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Another shot at Peddie

PHILADELPHIA — There are two schools of thought on how Pat Quinn chose to make his only public statement so far about his dismissal by the Toronto Maple Leafs.

On one hand, it would have been nice for Quinn to call a press conference and provide his side of the story for the Leaf fans who helped make him the highest-paid coach in the National Hockey League.

On the other, Quinn is a stubborn man to the point of arrogance sometimes, so if he did not want to bare his soul in public and lay claim to the moral high ground, a statement released through his agent was better than silence.

It left all of us picking through the entrails looking for hidden meanings in the bland offering by Quinn.

Only one thing came through loud and clear, and your blogger is sorry to say he missed it when filing a short report on the statement on Thursday. A severe brain cramp made me overlook the fact Quinn omitted the name of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment president Richard Peddie from the list of people he thanked for helping him during his eight-year tenure with the team.

Peddie, thanks to his inability to keep his wisdom to himself when it comes to running the Leafs and their basketball siblings, the Toronto Raptors, is the whipping boy these days.

The basketball fans blame him, and rightly so, for the mess the Raptors are in and the Leaf fans, judging by callers to the talk-radio shows and e-mails to this space, blame him equally with Leafs general manager John Ferguson for the hockey team's woes.

Just about everyone who has left the Leafs in recent years has few kid words for Peddie. Bill Watters, who was forced out as Leafs assistant GM when Quinn was made give up his GM's post and cut back to being just the coach, loudly blamed Peddie for his corporate knifing.

From his perch in talk radio and on television panels, Watters holds Peddie and MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum equally responsible for the situation at the Air Canada Centre.

While Quinn thanked people that he clashed bitterly with over the years — Ferguson and former president Ken Dryden the most notable — the Peddie omission was significant. It was Peddie who is suspected of pulling the rug from under Quinn's double portfolio as GM and head coach. It was Peddie who was able to slide his choice for GM, Ferguson, up the middle when Quinn and Dryden were opposed to the other's candidates.

Neither Tanenbaum nor Peddie enjoy a great deal of influence around the NHL, either. While the Leafs are by far the wealthiest franchise in the league, Tanenbaum and Peddie do not get many votes as executives of the year.

Perhaps Quinn, who misses little of what is said on the airwaves and written in the newspapers, did not feel the need to tell his side of the story, given the opprobrium showered upon Tanenbaum and Peddie.

After all, Quinn's pal Bobby Clarke, the GM of the Philadelphia Flyers, had lots to say on his behalf the other day when the Toronto Sun came calling.

"Look at the tradition he had built there, and this is how he gets treated?" Clarke told The Sun. "There has got to be some kind of loyalty out there.

"You look at what (bleeping) happened there and you have to wonder: Who would want to work in Toronto? What's going to happen next year? Are they going to fire the new coach if he doesn't make the playoffs?"

Clarke made it clear he was firing not so much at Ferguson but at Ferguson's bosses, which means Tanenbaum and Peddie.

Now, Clarke may have some skeletons in his own closet but it's hard to argue with him on this one.

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Posted Friday, April 28 at 3:41 p.m.

Mourning Toronto's demise

Sports writers are generally asked these questions the most:

Do you really talk to the athletes?

Do you get free tickets?

And, at this time of year, aren't you sad your team did not make the playoffs?

Since people generally do not believe you no matter how often you tell them you are indifferent about the success or failure of the team in question, I won't go into it again.

But I will admit to having a preference, like most sports writers, about whether the Toronto Maple Leafs make the National Hockey League playoffs. The preference may vary from year-to-year, depending on the attractiveness of the cities in other playoff series, but some of us, usually those with wives and children, prefer to see the team make the playoffs for several reasons.

First, if the Toronto Maple Leafs make the playoffs it means you have home games. Instead of being away from home for up to two weeks or more, and even longer if you have to go directly to another series after one ends, you can count on several days at home over those two weeks.

That means you can mow your lawn once or twice in April and May, when the grass grows faster than gas prices. Before Pat Quinn started coaching the Leafs, many was the spring that the grass was knee-high before my lawn mower was taken outdoors for the first time.

It also gives you a chance, albeit a slim one, of attending the various recitals, teacher interviews, dentist appointments and family functions that seem to proliferate at playoff time. One of the small annoyances of an itinerant sports writer's life is that in the playoffs your schedule and whereabouts are determined by which team won last night's game. But no matter how many times over no matter how many years you tell relatives and friends that you simply cannot give them an answer about whether you can attend little Susie's spring piano recital and barbeque, they never cease expecting one.

Second, if the Leafs are involved in the playoffs, the social aspect of the job is much more fun.

The business side of the job gets less and less fun by the year thanks to the sheer numbers of people, microphones and cameras covering the team combined with the Leafs' chronic disregard for the media. But when the travelling party around the team swells, so does the number of folks who are good company in the salons, libraries and churches where we spend our free time.

Then the Leafs are not involved, that media mob is scattered among the playoff series and you can often find yourself alone in a dull city.

As far as the team itself goes, sometimes you would like to see them in the playoffs and sometimes you do not. If the team has been easy to deal with and the players are good guys, then you don't mind seeing them do well and vice-versa.

This year's edition of the Leafs falls into the middle of that category, so indifference is the primary reaction in that regard.

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Posted Tuesday, April 18 at 10:39 p.m.

A stroll down memory lane for Quinn and Acton

PHILADELPHIA — Pat Quinn and Keith Acton had a stroll down memory lane the other day, or rather a skate.

After the Leafs arrived in Philadelphia for Saturday's game against the Flyers, they held a practice in the Wachovia Spectrum, the former home of the Flyers, which sits on the opposite side of the parking lot from their new arena. Well, not so new any more since it opened 10 years ago.

But the Spectrum, where the Flyers earned their moniker The Broad Street Bullies in the 1970s, was saved from the customary fate of old arenas around the National Hockey League. Rather than fall to the wrecking ball, the arena was kept in use and houses the Flyers' farm team, the Philadelphia Phantoms plus a Major Indoor Soccer League team and various other events.

The Spectrum was also the site for many happy days for Quinn and Acton. Quinn's first job as an NHL head coach was with the Flyers and he directed them to a 35-game unbeaten streak in the 1979-80 season, which is still an NHL record. Acton, Quinn's assistant with the Leafs, played for the Flyers from 1988 to 1993.

Both men took several slow laps of the Spectrum's ice surface, looking upward and drinking in all of the old sights.

"That's a terrific old building," Quinn said later. "I cut my teeth as a coach in there. I had wonderful teams to work with. Everyone knows the reputation of the team and the place as a hard building to play in.

"Yeah, it was a little walk down memory lane."

The 1979-80 Flyers made it to the Stanley Cup final, where they lost in six games to the New York Islanders. The Islanders beat the Flyers in overtime in the final game and Quinn swears to this day that one of the Islanders' goals in regulation time was offside. Some who know him say this is the source of his undying enmity for referees.

Quinn remembers his team as a group of underdogs with heart because management was changing its makeup that season.

"We had a lot of young guys come in, and we still had a lot of veterans," he said. "It was a remarkable feat by a bunch of guys. I know one thing, on the triangle thing of the things you need to be a good team and a good player, the intangible side was long."

Quinn also remembers a couple of unlikely events that brought the Flyers their record streak. The first came in the game that tied the existing record from defenceman Behn Wilson, who was known to use his hands for fighting rather than scoring.

"Against Pittsburgh in here, we were down, I think, two goals with very little time left," Quinn said. "I think Behn Wilson scored some kind incredible goal, walked in from the blue line and won it with seconds to go.

"So that was to tie it, and we went to Boston the next night where we never used to win and won handily to break the existing streak."

To comment, click here, or email me at dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Posted Saturday, April 8 at 7:45 p.m.

Notes from the road as the Leafs slowly fall to Earth

BOSTON – There is no danger pay for the lowly sports scribe, although all of us have long maintained it is necessary. Just ask my colleague Tim Wharnsby, Globe hockey writer extraordinaire.

Mr. Wharnsby was unkind enough to point out in his account of the Leafs-Buffalo game last Monday night that Tie Domi took a lazy penalty. The Sabres scored on the ensuing power play to take a 2-0 lead and the Leafs eventually lost 3-2 in a shootout.

