because of The Code. He supposedly should have been ready to defend himself as soon as Carcillo dropped the gloves. Nevermind that Carcillo doesn't actually drop them, he throws them, and that there was no way that Bradley had any way of predicting that Carcillo would lose his marbles that quickly. I could never say it as well as Cedric Daniels does, so I'll let him say it for me.

The problem runs deeper. This whole thing started because Bradley hit Carcillo along the boards. Watch the whole replay: Bradley delivers a clean, hard check and Carcillo loses his mind. He cross-checks him, when Bradley tries to skate away, cross-checks him again, and, finally, just grabs him and sucker punches him. That's how you're supposed to react to a clean hit? This makes Carcillo tough? That is the opposite of tough. If Carcillo was really tough, he'd have shaken it off as part of the game. He took the hit to make the play. That's what someone with real guts would have done.

The players that commit the worst, dirtiest infractions are the same players that are supposedly enforcing the code. What do Marty McSorley and Chris Simon have in common? They're players whose sole role is to fight. If you asked the people that love The Code, those players should be keeping the cheap shots out of the game. And yet, for some strange reason, it's those very players that commit some of the worst acts.

I love hockey, and I'll probably never stop loving it, but things like this make me wonder why we cater so much to the vocal minority. Just because they scream the loudest doesn't mean they're right.

New and Exciting Posts...

...Coming Tonight!

Sorry all for the lack of updates this week, it's been kinda hectic in my part of the world. I will be back with more writing tonight.

Matt Burt, we hardly knew ye...

...Yet Your Opinions About Brian Burke Are Highly Predictable.

I'm not vain enough to think that this article was meant as a rebuttal to my earlier piece about Brian Burke, Ron Wilson and their mis-handling of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I do think it's a very weird article. It's like a bizzaro version of what I wrote, where the author has been sipping on a little too much of the MLSE Kool-Aid. There are some particularly jarring parts that I'm going to break down FJM style because it's too surreal for me to ignore.

After a few introductory paragraphs, Burt unearths Brian Burke's classic quote:

"We require, as a team, proper levels of pugnacity, testosterone, truculence and belligerence," Burke famously said. "That's how our teams play."

When you read this, it's like Burke grabbed a thesaurus before the interview and looked to see how many variations of grit or toughness he could come up with. I wonder what would happen if the team only had the proper amounts of testosterone and truculence but not belligerence. Would only 4 out of the 5 players on the ice finish their checks? Would Thomas Kaberle suddenly become scared to pass the puck as Burke has suggested in the past? Mysteries abound when you play hockey chemistry!

With a full year in the Big Smoke under his belt, Burke has received his share of criticism for producing a team that's tough as nails, but not all that effective at putting the puck in the net.

No, Matt, you see the problem is that Burke hasn't received enough criticism for his failures so far. The Toronto media is inundated with stories like this one; fawning over his successes and glossing over his failures. And what does it mean to be tough as nails? Is this even true of Toronto? Other teams are so scared of the Leafs that they're only outscoring them by 25 (!) goals this year. Imagine if they were only kind of tough.

"My first thought was that there was too much emphasis on the toughness angle," says NHL on TSN analyst Ray Ferraro. "I have always felt that skill is harder to accumulate than size and grit. That would have been my priority, in particular since they do not have very much top-end skill."

While some onlookers argue the team is underachieving, others say they're actually achieving just fine, thank you.

"The Leafs' biggest problem is that they simply are not good enough," explained Ferraro. "I've played on bad teams - sometimes their best isn't enough. This is a time for teaching and repetition of structure - pointing out flaws all the time doesn't make a player better - (head coach Ron Wilson) has to help the current players be as good as they can be until they acquire a better group."

I never imagined that Ray Ferraro would be the voice of reason in all this, but thank you, thank you, thank you. Why isn't this obvious to everyone else whose job it is to notice these things? Thank you Ray, you are a hero in my books. You know Matt, maybe this is going to work out okay after all. Maybe you've come to your senses and this column is going somewhere and I...

Depth issues and other problems aside, there is a different angle to be considered, and that's the one that casts Burke's vision in a positive light, one that gives him the benefit of the doubt on a long-term timeline. After all, he didn't exactly inherit a fantastic hockey team, and one season does not a legacy make.

Oh no. Matt, no. Why did you go and do that? We all knew he inherited a bad team. But since he's inherited them, THEY'VE GOTTEN WORSE. And...

"It's far too early," says McGuire. "First of all, this is a major rebuild. The Maple Leafs just had no organizational depth at all. Burke has tried to be proactive rather than reactive. He's tried to drive the market and and I think he's done some very good things."

Now imagine this scenario: five years from now, hockey fans in Toronto are marveling at the completion of Burke's long-term vision as the team hoists the Cup for the first time since 1967.

Okay, now we've actually entered the realm of the fantastic. I can practically see your Leafs jersey there Matt.

In the Internet age, it's easy for any blogger to throw out vicious barbs (from the office, the classroom or even their parent's basements!) and have it count for something, but the reality is that judgements made this early in Burke's reign are simply unfair.