Mr. Domi was not pleased with Mr. Wharnsby, but chose not to write a letter to the editor or command his lawyer to threaten The Globe and Mail with legal action.

He decided on a more direct approach. When Mr. Wharnsby was watching the Leafs practice (who says sports writers are not subject to drudgery) on Tuesday at Lakeshore Lions Arena, Mr. Domi fired a puck in our favourite scribe's direction.

Luckily for Mr. Wharnsby, Mr. Domi's accuracy reflected his scoring totals, and the puck landed about 15 seats away from its target. But just in case Mr. Wharnsby failed to get the message, Mr. Domi had his agent call to convey his great unhappiness with the tone of the story.

Mr. Wharnsby says he is considering a retaliatory challenge, perhaps a spelling bee.

SHEDDEN FOLLOW-UP: Thanks to reader Peter Robinson, we have some news about Doug Shedden, the former head coach of the St. John's Maple Leafs who was mentioned in the previous blog.

After Leafs general manager John Ferguson dumped him, Shedden signed on as head coach of HIFK of Helsinki in the Finland super league. He guided the team to a second-place finish this season and HIFK currently leads HPK 1-0 in the semi-finals. Yes, you've got to love all those initials.

Mr. Robinson reports that Shedden has already agreed to coach Jokerit next season. Jokerit, also based in Helsinki, is the most famous club team in Finland but fell on hard times this season and finished 11th.

Finally, you will notice at the bottom of this item that you now have a choice to click on a link to join the conversation or send an e-mail to me. If you have a comment about the blog, please click on the conversation link so all can see your thoughts about my lack of intelligence or insight. When an e-mail comes to me, it is difficult to post it here as part of the conversation.

To comment, click here, or email me at dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Posted Thursday, April 6 at 5:49 p.m.

Belfour may have stayed

Another subtle dig from Quinn

The conspiracy theorists in the press box — okay, I'm one of them — had fun with the latest indication head coach Pat Quinn and general manager John Ferguson are locked in a cold war.

This came up on Saturday night after the Toronto Maple Leafs waxed the Buffalo Sabres 7-0. Your Leaf blogger was doing a column on rookie defenceman Ian White, who made his NHL debut in fine style in that game and I asked Quinn about the teaching White was getting with the Toronto Marlies, the Leafs' farm team.

The one noticeable thing about the long line of young defencemen who came up from the Marlies this season to fill in for injured veterans is that all of them played well and all of them seemed to know what to expect in the National Hockey League. Marlies head coach Paul Maurice and one of his assistant coaches, Dallas Eakins, have done an excellent job preparing their young charges for The Show.

When I asked Quinn about this, his reply was rather curious. Quinn did say something about the defencemen being well-coached, but then he added this: "I think the coaching a year ago did a hell of job with those players."

That was a reference to Doug Shedden, who was the coach of the St. John's Maple Leafs last season.

Shedden was hired by Quinn in June, 2003 when he still held the double portfolio of head coach and GM of the Maple Leafs. Ferguson, who replaced Quinn as Leafs GM two months after Shedden was hired, dumped Shedden even though he took the Baby Leafs to a 46-28-5-1 record and second place in the American Hockey League's North Division.

Several conspiracy theorists gathered for a seminar after Saturday's game at a local canteen and Quinn's remark quickly came up. All agreed it was another subtle dig at Ferguson.

The 24-hour bug that hit the Toronto area a few weeks ago made it to the Toronto Maple Leafs dressing room on the weekend.

Head coach Pat Quinn said several players came down with the flu on Saturday, although it was the Buffalo Sabres who looked sick in the Leafs' 7-0 win. Quinn did not say who the stricken players were.

On Monday, the only Leaf feeling woozy was winger Nik Antropov. This was good news for John Pohl, who was called up from the Toronto Marlies farm team to play if Antropov was not feeling better by game-time.

Yes, Leaf fans, I know you're saying that if Antropov plays you won't feel any better.

To comment, click here, or email me at dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Posted Monday, April 3 at 4:23 p.m.

Belfour may have stayed

A postscript to the Ed Belfour era with the Toronto Maple Leafs: This is unlikely in the extreme to happen now, due to last week's events, but there was a scenario in which the goaltender was willing to stay with the team next season.

Now, given his uneven play this season and subsequent back problems that ended it, I realize this is small beer to Leaf fans. But the scenario, before Belfour's wonky back flared up, made some sense.

This was relayed by someone who knows Belfour well, and refutes the belief that Belfour was not prepared to surrender the No. 1 goaltender's job, even at the age of 40.

Belfour knew his days as a starter were numbered, we were told, and he was willing to stick around and act as a mentor/backup to Mikael Tellqvist next season.

In the matter of his contract, which had a team option for a salary of about $4.5-million (U.S.) and a buyout of $1.5-million, Belfour was willing to accept the buyout. Then, it was thought, he would be willing to sign a new deal for one year at a salary of about $1.5-million.

Tellqvist would play about 45 games next season with Belfour handling the rest. Since Tellqvist's salary is about $584,000 next season, Leafs general manager John Ferguson would have about $3.6-million of his payroll tied up in the goalies, which is not an unreasonable amount.

Tellqvist has not exactly grabbed the No. 1 job and run with it since Belfour was hurt, so it might be best to ease him into the starter's job. In fact, that may still happen, depending on how Tellqvist plays over the rest of the season, with another goalie brought in to share the job.

But the Belfour solution might have worked well, despite Belfour's age, because it would have been one less position for Ferguson to worry about. And one less position he would have to think about trading one of his young goaltender prospects, Justin Pogge or Tuuka Rask, to upgrade.

That is all conjecture now, of course, since Belfour may need another back operation, which takes him out of the Leafs consideration for next season. Belfour, too, probably has no interest in returning, even though he plans to play next season. He was not happy with Ferguson dragging his feet on announcing that Belfour was done for the season, which resulted in Belfour's agent making the announcement instead.

As for the one or two e-mailers who think handing the job to Pogge or Rask next season is advisable, forget it. By the time training camp starts, Rask and Pogge will be 20 and 19 years old, respectively, and both are years away from playing in the NHL. The worst thing to do would be to rush them along.

In fact, the greatest contribution either of those youngsters may make to the organization is going elsewhere in a trade for a young NHLer who will help the Leafs right away.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Tuesday, March 28 at 5:30 p.m.

Picking among the ruins

A few random thoughts while picking among the ruins of the Toronto Maple Leafs:

If you want, you can draw the fault line from this week's embarrassing contretemps between GM John Ferguson, head coach Pat Quinn and goaltender Ed Belfour all the way back to June, 1999 when then-president and GM Ken Dryden ran off associate GM Mike Smith. Smith was poised to become GM after a year of running the day-to-day hockey operation but Dryden was reluctant to do it because Smith had trouble hiding his disdain for the president.

At the last minute, after he had indicated to reporters that Smith would get the job, Dryden managed to convince the Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment board of directors to get rid of Smith. But this blew up in Dryden's face because he didn't have a grasp of what was going on in his own company and it haunts the Leafs to this day.

While Dryden was contemplating the great philosophical questions of life, or whatever it was he did all day, Quinn, as wily an office politician as there is, was using his success to build a close relationship with former owner Steve Stavro. Quinn was also very close to Smith.

So when Dryden greased the skids for Smith, in hopes of having a GM by committee, Quinn was outraged. He then used that outrage and connection with Stavro to snare the GM's job for himself, along with an agreement to have a hand in naming his successor.

When Quinn finally decided to let go of the double portfolio in the summer of 2003, the Leafs were stuck in the awkward situation of having the new GM chosen by a committee of three — Dryden, Quinn and MLSE president Richard Peddie. Quinn wanted Steve Tambellini or Bob Nicholson to get the job and Dryden wanted Neil Smith, so Peddie was able to slide his man Ferguson up the middle.

Thus Ferguson came into the job saddled with an existing coach. Not only that, it was an existing coach who didn't want him to get the job.

Makes you wonder how successful Larry Tanenbaum, Peddie and the rest of the MLSE board would be if they ran a company that actually had to go out and work to get people to buy its product.

Oh, and as for that story in The National Post on Saturday that Ferguson told the board his team would be lousy this season and for the foreseeable future, put me in the camp of those who think this is spinning by at least one director in the aftermath of a disaster.

Those around Ferguson have said all along that his plan was to push hard to rebuild the team this summer when he has more salary cap room than he did right after the lockout. But the GM believed his team was still good enough to make the playoffs.

It was no surprise to hear that Leafs defenceman Aki Berg is considering retiring from the team to return home to Finland because he wants to raise his children as Finns. That is a major issue among many Finnish NHLers, because they come from a small country that fiercely guards its culture.

Almost 25 years ago, at your Leaf blogger's first career stop in Calgary, a darn good defenceman named Pekka Rautakallio had the same dilemma. He came to the same decision in 1982, after three NHL seasons, when he realized his children, who were about the same age as Berg's children, were losing their ability to speak Finnish.

And a quick followup to defenceman Brendan Bell — he was hurt in Saturday night's Toronto Marlies game, so he will not be called up to replace the injured Alexander Khavanaov. Ian White will get the honour instead.

Makes you feel for Bell, since he would definitely have been an improvement on Wade Belak, or one or two others, for that Habs series if the team had kept him around. But Bell, who was on an emergency recall last week to fill in for Belak, was a victim of Quinn's preference for veterans and Ferguson's reluctance to use the third of his three regular call-ups on him.

NHL teams are allowed four call-ups from their farm team after the Olympic break. There is no limit on emergency call-ups but an NHL player has to be hurt or otherwise unavailable and the call-up has to go back once the NHL player is ready to play.

The Leafs used two regular call-ups on Ben Ondrus and Alexander Suglobov. They didn't want to use a third on Bell, even though he was the best of the three in his NHL debut last week.

Presumably, the reason was Ferguson figured the Leafs were going to beat the Habs in their two-game set and he wanted to keep the two call-ups to use during a perceived playoff drive.

Now he had better use them to see if a couple of his prospects can play in the NHL.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Sunday, March 26 at 9:17 a.m.

The Bell finally tolls for Leaf prospect

Life as a third-round draft pick means your arrival in the National Hockey League depends on the arrival of the second child of Wade and Jennifer Belak, among other indignities.

However, defenceman Brendan Bell was only too happy to report for his fourth visit to the Toronto Maple Leafs dressing room in two weeks in hopes that he would finally get to make his NHL debut.

At least head coach Pat Quinn announced after the morning skate that Bell, who will turn 23 on Mar. 31, would make his NHL debut on Tuesday night against the Carolina Hurricanes at the Air Canada Centre. Then again, Quinn has said that before, only to send Bell back to the Leafs' farm team, the Toronto Marlies.

And on two other occasions in the last two weeks, Bell was called up from the American Hockey League only to be sent back without getting into an NHL game.

However, thanks to the Belaks, Bell's NHL debut was assured against the Hurricanes. Jennifer Belak gave birth to the couple's second child on Tuesday and Wade took the night off.

"Yeah, exactly, it's based on someone else's arrival into the world," Bell said after the morning skate on Tuesday, not willing to count on anything. "It's been kind of an up-and-down two weeks in the sense of getting your hopes up."

That is up-and-down literally, as Bell traveled back and forth from the minors to the show without even seeing an NHL game.

The worst may have been the first callup on Mar. 7. Bell was summoned on the day of a game against the Montreal Canadiens when an injury meant the Leafs were down to one extra player, Belak.

After the morning skate, Quinn announced that Bell would make his NHL debut. Bell called his parents back home in Ottawa with the good news. Then Quinn changed his mind just before the game and elected to go with Belak, probably because he felt more comfortable with a veteran, even a marginal one.

Bell, a third-round pick in the entry draft in 2001, was sent back to the Marlies the same night.

Three days later, on Mar. 10, Bell was hauled off a Marlie road trip and told to report to the Leafs hotel on Long Island on the day of a game against the New York Islanders. The Leafs were again down to one extra player and designated Bell as an emergency call-up. The NHL head office had other ideas, though, and told the Leafs that Bell could not be designated as such, which would have allowed them to get around limits on call-ups, and Bell had to return to the Marlies. He was in the hotel for half an hour, long enough to get breakfast and one day's NHL pay but nothing else.

Once again, on Mar. 14, the Leafs gave another yank on Bell's chain. He was called to the Air Canada Centre before a game against the Boston Bruins because veteran Alexander Khavanov wasn't sure he would be able to play because of a shoulder injury. He was, and Bell was sent packing again.

Despite the rough treatment, Bell is not complaining.

"In that sense it was a little challenging," he said of having the rug pulled out from under him three times. "But any time you get the opportunity to come in an NHL dressing room and be around NHL players, you've got to relish it.

"I've got the confidence now that I know I'm somewhat in the plans. That helps for sure. Any time you get that confidence-boost it reinforces what you believe about yourself."

Somewhat is the key word here. The Leafs do not appear completely committed to Bell as a prospect.

Bell is a good skating defenceman who can move the puck. He has 38 points in 66 AHL games and just might turn out to be a handy player in today's NHL. But it seems the Leafs aren't sure, perhaps because at 6-foot-1 and 205 pounds Bell is a little on the small side for an NHL defenceman.

At this point, Bell appears to be fifth on the Leafs' list of defence prospects who have moved between the big team and the Marlies this season. Ahead of him are Carlo Colaiacovo, Andy Wozniewski, Staffan Kronwall and Jay Harrison. If he is to get a shot at the NHL it may have to come with another organization.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Tuesday, March 21 at 3:10 p.m.

Belfour's back injury

It was not surprising to see the Toronto Maple Leafs admit, albeit grudgingly, that goaltender Ed Belfour's back injury is legitimate, and more serious than originally feared.

There was much speculation that Belfour came down with the injury in response to a threat on his job from backup Mikael Tellqvist. In most cases, this was not an unreasonable assumption, since Belfour has long had a fractious relationship with some of his backups.

Goalies from Dominik Hasek to Roman Turek to Marty Turco can tell tales of the deep freeze from Belfour when they had the temerity to shine a little too brightly. If a backup never posed a threat to Belfour's job, he was inclined to treat him slightly better.

This season, Belfour's grip on the top job was starting to waver. Despite claiming his wonky back was finally fixed after surgery in August, 2005, he was showing the wear and tear of a 40-year-old and the effects of sitting out a full season because of the National Hockey League owners lockout.

There had even been talk, this time from head coach Pat Quinn after prodding from the media, that Tellqvist would get more work down the stretch. Thus, when Tellqvist was given two consecutive starts, the second one at home last Saturday night and on Hockey Night In Canada, tongues started wagging when the Leafs said Belfour's back was acting up. J.S. Aubin was called up from their farm team to serve as Tellqvist's backup last Saturday and again Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres.

However, your agent and one or two others similarly inclined tended to believe the Leafs' injury story this time. While it is always difficult to take the notoriously paranoid and tight-lipped Leafs when it comes to injury disclosure, the evidence backed them up this time.

There was no reason for Belfour to come up with an injury excuse to save face for missing a couple of starts. He had played well in his two previous starts, a 5-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens and a 2-1 shootout loss to the New York Islanders. There was no indication Quinn was planning to sit Belfour for anything other than a little rest during a busy spot in the schedule.

However, this may work out for the Leafs anyway. Based on his inconsistency this season, Belfour's stretch of solid play may not have continued. And it's time the Leafs had a long look at Tellqvist to help them decide if he can be their No. 1 goaltender next season, when Belfour will be bought out and sent down the road with the Leafs' best wishes for his future endeavours.

If Leafs general manager John Ferguson has a long stretch of important games — his team still has a slight chance to make the playoffs and Tellqvist could be a huge help — then he can make a more informed decision on how hard he will need to chase a goaltender this summer.

Finally, a belated word about one of the Leafs' moves at the trading deadline. Do not get overly excited about right winger Alexander Suglobov, whom the Leafs received from the New Jersey Devils for defenceman Ken Klee, even if he has scored three goals in four games for the Toronto Marlies, the Leafs' farm team.

Devils general manager and head coach Lou Lamoriello has a well-deserved reputation for hardly ever being wrong about giving up on a prospect. Not many of the young players he trades away end up being star NHLers.

Suglobov is 24 years old and is in his third season in the American Hockey League. He is a decent scorer, with 28 goals and 51 points in 55 AHL games, but if he has something to offer at the NHL level, you would think he would be in the big league by now.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Thursday, March 16 at 2:45 p.m.