Why did you have to go and make this personal Matt? I'll have you know I moved out of my parents' basement 4 years ago now and that I very rarely ask them for money! At least Ray Ferraro is still on my side, right?

"I would have hired Brian if it was my team, and I still would," he [Ferraro] said of the first American-born GM in Maple Leafs history. "It isn't unfair to evaluate, but it's way too early to make any judgement."

Hurrm. I'm not exactly sure what Ray Ferraro means by that, but okay! I'll keep on evaluating without passing judgement!

There's a whole lot more of this stuff that I'll sludge through later. But really, it's just the same stuff from the Toronto media. I've been cynical enough for one evening.

NB

Canada is Still the World's Premiere Hockey Nation...

...But We Aren't Producing the Most Skilled Players

Since this will probably prove to be something of a touchy subject, I'll start by making a couple of stipulations:

1. Canada is still the strongest hockey country in the world.

2. Team Canada will enter Vancouver as the odds-on favourite to win the tournament.

3. My argument is not that Canadians are not the best all-around players, but rather that they are not the most individually skilled.

3. Canadians love hockey

4. I love hockey

5. I love Canada

Those last two points are especially important. Suggesting that Canadian hockey players are anything less than perfection is heresy and I might be putting myself at risk for some sort of group violence for criticizing the way Canadian players are taught to play the game (well, not really... i mean probably...hopefully.... err...on second thought I just won't leave the house for a couple of days).

I'll be blunt: The most individually skilled players in the game are not Canadian. For a country that produces a remarkably large percentage of the players in the NHL, dominates international competition, and in general is completely hockey-crazed, this is somewhat surprising. When I think of flashes of genius, of awe inspiring displays of skill, I think of Alex Ovechkin, I think of Evgeni Malkin, I think of Ilya Kovalchuk, I think of Marian Gaborik. I do think there are lots of really, really good Canadian players. Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla, Rick Nash all are outstanding talents. But, I don't think those guys have the same puck skills the first group does. Now, this is obviously highly subjective. You could put together a really superb Crosby-Iginla-Nash highlight reel and I would be forced to bow to their mastery of the game of hockey. I mean, Rick Nash did score this goal (By the way, I love the commentary in the clip. The colour guy says "My goodness gracious! Holey Moley!"). Nonetheless, they are not the most individually skilled players in the game.

I think there's a good reason for this. From a young age, canadian players are taught to take the safe play. "Ring it around the boards" or "Dump and chase to get the forecheck going" are two of the mantras of pretty well any hockey coach in Canada. Players are rewarded for what I would term boring play. How often will a coach congratulate a player for beating a defender one on one to create a great scoring chance? Instead, if there is a turnover, the player is likely to be reprimanded and benched. By putting team success ahead of the development of individual skills, hockey in Canada is producing a very specific type of player. How are young Canadian players ever going to develop the puck skills, let alone the confidence, to dangle a defender when they are constantly told not to take the risky play?

Watch Malkin, Kovalchuk or Ovechkin play. They attack every defender at full speed. When they get the puck, they want to score and if that involves beating the opposing team's players one on one, so be it. The fact that they do so with such frequency is no fluke. From a young age, they must have been allowed to develop puck skills and offensive skills. They were allowed to attack, attack, attack, and sometimes, they made mistakes. The type of skill set they posses doesn't just materialize.

I think the best example of this conservative attitude in Canadian hockey is reflected in the current debate over the lineup for Team Canada in Vancouver. To me, the most shocking aspect of the whole thing is how Mike Green and Marc Savard aren't either locks, or at least fairly sure things to make the team. Instead we talk about players like Shane Doan (?!) and Robyn Regehr (?!?!?!?) as vying for the last couple of spots. Now, both are perfectly good NHL players and play critical roles in their respective teams' success. But Green and Savard are exceptional talents. Watch how their offensive skills open up scoring opportunities for their teammates. Green has 25 points in 24 games, which is tied for the league lead for points by a defenseman. He scored 31 goals last year. And for all you people that love plus/minus, he's a tidy plus 5 on the year so far. Watch him make a breakout pass. Be awed by his skating ability. How is this guy not a lock for Team Canada? The answer is in our country's obsession with playing it safe and ringing it off the boards. Make the unspectacular play, force the other teams to make mistakes and hope to capitalize. Savard is viewed in generally the same light. How is someone like Jordan Staal a better fit? Does no one think to see that Savard is one of the very best distributors in the NHL?

It's not impossible for the super elite, individually skilled players to emerge from the Canadian hockey system. It's just that we make it ridiculously hard to do so. Until we change our attitudes about "dumping and chasing" and "playing it safe", it's not likely to be any different for the years to come. Canada will continue to be the powerhouse in hockey, with depth that is envied by all. Yet, we will lack that singular offensive talent, that player that when he gets the puck, as he winds up behind his net before charging up ice, forces everyone to rise from their seats with bated breath. We'll continue to win or lose as a cohesive unit with no one outstanding player showing off breath-taking skills. We'll win gritty. How wonderfully Canadian.

NB

Drafted Could Have Been Really Interesting...

...But Instead The Score Tried to Make a Quick Buck and it's Terrible

I should start by stating that I had intended to apply to be on the show. The premise sounded fascinating: The Score television network would scour the country looking for Canada's next sportscaster. One of the main reasons that I watch TSN instead of Rogers Sportsnet or The Score is the appeal of their on-air talent. I find Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole pretty hilarious. I think that Darren Dutchyshen is practically a Canadian institution. Ask any of your friends that follows sports in this country and they'll have an opinion about the TV personalities on the three major networks. Hosting Sportscentre would be a dream come true for a lot of fans. Thousands of people would wait anxiously to showcase their talents. Think of it as American Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance, except for sports geeks doing their best play by play, and...wait, why did I think this would be a great idea again?

But, as it turns out, the problem wasn't with the premise of the program, but rather the execution. I should have known that there would be issues when The Score promoted the idea as "Gillette Drafted" instead of just plain "Drafted". In an era in which broadcasting anything, anything at all, to a national audience involves mass commercialization, the Gillette part of the name simply slipped my attention. I'm far too numb to this sort of thing to pick up on the subtleties of corporate sponsorships. What I didn't imagine was the lengths that The Score, and Gillette by proxy, would go to in order to promote the sponsor's product.

Every segment of the show was as much about promoting Gillette as it was about choosing the winner of the competition. I first became worried when during the initial interview phase, the candidates were asked about personal grooming and Gillette, etc. It got progressively worse, until the breaking point came when the candidates were set to interview Bas Rutten. Bas is a bad-ass dude, and the idea of just dropping the finalists in there to do an intervew with him without any preparation at all sounded very interesting. Unfortunately, before the interview itself, we were subjected to watching the finalists "prepare" for the interview by using Gillete products. Watch the first couple of minutes of Episode 40: Andy's Bad Hair Day. We have to watch him shave? Really? By the time the interview itself rolled around, I was so turned off by the shaving scene that I had lost all interest in the competition. The Score had effectively killed their own punchline with a terrible lead-up.

It got worse. Scroll up to the Journey and Transformation Episodes and watch how the makeup artist shamelessly shills the Gillette products at the end of the episode. I'm not naive about this sort of things. As I said at the start, broadcasting to a large audience requires sponsorship. But this was a whole new level. How does The Score expect to have ANY credibility with their viewers after this disaster? The home of the hardcore? You can honestly say that to me with a straight face?

If my criticism seems overly harsh, know that I would never write something this biting if the product was just crappy. It's not that it's bad, because then I would have just ignored it like so many other terrible programs. It's that The Score wasted a really great opportunity by chasing a few extra dollars. The poor soul that had the great idea in the first place must cry a little every time his dream is sold for a few more dollars every episode. How hard would it have been to call it Gillette Drafted and just thank the sponsors once or twice a show? Or run only Gillette ads during commercial breaks?

The great irony of all my rage is that I just bought a bottle of Gillette shampoo yesterday. In the deep recesses of Gillette's marketing department, someone is laughing maniacally.


NB

BREAKING NEWS!

...Actually no, not really at all.

However, the timing of this press release does seems highly suspicious to me. I think everyone was well aware of the fact that Roy Halladay wasn't re-signing with the Toronto Blue Jays after his contract expires next summer. Is this meant as one last olive branch to the fans? A way of saying: "Hey, we're about to trade our best player for pennies on the dollar, but look! We tried to re-sign him, we really did! It's just that our 'timelines for winning don't mesh'", perhaps?

This whole thing makes Paul Beeston seem so naive, when he's clearly not. Anyone with any remote interest in the Jays is aware Halladay is going to be traded. Beeston knows this is public knowledge. Just a guess, but I'd wager we're going to see the Halladay derby heat up in the next week or so.

Stay tuned.

Brian Burke and Ron Wilson are Bulletproof

...Or Maybe They Have a Thick Coat of Teflon?


These two must have incriminating pictures of every member of the Toronto media. The normally fickle hockey press corps, with the loudest voices emanating primarily from the panelists on TSN and Rogers Sportsnet, is somehow giving Brian Burke and Ron Wilson a relatively free pass for the absolute quagmire that is the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. Let's recap quickly for those that haven't been following:


1. Ron Wilson joins the Maple Leafs prior to the 2008-2009 season. Wilson is largely regarded as a major upgrade from his predecessor, Paul Maurice (I don't necessarily agree with this assertion, but this is the popularly held belief).


2. After a lot of posturing by both sides, the Maple Leafs and Brian Burke unite in holy matrimony on November 29th, 2008. Every single member of the media approves of the move. Talk of Brian Burke's history as a "winner" is bandied about freely. Glory days are sure to follow


3. Burke, on multiple occasions, goes on the record as saying no one on the Leafs current roster is safe, except maybe Luke Schenn. He promises the team will be harder to play against. He over-uses the word truculent to the point that all meaning is lost.