Shaky won't be forgotten

This job is a little less fun today.

Any time you knew Jim Hunt wasn't going to be in the press box, you knew your day was just not going to be quite as much fun. And Old Hunt, as he liked to call himself, or Shaky, as everyone else called him thanks to his days as an uncertain intra-mural goaltender at the University of Western Ontario, is never going to be in the press box again.

Shaky died on Wednesday night at the age of 79 and left behind a long legacy of laughter, good times and great stories. Nobody had better stories than Shaky and no one could tell them better. A couple of hours spent listening to him over dinner at a good restaurant was as good as far more expensive forms of entertainment.

In one of the obituaries published in the last couple of days, someone was quoted as saying Shaky was "the world's oldest adolescent." He was, and it was why he was so popular, why so many people in press boxes all over the sporting world would hear his typical loud entrance and smile. They knew no matter how dull the game in front of them turned out, there would be a laugh or two because Shaky was in the house.

Unlike far too many of us in this business, soured by one too many duplicities on the parts of agents, players, coaches, general managers and owners, Jim Hunt never lost his boyish enthusiasm for his work. Only he never called it work. He always said he was the luckiest guy in the world because he never had to get a real job, whether it was writing magazine stories for the long-gone Star Weekly, columns for the Toronto Sun or yakking with Bob McCown on The Fan 590, the first all-sports radio station in Canada.

This does not mean Hunt was all fluff and puff in his writing and broadcasting career. He never hesitated to skewer anyone he thought deserved it, from the late Harold Ballard to the series of hapless operators of the Toronto Argonauts, the team Hunt grew up loving but whose long stretch of ineptitude from the 1950s to the 1980s caused him much exasperation.

After reading another carving of his Toronto Maple Leafs, Ballard would often bark at Hunt that his surname was off by one letter. But like most of Shaky's targets, Ballard never stayed angry long. Hunt's outgoing, infectious personality was just too much fun to resist.

Much of Hunt's career was during an era when journalists and their subjects had closer relationships than today's era of handlers, public-relations flunkies and others who insulate the stars from the press. He could tell tales of having lunch with Marilyn Monroe, joking with Muhammad Ali in his hotel suite or even having drinks with the Queen.

The latter was one of Hunt's favourite stories because the punch line deflated a pompous windbag, something he loved to do.

As Shaky told it, a woman of his acquaintance who loved to brag of her great social connections told him about attending a cocktail party held by the political elite of the day. The woman added that these stars of the Toronto social scene served only a certain brand of expensive gin in their martinis.

"Oh," Hunt replied, "that's the same kind the Queen serves."

The woman sneered and asked how he could possibly know that.

"Because I had cocktails with her on the royal yacht," he said.

Sure enough, thanks to his connections as a magazine writer, Hunt was given an invitation to a reception on the royal yacht when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip paid a visit to Toronto. Hunt always said with relish that the woman never said another word for the rest of the night.

Hunt's greatest love — aside from his wife Carolyn, their four children and six grandchildren, of whom he spoke often — was the Canadian Football League. It was always the basis for his best stories and, as every obit noted, Hunt attended every Grey Cup game from 1949 to 1999.

There was the time in the 1960s, for example, when then CFL commissioner Sydney Halter attended the annual breakfast of the Football Reporters of Canada. In those days, the scribes were either suffering the effects of the night before or still in full swing.

One of Hunt's running mates, Winnipeg broadcaster Cactus Jack Wells, took the floor at the end of the breakfast. He was carrying an oil painting and called Halter to the podium. Wells made a speech saying that while the writers had had their differences with the commissioner over the years, they appreciated his fine work and wanted to show it by presenting him with this fine, original artwork.

Hunt said Halter, a crusty old lawyer, was genuinely touched and said he could not believe "you cheap bastards" would make such a nice gesture. The good feelings lasted for another 30 seconds, until a couple of the hotel's security staff arrived and took the painting away from Halter.

It seems Wells was seized with the idea of the presentation on his way into the breakfast and lifted the painting from a hotel wall.

At every one of those Grey Cup games, Hunt could be counted on to stand up at the traditional coaches' press conference and ask both head coaches if they would allow their players to have sex during Grey Cup week. Such is the affection for Hunt that since he stopped attending the game seven years ago, someone will always get up and ask the question.

At the Grey Cup in Ottawa in 1988, Hunt asked the question of head coaches Larry Donovan of the B.C. Lions and Mike Riley of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. It was brushed aside by the notoriously tight-lipped Donovan.

Hunt and your Leaf blogger just happened to be sitting beside Lions general manager Joe Galat, who was as colourful as Donovan was dull. When Hunt complained loudly about how boring his coach was, Galat told him not to be deceived.

"He's really an interesting guy," Galat said. "Don't think he's a prude. His wife teaches sex education. And she wears garters."

Hunt's eyes lit up. "That's just what I need," he said. Galat realized he had gone too far. "Oh geez, don't get me in trouble," he said.

Too late.

The next morning, the tale of Mrs. Donovan's undergarments was the lead item in Hunt's Toronto Sun column, which was picked up by the Ottawa Sun. "If you are wondering who was the source of this information," Hunt wrote, "it was Donovan's general manager, Joe Galat."

None of the scribes covering the Grey Cup that week could look at either the stone-faced Donovan, Galat or Hunt without giggling.

The day after the Grey Cup game, I was waiting to go through airport security with Hunt. Who should walk up behind us but Galat, Donovan and their wives.

"You are a bad man," Mrs. Galat said, as Mr. and Mrs. Donovan maintained a stony silence and moved away.

Hunt just laughed and then, when Mrs. Donovan went into the ladies' room, said, "See, she's going to take off her garters so they don't set off the machine."

Even Mrs. Galat had to smile.

He was that kind of guy.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Friday, March 10 at 3:10 p.m.

Don't expect a big shakeup

Well, well, well, a guy takes a little time off and the place goes to rack and ruin while he's away. Panic in the streets and all that.

As we've been saying all along, Toronto Maple Leaf fans should take a deep breath, several actually, and relax. There is no quick fix that will turn this hockey team around, so there is no use getting upset about it.

The Leafs have turned out pretty much as expected, a so-so hockey team that probably will not make the playoffs because the Eastern Conference is much stronger than it used to be and the Leafs are much weaker. Trading Bryan McCabe or firing Pat Quinn is not going to change that.

Going into the trade deadline on March 9, do not expect GM John Ferguson to pull off a significant trade unless it yields exactly what he's looking for — a reliable No. 3 or No. 4 defenceman to back up McCabe and Tomas Kaberle and/or a solid forward to offer support for Mats Sundin.

Support for Sundin could mean a winger to play with him, but more likely would be a No. 2 centre to take some of the pressure off him. Without that No. 2 centre, Sundin is always facing the opposition's best line or best checkers, which makes the going awfully heavy for him every night.

In fact, we could argue this has been Sundin's plight ever since he's been a Maple Leaf, which makes his career output of roughly a point per game rather remarkable. But that's an argument for another day.

Jason Allison, the master of the second assist, is not the No. 2 centre the Leafs need, by the way. He was supposed to be but for a guy with 48 points in 53 games, he is simply not a dangerous five-on-five player. Other teams do not see the need to assign their best players to him. And Eric Lindros has been injured for too long to fill that role right now.

Even if Ferguson gets one or both of those spots filled, it does not mean the Leafs are going to make the playoffs, only that they might. Those moves are being contemplated with next season in mind, not this season.

That is why goaltender Ed Belfour is one of the players Ferguson could trade by the deadline. If there is a team out there who thinks Belfour could shake off his mediocre season by playing behind a better defence, then Ferguson would be willing to trade him for the right price.

The Leafs' list of untouchables is rather short — Sundin, McCabe, Alexander Steen, Matt Stajan, Kaberle and Darcy Tucker. You could also add the trio of young defencemen who saw duty with the Leafs this season, Carlo Colaiacovo, Jay Harrison and Staffan Kronwall.

Ferguson will work hard to sign McCabe and is not likely to trade him if no deal has been reached by Mar. 9. McCabe says he wants to remain a Leaf and even if he leaves as a free agent, the money could be spent on pending free agents Ed Jovanovski, Wade Redden or Zdeno Chara. You could say McCabe could leave for nothing, but any one of those other three defencemen would be a pretty good trade for him.