4. The Leafs finish a surprisingly respectable 34-35-13 for 81 points. At the outset of the 2008-2009 season, it was generally agreed that the Leafs would be one of the worst teams in the NHL. Ron Wilson is touted in some corners as a candidate for Coach of the Year.


5. In the weeks leading up to the NHL Draft, Burke makes it abundantly clear that he wants to move up to take Tavares. His refusal to include Luke Schenn in any trade eventually forces the Leafs to select from their original position, 7th. They select Nazim Kadry.


6. Burke makes a couple of free agent signings outside of the NHL. Christian Hanson, Tyler Bozak and Jonas Gustavsson join the team. Gustavsson is the only one of the three to make the team out of training camp.


7. Burke signs two well known NHL defensemen: Mike Komisarek and François Beauchemin. Both are regarded as being upgrades for the team's swiss cheese defense.


8. The most hotly debated of Burke's moves: the Phil Kessel trade. Burke trades the Leafs' first and second round picks in the 2010 draft, as well as the Leafs' first round pick in the 2011 draft to acquire the sniper. Kessel signs a 5 year, 27 million dollar contract.


That's a quick-hit synopsis of the Leafs under Burke and Wilson. Mix it all together and you have the Toronto Maple Leafs at 3-11-6 and in a state of complete disarray. Recently, Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star wrote a column in which he interviewed sports prognosticator Ken Roberts. Mr. Roberts developed a complex simulation system that he uses to forecast the NHL season. In Mr. Roberts' simulations, the Leafs made the playoffs 1.7% of the time. Let's think about that number: 1.7%. Barely a quarter of the season has been played, and the Leafs are basically statistically eliminated.



John Ferguson Junior Part II?

Not to bring up the ghosts of Leafs GMs past, but if John Ferguson had a start to the season this bad, he would have been drawn and quartered by now. What exactly have Burke and Wilson done to give themselves so much credibility?

Wilson's supposed strength, bringing defensive accountability to his team, has turned out to be the team's biggest weakness. In 2008-2009, the Leafs gave up 293 goals, which ranked dead last in the NHL. This year, they have given up 77 goals, which currently ranks second last (Only Carolina has given up more, 80, and Toronto's got a whole game in hand to make up that difference). If they continue at their stunningly inept pace, the Leafs would give up a whopping 316 goals. That's amazingly terrible.

Wilson promised that players would be held accountable. Maybe the players are being held accountable for their play, but it doesn't seem to be doing them much good. I hate to speculate on locker room dynamics, and from what I've seen the Leafs do seem to play hard, but they are so far from cohesive it's scary.

Burke's record of player acquisition reads even worse. His three non-NHL signings are at best works in progress. Gustavsson has a 3.23 GAA and a save percentage of .901. It's early, but there's not a whole lot to go on there. Bozak and Hanson are still in the AHL. Maybe these three will work out, maybe, but things aren't exactly looking rosy on that front.

The NHL signings were absolute disasters. I don't know why anyone ever thought that signing Mike Komisarek to a 5 year contract at 4.5 (!!) million per year was a good idea. Komisarek has 12 goals, 46 assits for 58 points IN HIS ENTIRE CAREER. 377 games of offensive futility. For a supposedly defensively sound player, he sure seems to be out of position a lot too. I guess he's just trying to be truculent in his observing of defensive zone responsibility. The Beauchemin signing is definitely more defensible, but again, his defensive zone play hasn't exactly been inspiring.

And finally, the Kessel fiasco. The only reason this is even a conversation is because Kessel is playing out of his mind right now. And he hasn't even been THAT good. Kessel has 5 goals and 8 points in 8 games. Certainly a good thing, and he's looked sharp. But let's say he keeps that up (I doubt it, he's never been a point a game player), the Leafs gave up three of their four best chances to get better in the next two years for one point a game player. I wouldn't say he's even one of the 20 or 30 best players in the league.

Burke now has three assets that he could possibly trade: Kessel, Kaberle and Schenn. Anyone else on that team is absolutely toxic and no way another GM is touching them with a ten foot clown pole. What could he reasonably expect in return for Kaberle, the only one that he would probably trade? A top 6 forward and a second round pick? A first and third round pick? The Leafs would have taken 2 steps forward and 3 backwards. This is the amazing part about it, not only have Burke and Wilson made the Leafs worse in the short term, they are almost certainly worse off in the long term too. Where are they going?

Which brings me back to my original point. Why is Burke made of Teflon? What's his plan going forward? There is no argument to be made that he's rebuilding, and there's definitely not a claim to be made that the Leafs are better in the short term. And Wilson's team is the most disorganized and inefficient in the league; not exactly signs of quality coaching. I am not saying they need to be fired, it's a small sample size and they have a track record of reasonable success in the past. But please, please, someone hold these guys accountable. The media practically drove JFJ out with pitchforks and torches for much less than this disaster.