As for Quinn, firing him before the end of the season is not going to produce any miracles.

There is some tension between Quinn and Ferguson, but it is not likely to produce an execution. Better for Ferguson to put together the team he wants this summer, or as close to it as he can, and then decide if he wants Quinn to coach it.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Friday, March 3 at 12:45 p.m.

Ferguson locks up Kaberle, sets sights on McCabe

John Ferguson was the only Toronto Maple Leaf to head into the Olympic break in fine style.

The Leafs general manager has his most talented defenceman, Tomas Kaberle, locked up for the next five years and he is moving in on doing the same for Bryan McCabe, the team's best defenceman this season.

Kaberle signed for an average of $4.25-million (all figures U.S.), which is just slightly more than a cost-of-living increase on this season's salary of $2.28-million.

At 30, McCabe is three years older than Kaberle and is currently the Leafs' leading scorer, which gives him a leg up on Kaberle in the salary department. McCabe is making $3.458-million this season and could cost Ferguson about $5-million a year in a new contract.

The Leafs can afford to keep both of them.

At present, Ferguson is on the hook for about $16.8-million to seven players: Mats Sundin, Kaberle, Darcy Tucker, Tie Domi, Jeff O'Neill, Mikael Tellqvist and Alexander Steen. He will also be charged something, probably between $1-million and $2-million by the league when he almost certainly buys out the last year of goaltender Ed Belfour's contract.

If the salary cap goes to $43-million next season, as expected, the Leafs will have between $24-million and $25-million to spend on free agents or players acquired in trades. But they must also sign younger players like Matt Stajan, Kyle Wellwood, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Carlo Colaiacovo and maybe even Nik Antropov out of that. None of them will be overly expensive, though.

This is assuming Ferguson does not acquire anyone expensive at the Mar. 9 trading deadline. He is looking for an experienced defenceman and a winger who can play with Sundin. Neither of those commodities will be found in the bargain bin.

Aside from Jason Allison, the other veteran Ferguson is shopping around is Domi. He has already been offered to the Phoenix Coyotes, who have demurred so far.

However, Ferguson could have some problems on that front. A check with Domi after the Leafs' 4-2 loss to the New York Rangers on Saturday night revealed he would not go if he were traded.

"No," he said with a laugh. "One hundred per cent, no."

In any event, there will not be any trades until midnight Feb. 27th when the Olympic roster freeze ends.

Ferguson will also have to make a decision on Allison and Eric Lindros for next season. At this point, it does not look like either player will be offered a contract, but a strong finish by Lindros, if he can recover from that torn wrist ligament in time, might change things.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Saturday, February 11 at 10:10 p.m.

When it comes to trades, Leafs GM should just say 'no'

LAS VEGAS -- Toronto Maple Leafs general manager John Ferguson will be button-holed by many of his colleagues this week at the National Hockey League GMs' annual winter meetings.

As someone in dire need of an experienced defenceman, Ferguson has been fielding calls from his concerned peers for some time. Their concern runs to being the fellow who succeeds in dropping an anchor through Ferguson's lifeboat in the form of an under-achieving veteran with a huge contract in exchange for a talented young prospect or some draft picks.

However, there is a valid reason, which has been noted ad nauseum by this modest corner of the sporting world, for Ferguson to pay only lip service to the notion of making a trade.

Ferguson, by the way, has shown some progress on the interview front. Last Friday in Washington, he was asked if his fellow GMs were in their customary rush to throw an anvil to a drowning man.

"There have been many telephone calls from many GMs," Ferguson said deadpan.

Okay, so he's still not ready for open-mike night at Yuk-Yuks. But it's a welcome sign of humour from a guy who still sounds a little too much like a lawyer whose childhood reading was the dictionary of corporate jargon.

Despite the Leafs recent upswing, which has seen them actually win a couple of games in their last four, this team is going to be fighting for the last couple of playoff spots in the Eastern Conference at best. The most likely playoff outcome is an exit in the first round.

There will be the usual bleatings from the fans to get someone right now for the run to the Stanley Cup. But why should Ferguson trade away his youth for, at best, a veteran who might, might, extend the Leafs' survival this spring by one playoff round?

In the next few weeks before the March 9 trading deadline, the market for defencemen, always a tough one, will get even more frenzied. Those few GMs with decent commodities will see their offers rise in quality as those who are lucky enough to be one player away from a serious run at the Cup try to outbid everyone else.

That is why Carolina Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford got in early and escaped with the player he needed, centre Doug Weight. He did pay a steep price in draft picks and talent, but it is clear Rutherford believes his team can win the Cup this year.

And why not? The argument can be made that the Eastern Conference is finally stronger than the Western Conference and the Hurricanes recently climbed past the Ottawa Senators to top spot in the east.

Better that Ferguson should sit back and, as we seem to say almost weekly, look to next season.

The play of his three rookie defencemen also argues against a trade. Jay Harrison, Andy Wozniewski and Staffan Kronwall have all filled in admirably for the injured Aki Berg, Ken Klee, Alexander Khavanov and their fellow rookie Carlo Colaiacovo. Let them get all of the experience they need and then, over the summer, get Bryan McCabe and Tomas Kaberle re-signed, add the right veteran or two through a trade or free-agency and reap the rewards next season when the entire roster should be strong enough to be a Cup contender.

One sign the Leafs are a middling team at best is found in their scoring race. McCabe sits on top with 50 points in 45 games. It is rarely a good thing to have a defenceman lead your team in scoring. It is especially so in a league that dedicated itself to high-scoring hockey with new rules and a new standard of officiating.

Yes, Mats Sundin missed a good portion of the season with a serious injury. But his 39 points in 42 games represents .928 points per game. Centre Jason Allison, who sits second in scoring with 46 points in 50 games, is producing .920 points per game. McCabe is cruising along at 1.1 points per game. Sundin and Allison have to pull ahead of him if the Leafs are to have any post-season success.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Monday, February 6 at 9:44 p.m.

Root for the story, not the team

The question of rooting for teams they cover is has long been asked of reporters by fans and readers.

Some just cannot fathom the notion of reporter as dispassionate chronicler of the passing scene. Reporters must cheer for the home team, these earnest folks believe, looking at us through their eyes, and are surprised when the reporter says, "I really don't care who wins or loses."

Naturally, showing an open bias when you work for a newspaper is a quick way to the unemployment line. We work for the reader, who deserves an objective look at the team in question, not the happy-face version the team prefers or the invective-filled report of a fan enraged by the indifferent play of his team.

Occasionally, a notebook or microphone will fall into the hands of a team cheerleader, but not often. And it is extremely bad form to openly cheer in the press box, no matter if you are a journalist, TV camera guy or guest of the team. The good media relations directors quickly put offenders to right.

Now, that being said, the code of the knights of the keyboard permits cheering for the story or the situation. Just do it discreetly. This issue came up on this week's Toronto Maple Leafs road trip, but first an explanation: In most instances, this means rooting for a blowout. We are all slaves to deadlines. Blowouts mean the last part of your story, the top that goes with the 600 or so words of running copy, the account of the game's first two periods that you sent the copy desk early in the third, can be written and sent before the end of the game. Late lead changes and overtime, particularly with the addition of the shootout, which require frantic re-writes, are the bane of our existence.

Rooting for the story means hoping for a win or a loss because it ties into an interesting angle you dreamed up or heard about before the game.

Rooting for the situation means hoping the playoff race ends so that, for example, the Toronto Maple Leafs are playing the New York Rangers (a futile dream for many years until now), not the Buffalo Sabres. Who wouldn't rather spend a few days in spring in Manhattan instead of Cheektowaga?

As noted, discretion is the key word. Many years ago, a sports writer of our acquaintance touched off a nasty confrontation in the press box because he let his emotions get the best of him.

The team the fellow covered was in a playoff series with a team from one of the most beautiful cities in the league. The fellow had also had a new friend of the female persuasion in this city.

In the sixth game of the playoff series, the team in this writer's city lost either late in the game or in overtime, thereby guaranteeing a return visit to the scenic city. When the visiting team scored the winning goal, the writer pumped his arm in the air and let out a rather loud hooray, which was witnessed by the home team's media-relations director.

The team staffer quite rightly went ballistic over such an open display of bias, and he was not entirely appeased even when the situation was explained to him.