I wonder what the pictures depict.

NB

Thoughts on the Leafs...

...are coming tomorrow. Should be interesting.


NB

Thinking about the Game: Part 2 (to be continued)

I'm really sorry that I have to write this, only two weeks into the re-boot of the blog. I could give you a list of excuses, some better than others, but suffice to say I'll be missing my target of a Tuesday-Thursay posting schedule this week. I will be putting up another post either tomorrow night or early Sunday afternoon. Again, sorry.

Thinking about the Game: Part 1

Now that I've comfortably settled back into writing on a semi-regular basis, I'll be doing my best to maintain a posting schedule of at least twice a week. Posts will usually appear on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. I hope you guys will keep making some time in your busy lives to read my junk.


Like my last post, the idea for this article has been kicking around in my head for a little while now. It's a pretty broad concept, and one post will not be enough to contain all my thoughts on the matter. I expect there to be a second part on Thursday, and then possibly a third part next week.


Game Theory:

Pick a sport that you like. If you are like me, you've probably at least put some passing thought into the strategic aspect of playing the sport of your choice. Growing up, I played a lot of hockey and soccer. Between games, I would sit and think about how they were played. Sometimes my thoughts bordered on the fantastical, but mostly I pondered realistic scenarios. I could draw up creative breakout plays or confounding defensive formations. However, despite my best planning, I always seemed to run up against the same roadblock in implementing my schemes: the players on my teams were never good enough to execute the precisely mapped out instructions. What I discovered was that I was always thinking of strategic execution not in terms of my own skill level, or that of my teammates, but in terms of the skill level of professional athletes. The skill involved in a precision pass, or perfectly timed up-field move, was not always available. At the level at which I wanted to apply my great ideas, they were infeasible.

When I think about how a sport is played, and any viable strategy involved in playing said sport well, I always think in terms of the highest possible level of play. I would never devise a strategy that assumed anything less than perfect play on the part of my opposition. Of course, having never played or coached at a professional level, this may seem odd. In fact, it is almost certainly detrimental to the success of the various teams with which I have been associated. In amateur athletics, the players make mistakes much more readily than professional athletes. Any appropriately tailored strategic approach should probably take this into account.

The Beautiful Game:

Let's follow this idea to its logical conclusion: I think of the professionals, or highest amateur level, as being more representative of any chosen sport than some pick-up game in your local park. This is probably an elitist thought, though I will debate that in the second part of this piece. For me, sports are not as much about the random and the unpredictable, though those things certainly make each individual match more exciting, as they are about exhibiting the limits to which the human body can be pushed in athletic endeavour.

I've played a lot of sports. Most of my childhood was spent either at a sporting event or en route to one (and my parents have the gas bills and mileage on our mini-van to prove it), yet if you asked me today about any of the sports I've played, I will always instinctively begin with talk about the highest level of the game. That doesn't mean that I don't cherish the time I've spent playing; I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. But I do think that I am in the minority in this. I think that most people probably think of their own experience with sport, rather than the game they've watched on t.v when talking about the game itself.

I'll try to tackle why this is, or why I think this is the way it is, in the second installment.

The Chasm

I've been thinking about the separation between the haves and the have-nots of the sporting world. In leagues with salary caps, the NHL, the NBA and the NFL for instance, the gap between the big fish and the little fish is not as large. The rich are still better off than everyone else, but they don't wield an overwhelming competitive advantage. Does that make these sports more enjoyable to follow? Is it more interesting to watch the same five or six teams compete for a title every season, or would a rotating cast of contenders offer better entertainment? Any answer depends greatly on one's perspective. I'm sure every Yankees fan in the world is pretty happy with the current sports hierarchy, and that every Royals fan thinks it's terrible, but those are just two opinions. Thus, I will try my best to differentiate between the enjoyment of fans of specific teams and the enjoyment of fans of the sport. I will focus on whether it's a good thing for the talent to be concentrated on a small number of teams, or whether it makes for better viewing if it is spread more evenly throughout the league.


The Best Game You've Ever Seen:

The result of allowing teams to spend as much, or as little, as they choose is an uneven distribution of the available talent. I should preface this by saying that not all major free agent signings work out as they should, and that the teams with all the money don't always win. However, the successful small-market team is an exception, not the rule. Inevitably, even the best-assembled, youth-oriented small market teams fall to shambles. Big market teams with more resources at their disposal will attract the best free-agent talent and, usually, will be more talented because of this.

This has the tendency to make the regular season something of a joke. The teams with the massive financial advantage, and therefore usually the massive talent advantage, beat up on everyone else. I think this is a major negative for sports fans in general. Watching two unevenly matched teams is not very thrilling (assuming there is no possibility of elimination for the losing team). Furthermore, the overall level of play tends to be low. The teams that are adversely affected by a free-spending system will often put very poor products on the field. It's not just that they lose a lot of games, it's that these teams tend to be bad at playing the games. Why would anyone ever subject themselves to a Pirates-Diamondbacks game unless they were a die-hard fan of either team?

Now, if the regular season is the weakness of a free-spending system, then the playoffs are most certainly the strength. As the weaker teams are eliminated, the overall level of play is heightened, and it's not just because "It's the playoffs, everyone magically plays harder now! Woo platitudes without any in-depth analysis!". Now all the bad players on the bad teams are out of the equation, and only the good teams remain. A high calibre game of any sport requires two skilled teams, and the more skilled players you get on each team, the more likely it is that the game will be played well. The best game you will ever see, not necessarily the closest, but the one played at the highest level, will almost certainly be between two teams with skilled players. In a free-spending system, this is more likely to occur than in a system in which the talent is more evenly distributed. Sure it's possible for two mediocre teams to suddenly play well beyond their normal means, but it's far less likely.


Love of the Sport Versus Love of the League:

If you love following Major League Baseball, and you're not a fan of the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers or Mets, you're probably somewhat disenchanted with the division between the rich and the poor. You are witness to the same storyline about the big market teams succeeding where everyone fails every year. There's a rotating cast of upstarts (see: Tampa Bay Rays), but they come and go every couple of years. Some don't even last that long. By mid-season, your interest and early enthusiasm have certainly waned. It's just not fun to watch every one else act as professional farm teams.

But if you love baseball, not MLB, but baseball, you probably are at least indifferent to the chasm between the rich and the poor, and you might even like it. During the regular season, you will occasionally be treated to high profile games between two good teams, and when the playoffs roll around, the level of play is through the roof. If the talent was diluted, there's no way the games themselves would be played so well. And as a fan of the game, don't you want to see the very best play at the very highest level possible?


I find myself vacillating between the two positions. Some of the excitement of following sports comes from the unpredictability of it, and knowing at the beginning of every season that some teams will be there at the end and some won't certainly takes away from that. Yet, when the playoffs roll around, I never cheer for an upset. I always want the stronger team to win because I want the game to be played at the highest level possible, and the better team is more likely to do that. And in a playoff bracket of four teams, if the two best teams win their match-ups, then the following series should provide even better play.

I guess I'm saying I secretly love the Yankees and Red Sox and their money-grubbing, talent hoarding ways.

Oh god.

The Roy Halladay Dilemma: Part 2

Apologies for the tardiness of this post. I had fully intended to write this column as a response to whatever trade that the Blue Jays had foolishly rushed into, but J.P Riccardi seems to have held off. Normally I'm not a huge Richard Griffin fan, but here he is essentially making the same case that I made in my post on Friday. It's like he's reading my blog or something!

Where does all of this leave the Blue Jays? Are they going to trade Roy Halladay? Who knows! Anyone who says they know is lying to you. It's really impossible to tell at this point. The better question has become, what kind of state are the Blue Jays in? In my opinion, they're a .500 team with their current roster. Trading Roy Halladay would make them substantially worse in the short run, and probably won't even improve them in the long run. What SHOULD the Jays do?


1. Build around their young core:

The Jays do have some promising young talent. On the pitchings side, I like Ricky Romero, though his K/BB and WHIP are a little high for my liking. I think he slots in as a good number 3 starter. Scott Richmond, if healthy, is even better and I think he has the potential to be a good number 2 starter.

From a hitting perspective, I love Adam Lind. Really,you can't complain about a guy who in his first full season with the big club has an OPS over .900. I also like Aaron Hill. I know as a Blue Jay fan that it's blasphemy to say a bad word about Hill, but the man absoblutely refuses to walk. I know, he's hit 24 homers. I know. But let's be real about Mr. Hill for a second here. Until this season, he had never hit more than 17 home runs in a season. He'll probably end up with about 30 or so this year, but I would bet my life he averages about 20 or so, at the most, for the rest of his career. Thus, his cripplingly low OBP is almost certainly going to be a problem. His careers OPS, over 574 games, is a measly .764. That, my friends, is not that good at all. So yes, I like Hill's defense and his new found power-stroke, but no, he is not nearly the player Roberto Alomar was. Stop making that comparison, it is insane.

Overbay and Scutaro are both good, but not great, offensive players. They are worth keeping around at a reasonable cost. Scott Rolen is having a great season too, but the man is 34 and not getting any younger. If J.P can find the fountain of youth, and hook Rolen up, keep him around.


2. Deal with the dead weight:

Oh boy do the Jays have a lot of that. Vernon Wells and Alex Rios pretty well simultaneously pulled fast ones on Blue Jays management. Everyone that's calling for them to be traded should remember that at the time they were signed to their big contracts, every Blue Jays fan applauded the moves. Wells was supposed to be the Jays' franchise player and Rios would be his side-kick in vaulting the team up the A.L East standings. Most fans were staunchly opposed to trading Rios for Tim Lincecum. Keeping Wells in Toronto was a coup for what some considered to be a small market team. Keeping homegrown talent was supposed to be a major step.