But that was many years ago. Contemporary writers are far too professional for such shenanigans.

Then again, the situation involving the Leafs does involve a bed, but only in the somnolent sense.

After Tuesday night's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Leafs do not play again until Friday in Washington. In the meantime, they tentatively scheduled two early-morning practices in Tampa.

On Wednesday, they plan to be on the ice at 9:30 a.m., local time, an unheard-of hour for the morning after the game but one that is apparently necessary because of the arena schedule. Thursday's practice is set for the even-more-ungodly hour of 8:30 a.m., followed by a flight to Washington.

To make matters worse, the workouts are set for the Lightning's practice rink in a distant suburb. The poor scribes will have to rise practically in the middle of the night to get there on time.

Thus it came to pass that more than one member of the Leafs' media contingent was hoping their long losing streak would come to an end on Monday against the Florida Panthers, which it did, and that they will prevail on Tuesday against the Lightning.

This will practically guarantee the players a day off on Wednesday. That means the long-suffering writers can grab some much-needed sleep, since there was little in the first two days of the trip because of the travel schedule of back-to-back games in Fort Lauderdale and Tampa.

Sounds like an understandable reason for a rooting interest doesn't it?

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Tuesday, January 31 at 6:00 p.m.

 

Fun Florida frolicking days fading

Oh how things have changed since the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs ventured to the Sunbelt.

Back in November, the Leafs were riding a stretch of five wins in their previous seven games, finishing with a 4-3 win on Nov. 26 over the Montreal Canadiens.

As a reward, the Leafs went south a day early and stayed at a luxurious resort on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. They spent a sunny afternoon before the game in a spirited beach volleyball tournament and then many of the players, and one or two media types, took in the scenery poolside.

This time around, those frolics are but a fading memory.

Once again, the Leafs warmed up for the Florida trip with a game against the Canadiens. Only this time they blew a lead and lost, 4-3 in overtime, to run their losing streak to eight games and ensure the pall hanging over the team remained as thick as ever.

So, instead of a day on the beach or a deep-sea fishing excursion, the Leafs were rewarded with a 10 a.m. practice on Sunday and then a run to the airport for an afternoon flight to Fort Lauderdale.

They could also forget the beachfront resort. Their hotel this time is located next to an interstate highway in the midst of a swamp.

They can also forget about having Bryan McCabe back in the lineup, at least for Monday night's game against the Florida Panthers.

McCabe, the glue that held the Leafs defence together, said he will play Tuesday night in Tampa against the Lightning. He and the Leaf medical staff felt the combination of back-to-back games and the soft ice at the Panthers' arena presented too much of a risk of re-injuring the torn groin muscle.

They also considered letting him play against the Panthers but limiting his ice time to 12 to 15 minutes. But that was ruled out as impractical as well.

"Things look good on paper but what happens when you get out there cold and there's a turnover and you have to sprint when you're cold [from an extended stay on the bench]," McCabe said Monday. "We know it will be hot in this building and the ice is not the best."

McCabe said he has not heard anything from the Canadian men's Olympic team about his status. As long as he does not aggravate his groin muscle — always a risky proposition with this injury — McCabe should retain his spot on the taxi squad for the Winter Games next month.

In fact, with Ed Jovanovski (groin) back on the shelf and Scott Niedermayer facing possible knee surgery, McCabe could get a promotion.

"That's the least of my worries," McCabe said. "My job is to help the team here. I don't know what's going on [with the Olympic team]. I haven't heard a thing."

The players were not the only ones to endure hardship on this trip. Due to a shortage of hotel rooms, the ink-stained wretches were forced to seek accommodations in a remote, down-at-the-heels hotel.

However, due to your agent's search of the internet, an excellent restaurant was found in Pompano Beach, a short drive from the flophouse.

It is called Joe's Riverside Grille, a restaurant of astonishing quality, considering that it is attached to a fading resort that saw its best days in the 1960s.

Seafood is the specialty of the house, naturally, and your servant heartily recommends the yellowtail escaviche. Most restaurants which serve this, a whole fish battered, deep-fried and smothered in onions, peppers and scotch-bonnet peppers, serve a single fish. Joe serves two, and it was all I could do to finish it. The gentleman from The Toronto Star was most impressed with his salmon.

Best of all, two of us got out of there for less than $50 (U.S.) a person.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Monday, January 30 at 7:53 p.m.

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When things are bad, the media are worse

The sound and fury the other day over Mats Sundin's future with the Toronto Maple Leafs reinforced a maxim about the media that cover them.

When things are going badly for the Leafs, it is rarely the media's finest hour. Too often, thanks to laziness, a pack mentality and a lack of adult supervision, newspapers and radio and television stations seize on a story of dubious provenance at best and turn it into a raging issue.

Such was the case with the question of whether or not Sundin had any desire to seek his National Hockey League fortunes elsewhere because of the Leafs' struggles.

It started with column by Ottawa Sun hockey writer Bruce Garrioch. In it, Garrioch speculated that Sundin might waive the no-trade clause in his contract and ask for a trade to a Stanley Cup contender.

When the Toronto Sun splashed it all over its sports section, the media dogs were let loose. Sundin and the Leafs spent two days denying something that was not remotely true. Even a cursory reading of the column shows this.

The key word here is column. It was an opinion piece, not a news story. Garrioch emphasized that Sundin had not asked for a trade nor was he likely to. All he had to support his theory was that "sources" told him Sundin was not happy.

Hmmm. The Leafs have a six-game losing streak going, their best defenceman and top goal-scorer are out indefinitely with injuries and they fell out of the eight playoff spots. Those "sources might be on to something."

Boo, as Garrioch is affectionately known by those around the NHL, is a good reporter. Most of the scoops about the Ottawa Senators come under his byline.

But Garrioch, like many of us in this business, likes to cause a little mischief from time to time. So, in the wake of yet another Leaf loss to the Senators, this column appeared.

In normal times, it would cause a few chuckles and then disappear with no harm done. Sundin and his agent, J.P. Barry, would issue the usual denials, as they did, and everyone would go back to sleep.

But these are not normal times. The Leafs are losing, damn it. So common sense is in terribly short supply.

The day after the column appeared, you could not turn on a radio station in Toronto or a sports television network without hearing about Sundin and whether or not he wanted to be traded.

This was not Garrioch's fault. It was the fault of people in the media who should know how to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Two days later, the fuss still had not died a deserved death. A couple of the dimmer bulbs in the media were still asking Leafs GM John Ferguson if Sundin was up for grabs.

Somewhere in Ottawa, Boo is gnawing on a big plate of chicken wings and having a good laugh.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Wednesday, January 25 at 7:43 p.m.

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McCabe's injury has Leafs looking

DENVER — The news that Bryan McCabe has a tear in his groin muscle conjures up images of Toronto Maple Leafs general manager John Ferguson feverishly dialling his telephone, desperately seeking a defenceman.

Well, Ferguson is looking for an experienced National Hockey League defenceman, but that is not because of McCabe's injury, although it may lend a little urgency to the proceedings. Ferguson has always been looking for a veteran defenceman and he always planned to speed up his efforts towards the end of January.

Even when all of the Leafs defencemen were healthy, Ferguson and his staff knew they had to upgrade the top six if the team was to go anywhere in the playoffs. In the next few weeks, some teams will be deciding they are not going to make the playoffs and will be looking to shed some veterans, which is when Ferguson expects to make a move.

The idea is not solely to find a replacement for McCabe — which would be near impossible since he is among the top two or three offensive defencemen in the league this season — but to upgrade the unit as a whole. Even if is decided McCabe will need surgery, he is still expected to be ready to play well before the playoffs.

Some may think no drastic measure is necessary given rookies Carlo Colaiacovo and Staffan Kronwall played so well after being promoted from the farm team to the Leafs defence when the injury bug hit. Ferguson and head coach Pat Quinn are indeed happy with Colaiacovo and Kronwall but they still think a new face is necessary.

Carrying two rookies, even if they are playing like veterans, is a good thing only if your top four defencemen are a solid group. The Leafs brass is not convinced their top four is all that solid right now.

McCabe, of course, is hurt. Tomas Kaberle is all-star calibre and Ken Klee is steady, although he's had some wobbles. The same cannot be said of Aki Berg and Alexander Khavanov.

Ferguson's problem is that he does not have a lot of cards to play in a trade, unless he is willing to deal some of the team's young talent. At this point, that is unlikely.

Despite the rumours, centre Jason Allison is not the most likely to be moved. The problem with him, as one member of the Leafs' travelling party observed the other day, is that Allison has a no-trade contract even if it is not officially spelled out in the contract.

Allison's salary and bonuses count for $4.35-million (U.S.) under the salary cap, which is $39-million. Even though more than half of that has already been paid out, any team that trades for him will take a hit of more than $2-million on this season's cap. There are not many teams with that kind of room, and few with the inclination to use it up considering Allison's injury history.

The only way Ferguson could trade Allison or any other veteran with a similar contract is to agree to take an expensive contract in return. In that case, he will hardly be getting someone who could solve his problems on defence.

What will likely happen is that one of Klee, Khavanov or Berg will be part of any trade. Getting an upgrade out of that and avoiding a cap hit will require some slick maneuvering by Ferguson.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Tuesday, January 18 at 9:23 p.m.

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Quinn ready for battle against Olympic boss

As far as Pat Quinn knows, the meeting between him and Wayne Gretzky on Saturday night at the Air Canada Centre is a National Hockey League first.

As in the first confrontation between two NHL head coaches who are also head coach of their country's Olympic team (Quinn) and executive director of same (Gretzky).

"No, I can't imagine it ever happened before, anywhere," Quinn said.

Saturday's game is the only meeting this season between Quinn and the Toronto Maple Leafs and Gretzky and the Phoenix Coyotes, thanks to the NHL's unbalanced schedule. Since it's coming a few weeks before the start of the Olympics, the pair is hoping to squeeze in more than just the NHL game.

Gretzky the Canadian team boss and Quinn the head coach need to iron out a few things.

"There's nothing planned," Quinn said of a face-to-face meeting, "but that's a possibility. The time is getting shorter.

"We have some things coming up. We have to deal with what seem like mundane things: rooming lists, who sits where in the [dressing] room. And we have to talk about lines and potential [defence] pairings."

If he had to pass along some advice to the rookie NHL coach, who has had his ups-and-downs with the 21-21-2 Coyotes, Quinn says Gretzky should get used to the idea of pain.

"If you're going to coach in this league, you're going to get some pain," Quinn said. "Patience, though, is part of teaching.

"He's taken over a team they're trying to grow. They've got some nice young kids there. Those things don't happen overnight, so patience becomes part of teaching and having your team learn to be a consistent team and play to a certain level.

"That would be frustrating to be a coach and don't get to where you think you should be. Sometimes you stumble. You lose before you start to win. They've been up-and-down and they've had some real good stretches."

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Friday, January 13 at 4:23 p.m.

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Pogge and Rask: Solid NHL prospects?

John Ferguson and the rest of the brains with the Toronto Maple Leafs are delirious about how the world junior championships in Vancouver turned out.

Well, yeah, I suppose they were happy enough that Canada won, but what really had them jumping up and down was the play of goaltenders Justin Pogge and Tuuka Rask. Pogge backstopped the Canadians to the gold medal, holding them in during the first period when the Russians were firing at will, while Rask took the Finns to the bronze medal and was picked as the top goaltender in the tournament.

The celebrating, of course, is because both players are Leaf draft picks. Pogge, 19, was taken in the third round of the 2004 entry draft. Rask, 18, was the Leafs' first-round pick, 21st overall, in the 2005 draft.

Both goaltenders are now considered solid NHL prospects, although a scout who watched the entire world junior tournament issued a caution. Their status shot up considerably at the tournament, he said, but just remember that the last goaltender to play wire-to-wire for Canada on the way to a gold medal was Trevor Kidd.

Kidd once had a golden future predicted for him, and the Calgary Flames took him in the first round of the 1990 draft. But his NHL career fizzled and after the Leafs declined to re-sign him in 2004, he is now playing in Germany.

As a first-round pick, Rask is considered the more likely of the two prospects to become an No. 1 NHL goalie. When the Leafs landed him 21st overall, they felt it was as good as picking Carey Price, who was taken fifth overall by the Montreal Canadiens.

Pogge, though, pushed his way into consideration by beating out Price for a spot on the Canadian junior team. Then, after allowing just six goals in the entire tournament, plus shutting out his opponents for the last 150-plus minutes of the event, Pogge is now equal with Rask in the Leafs' eyes and has the new contract to prove it.

Neither goaltender, our friend the scout said, is considered among the next wave of star goaltenders. That group includes some talented NHL rookies like Ryan Miller, Henrik Lundqvist and Antero Niittymaki, but Rask and Pogge are considered at the front of the next wave of young goaltenders.

Both of them are tall, while Rask is more of a butterfly goaltender than Pogge. But Pogge, as anyone who watched the gold-medal game knows, handles pressure well and stays square to the puck in his positioning.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Friday, January 6 at 7:30 p.m.

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Gonchar on defence? I don't think so

The Toronto Maple Leafs will be looking hard around the National Hockey League in the coming weeks for someone to bolster their defence. As a few more teams decide their playoff chances are gone, probably by the first week of February or so, Leafs GM John Ferguson is hoping to snag a useful defenceman.

There is not much out there at present, since the only teams out of the playoff race are the Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, St. Louis Blues, Chicago Blackhawks and Columbus Blue Jackets.

The biggest name being shopped around at present is Penguins defenceman Sergei Gonchar. Ferguson had Gonchar on his radar screen in February, 2004 when he wanted an offensive defenceman for the playoffs. The Leafs wound up getting Brian Leetch instead, and he was lost to free agency after the lockout.

The problem with Gonchar is that he has a huge contract, one with four-and-a-half years left at $5-million per year (all figures U.S.). The other is that he is having a terrible season, just like the Penguins.

What is surprising about this is that just about everyone around the NHL bet that under the new rules and new standard of officiating that Gonchar would be a candidate for the Norris Trophy. He is mobile and a great puck-handler, someone it was thought would be a great power-play quarterback.

Penguins GM Craig Patrick thought so, too, which is why he dropped such a big contract on him. But Gonchar went into Monday night's game against the Leafs with 18 points in 34 games and a minus-13 in the plus-minus rankings.

According to the chatter around the NHL, Patrick is shopping Gonchar but there will likely be no takers. Aside from the problem of his contract, which would carve out $5-million of room under the salary cap for the next four years, is Gonchar's play.

One scout who has watched him said Gonchar has gone from playing little defence to no defence at all. "He refuses to go back and get the puck," the scout said. "You have to get the puck first before you can go on offence."

So, unless you want Todd Simpson or Cale Hulse, there is nothing out there right now for the GM looking for a defenceman.

However, in the next four weeks there could be as many as seven more teams joining the above five in a league-wide fire sale. With a hard salary cap, teams are more likely to start dealing once they figure the playoffs are out of reach because they want to be in optimum position under the cap for next season.

Keep an eye on the New Jersey Devils, Atlanta Thrashers, New York Islanders, Montreal Canadiens, Florida Panthers and San Jose Sharks and maybe even the Colorado Avalanche in this regard.

By the way, the aforementioned scout thinks the Panthers will not wind up being part of a fire sale. He thinks there is too much talent on the roster to keep them down and the team is about to make a move.

This will not be good news for the league's GMs since it would remove the small chance that goaltender Roberto Luongo would be auctioned off. He is not, repeat not, on the market at present.

Luongo is on a one-year contract he received through arbitration, which will make him a restricted free agent in July. He is set to become an unrestricted free agent in July, 2007.

The only way Luongo will go on the market is if he tells GM Mike Keenan he has no interest in signing a long-term contract with the team. Keenan is going to try hard to sign him, and a turnaround by the Panthers will make that easier.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Monday, January 2 at 7:25 p.m.

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It's New Year's, glug-alug

One of the many aspects of culture shock that awaits European hockey players when they come to North America to ply their trade is the New Year's Eve celebrations. Rather, the lack of celebrations when it comes to the National Hockey League.

In Russia, for example, Christmas was officially banned during the 70-some years the Communists ran the Soviet Union. New Year's Eve was the biggest celebration and it still is, although Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Alexander Khavanov reports Christmas is coming on strong now that the church is recognized again by the government.