In hindsight, those two have got to go, and in a hurry. I think the problem is that it will be extremely difficult to convince some team, any team, to even take a flyer on either of the two. They have both looked awful. The only way that a Halladay trade might benefit the Jays would involve dumping one of these two.


3. Pray they are relocated to another division:

I kid. Seriously, though, the Blue Jays are going to have a real hard go of it for the foreseeable future. The Yankees and Red Sox will always be competitive, and the Rays look set for the next couple of years at least. Even Baltimore is getting better. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't see how the Blue Jays can contend. They are at least two big bats away from being close.


Halladay the symbol:

In the end, any potential Roy Halladay trade. or lack of trade, alone probably won't make the Blue Jays either big winners or losers in the A.L East. The sad truth is that unless they undergo a fairly radical overhaul, the Jays can't hope to compete in a division with two of baseball's richest teams. The competitive disadvantage is simply too great. Roy Halladay is a symbol of the problems with baseball. All the big boys have all the toys. The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers of the world may not win every year, but they'll always have a chance to win. The Blue Jays are not even a small-market team, yet they are considering giving up their best asset because they have no hope of competing. They can't hope to win. And yet, for some reason, I'll keep watching.

I promise the next post won't end on such a low note.

The Roy Halladay Dilemma: Part 1

I will preface this by saying it feels good to be back. I'll be updating fairly regularly for the foreseeable future. If I won't be posting for a prolonged period, I'll be sure to advertise it well ahead of time. But without further delay, I give you part one of a two part series on the intrigue surrounding the Toronto Blue Jays' decision as to whether or not they should trade their ace Roy Halladay. Enjoy.



What to do with Doc?

Much has already been written about the theoretical trading of one Roy Halladay. It is a complicated situation, and to lift from one of my favourite writers, it is also packed with peanuts. The first question that needs to be addressed is perhaps the most basic: Should the Toronto Blue Jays attempt to trade Halladay? The answer is actually not as clear as some pundits would have you believe. Most people that follow baseball would agree that Halladay is probably the best pitcher in all of baseball. Statistical evidence to back this claim up is not necessary, but can be found here if you are curious.

The way that most trades unfold in baseball involve one team trading a star, or superstar, calibre player in return for a collection of young players and/or minor league prospects. In reading the many Halladay rumours, what becomes immediately apparent is that none of the potential suitors are willing to give up an MLB-ready roster player. The Blue Jays are essentially left to pick through a package of prospects and other possibilities. Most of these are players that are projected to be good, but could just as easily never even make it to the major leagues. Right now, the consensus best pitching prospect in baseball is Stephen Strasburg, who was just drafted first overall by the Washington Nationals. Ignoring for a second the complicated logistics of the Nats' attempts to sign Strasburg (50 million dollars seems like a lot for a kid who has yet to pitch a single game in the majors, but that's neither here nor there), what is the absolute best case scenario for Strasburg's development? Isn't it a Halladay-like career? The man's put up Hall of Fame numbers for years now.

So, hypothetically speaking, Strasburg should have the best chance to just duplicate Halladay's career, let alone surpass it. Now, none of the teams in the running for Halladay are even offering the top prospects in their systems, let alone anyone of the calibre of Strasburg. Baseball prospects are notoriously difficult to evaluate with any degree of precision. If we pegged Strasburg as having a 50-50 chance of having a Halladay-like career, and, frankly, I think that's being generous, wouldn't everyone else have a much lower chance?

To sum up, the Blue Jays are proposing the following: to take a sure thing, probably the best of its kind, and trade it for a package of possibilities. Strictly from a team building perspective, this seems like a futile excercise. The odds are simply too stacked against them. Which means none of this makes sense, why would J.P Ricciardi commit career suicide?

Unless of course, Doc Halladay has told the Blue Jays' management that he won't re-sign with the team after next season (when his contract expires). This part confuses me as well. Roy Halladay is one of the most loyal athletes in all of professional sports. In fact, one could say Roy has been loyal to a fault. He signed a big extension when the team was in much worse shape than it is today. Why now would he suddenly have a change of heart about the city? If he was really thinking of bolting after the 2010 season, wouldn't we have heard something, anything, to that effect? If I were in Halladay's position, I would at least consider signing with a contending team, but it's always been his insistence that he wanted to be part of building a playoff calibre team in Toronto. I also would never believe that Halladay would force J.P's hand with a trade demand. Further, if he had requested a trade, J.P would absolutely have leaked that aspect to the media as well.



The Nuts and Bolts of the Situation:

All of this adds up to a lot of confusion on my part. I see no real reason the Blue Jays are in such a panic to trade the most valuable asset in the market. To summarize their position using a metaphor: the Blue Jays are a factory and they have the best machine in the factory business. It is a highly loyal machine that has never indicated it wanted to leave for another, better factory, instead choosing to remain with the inferior factory. Out of fear of losing this machine when its contract expires, a somewhat unfounded fear I would suggest, factory management propose to trade it for several boxes of unassembled parts. Some of these boxes of parts contain highly combustible materials. There is a very good chance that once assembled these boxes of parts will amount to nothing useful. There is just as good a chance that they will combust and never even make it into the factory, leaving a wake of fiery destruction behind them (Okay, that last part might have been a bit of hyperbole). There is also a very, very, very remote chance these newly assembled parts will contribute to the well-being of the factory. There is an almost zero percent chance these newly assembled machines will replace the best, most loyal machine they just traded for these boxes of parts. And everyone is in agreement that this is good business? This is how to keep your factory open, err, run a successful baseball team?

This all makes no sense, and yet the Blue Jays are intent on making it happen. Thus, part two of this piece will examine the return the Blue Jays can expect for Halladay, as well as further consequences of trading the good doctor. You can expect to see the post Monday evening.

Tomorrow

...there will be a new post. If you're reading this, I'm back.

The LeBron James Show

I know we haven’t even reached the halfway mark of the NBA season. I know there is still so much to decide. I know these things. I am aware of the dangers of making bold predictions less than 40 games into the season. Believe me, I am well aware. But now that I have all that out of the way, I think we can safely say that if things stay as they are, no one is touching the Cavs. There are so many reasons to believe this.


The Cavaliers are now 19-0 at home:

They won’t go 41-0 at home, but they are not just beating teams at home; they are demolishing them. The Q was popping last night and it gave the game a playoff-like atmosphere. I never thought I’d say that Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland would be a scary place to play, but it sure looked like it last night. How does Cleveland lose a 7 game series with home court advantage? If they lock up the number one overall seed, I really think they are going to win it all.


LeBron James has no regard for human life:

This header is pulled from Marv Albert’s call on one of LeBron’s vicious dunks in the Celtics-Cavaliers series last year. Here’s the youtube clip, including Marv’s fantastic call.

LeBron is unstoppable. The Celtics had no answer for him in any aspect of the game and they are supposed to be the best defensive team in basketball. He went for 38 pts, seven rebounds, 6 assists, four steals and three blocks. Those are, dare I say it, Jordan-esque numbers. He even went made all nine of his free throws.


The Celtics are struggling without a real outside shooting threat:

The Celtics second unit is a joke. Their starting five is still probably the best in the league, definitely the best when Rajon Rondo is clicking, but after those five, they have nothing. Last night was a good example of that. Eddie House, their supposed scorer off the bench went 2-7 in 19 minutes of play and didn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of the Cavs’ defenders. Big Baby Davis put up a whopping 0 points on 0 of 4 shooting and aside from 3 offensive rebounds, he was a non-factor.

The Celtics had this missing piece last year in James Posey. Against weaker teams, it is not a big deal, the Celtics overcome their offensive struggles with defensive dominance. However, as they are presently constituted, I don’t see how they break down the Cavaliers stunning defense. Heck, Orlando might even give them a run for their money if they played a seven game series today.


We can all calm down on crowning Rajon Rondo the best Point Guard in the East:

When the Celtics were rolling on their 19 game win streak, people started to get a little crazy about Rajon. I’ll admit I probably got a little caught up in the hype myself, but I think it’s time we all took a step back. Rondo did get 13 assists, no small feat, but he couldn’t hit the ocean with his jumper. As the game progressed, the Cavaliers started doubling off him to help on KG and sometimes on Pierce. A number of Rondo’s assists were just run of the mill passes that his shooters knocked down too. He wasn’t getting the kind of penetration the Celts need from him. During the Celtics 4 game losing streak, he is shooting 30% from the floor, 55% (!!) from the FT line and he has only 27 assists to 14 turnovers. It’s been ugly folks and without a serviceable back up PG, the Celtics live and die with Rondo.


I had hoped last night’s game would be a classic between two very good basketball teams, but it turned into a bit of a lopsided victory. It’s just one game, but I can’t help but see this as a microcosm of where the Celts and Cavs are at right now. If I had to put my life’s savings on one team, it would be the Cavaliers. A month ago, I would have said the Celtics. If they acquire an outside shooting threat, say a Jason Kapono, then I might have to go back to Boston. For now though, it’s LeBron and the Cavs’ world and we are all just living in it.

Cleveland - Boston: TONIGHT!

I've sufficiently recovered from my ACL surgery so that I don't need to be drugged all day. I'm planning on watching the Celts-Cavs game tonight and doing a mini post-game synopsis after the fact. It's the second biggest game of this season and should be highly entertaining. There are tons of subplots:

What's wrong with Boston lately?
Can Cleveland continue its undefeated start on home court?
Does this year's edition of the Cavs have way it takes to take down the Celts?

The post will probably go up sometime tomorrow in the early afternoon. Should be a great game.

20 Second Timeout

I'm taking a little time off from writing while I get back on my feet (literally) for the start of the semester. I recently had major reconstructive surgery on my left knee and the pain killers are making me exceedingly dopey, which in turn makes it hard to write. I'll be back as soon as I can manage to hold a coherent thought for more than 20 seconds at a time. Thanks to everyone who's been reading so far, you are all great. 2009 is going to be sweet.