The Swedes, Finns, Poles and other countries in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe all party hard to bring in the New Year. In Russia and Poland, the statutory holiday runs two days, the joke being the citizens need at least that long to recover from the parties.

"They probably celebrate New Year's Eve more [than Christmas] because lots and lots of people get drunk," Leafs goaltender Mikael Tellqvist said of the custom in his native Sweden. "But I'm not sure you can write that."

In the NHL, though, New Year's Eve is just another night for business. The league shuts down on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but always plays on New Year's Eve. On Saturday night, for example, 20 of its 30 teams will be playing which means a lot of European players will miss their celebrations once again.

Then again, Khavanov points out, it's hard to have a real celebration when you are in North America with only a few family members and friends around. The North American version of the party is not quite the same.

"You don't celebrate if nobody else celebrates," he said. "In Russia, it's very much the same as Christmas. There are presents under the tree.

"I do celebrate it here with my family. Yeah, I celebrate it when I get home, the first chance you have [after a game]."

That is also what Mariusz Czerkawski, the lone Pole on the Leafs, plans to do.

"The last time I was in Poland for New Year's Eve was last year and before that it was for the 1994 lockout," he said, citing the NHL's last two labour disruptions. "My mom is here and my girlfriend is here, so it won't be nothing special this year. You can't really celebrate. Back in Poland you get together with a lot of family, and we celebrate with a lot of food."

Tellqvist, though, doesn't mind missing the parties back home.

"Not really, where I am is where I want to be," he said. "Playing in the NHL beats any New Year's Eve. I'll celebrate lots of New Year's Eves when I'm done with my career, make up for it then."

In Moscow, the parties start early in the evening and there are outdoor concerts in various parks with the biggest show in Red Square, which is not all that different from what goes on in Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto or Times Square in New York. There is also lots of public intoxication, probably more so than in North America.

The biggest difference is in the use of fireworks. Every Moscow citizen believes the New Year can only be rung in with his own supply of Roman candles and other high-powered fireworks. Safety is not a big issue.

Having covered the world junior hockey championship a few years ago in Moscow, I can tell you that it is best to keep a constant lookout for the celebrants. It is not uncommon to see a Roman candle pointed haphazardly down the street and set off at eye level.

A few years before that, I saw how Swedes rang in the new millennium when I covered the 2000 world junior championship in the small city of Skelleftea.

The celebrations feature lots of glogg, pronounced and sometimes spelled glug, a wicked concoction of either red wine or port, brandy, other liquor and spices. It is heated, often in a pot over an outdoor fire and consumed to keep away the cold. It is a rather pleasant drink on a cold night, which can lead to much consumption and a feeling the next day that someone sawed off the top of your head and started working on you with a jack hammer.

But if you would like to try a Swedish style celebration, here are a couple of glug recipes:

 This one is a link

 Here's one I found on an Internet search:

 8 ounces water

1 cup raisins

3 cinnamon sticks

5 whole cloves

12 cardamom seeds

2 dry orange peels

Boil ingredients for 10 minutes in saucepan, then add:

1 gallon port wine

750-ml. bottle brandy

16 ounces rum

1/2 cup sugar

Bring to boil and let simmer 1 minute, then turn off burner and ignite. Allow the mix to burn for about 15 seconds. Serve hot.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Friday, December 30 at 11:11 a.m.

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Sideshow Bob is no more

Along with the injuries that arrived with the suddenness of a tornado this month, the one thing the Toronto Maple Leafs did not need on Tuesday was losing Darcy Tucker to a suspension. Not even for one game.

In the last couple of weeks, Tucker has been the Leafs' most consistent player. He is their Everyman, someone who not only leads the team in goals with 15 before Tuesday night's game in Pittsburgh against the Penguins, but someone who is, by turn, an agitator, a penalty-killer and someone who can play on the top line and on the power play.

He is, in fact, the someone Leafs management long hoped he would be but despaired for a time that it would not happen. Too often, after he was traded to the Leafs on Feb. 9, 2000, Tucker was more Tasmanian Devil than hockey player.

Tucker became a familiar sight barging around the ice, veins and eyes popping out of his head in a fury, chasing someone who had issue a real or perceived slight. Rather than being someone who played an aggressive game on the razor-edge of control, Tucker flipped over the edge more often than not and wore a steady path to the penalty box.

Aside from putting the Leafs into penalty-killing mode too often, Tucker's antics reinforced his image around the National Hockey League as a yappy, under-sized lunatic. He was saddled with the name Sideshow Bob, and it was never clear if the moniker's author was the New Jersey hockey writer who first put it in print or one of Tucker's fellow players. Either way, Tucker detested the nickname despite its accuracy.

He also did not like inferences that the presence of his brother-in-law, Shayne Corson, on the Leafs was not a good influence on him. While Tucker readily admitted Corson was an influence, he hotly disputed that it was anything other than a positive one. Perhaps it is a coincidence then, that Tucker's ascendance has come since Corson departed the team during the 2003 playoffs.

Now, Tucker uses discretion when he mixes his skating with his agitating. There is no longer that sense of anticipation that a run at an opposing player will end with Tucker wildly swinging punches into the other team's bench or being dragged off the ice kicking and screaming.

His rehabilitation is such that indiscretions like Monday night's fight with New Jersey Devils forward Cam Janssen are forgiven by the league. And even by his opponent.

Just after the fight started, Tucker pulled off Janssen's helmet and clobbered him over the head with it a couple of times. That drew a five-minute match penalty and ejection from the game, plus an automatic review by the NHL's lord of discipline, Colin Campbell.

Instead of a suspension, though, Campbell accepted Tucker's explanation that the strap of Janssen's helmet became wrapped around his wrist, which meant Janssen was hit with it because Tucker kept swinging. That meant no suspension, although Tucker did have to cough up a $2,500 (U.S.) fine.

"[Campbell] interpreted it as a situation where there was no pre-meditation," said Mike Murphy, the NHL's vice-president of hockey operations, who sat in on Tuesday's hearing. "We were happy with Tucker's explanation."

What was also of interest is that Tucker's opponent did not see his actions as those of a crazed agitator.

"I'm sure he didn't mean to do it," Janssen said. "From what I hear, he's an honest player. He's just sticking up for his captain. He's a tough cookie. It was a good go. I felt it, but I didn't see it coming. I didn't even know it was the helmet."

Sideshow Bob, it would appear, is a thing of the past.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Tuesday, December 27 at 9:02 p.m.

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NHL tests even the best friendships

Friendships are funny things in the National Hockey League. They are suspended and reinstated depending on trades and the coming and going of the season.

For example, the friendship between Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Bryan McCabe and Boston Bruins forward Travis Green is definitely on hiatus even if they do manage a couple of friendly words off the ice.

When they were teammates on the Leafs, McCabe and Green spent a fair bit of time together. After Green went to the Bruins two years ago, he stayed in touch with McCabe and Darcy Tucker, his two closest friends with the Leafs. They would always say hello after the game-day skates and have a quick chat.

However, once the puck was dropped it was all business. A strain even crept into the relationship of late because Green's chief assignment as a Bruins penalty killer was to shut down McCabe, the Leafs' top, and only for the most part, offensive weapon on the power play.

Green was far too efficient at his job for McCabe's liking. Every time he tried to set up for his patented one-time shot from the point, Green was in his way.

Things got downright testy on Thursday night in the first of back-to-back, home-and-home games between the Leafs and Bruins. The Bruins took a 4-1 win by blanking the Leafs on all nine of their power plays, with Green playing a leading role.

Back in Toronto on Friday night, McCabe gained a measure of revenge and did not hesitate to rub his friend's nose in it.

After he ripped a shot past Bruins goaltender Hannu Toivonen on a third-period power play for the winning goal, McCabe skated over to the Bruins bench and directed a few words to Green.

"I just said, 'Finally, get the [bleep] away from me,' " McCabe said of his taunt. "I don't think he liked it."

McCabe also said it was all in fun, although those who paid a visit to the Bruins dressing room after the game said Green was not happy about being taunted.

Until the Leafs scored two power-play goals in Friday's 2-1 win over the Bruins, the power play was taking its lumps. It became the top-ranked unit in the National Hockey League thanks to its bread-and-butter play of setting up McCabe's shot from the point but it slid down the rankings when teams began to blanket McCabe in their coverage.

"They've been playing me pretty tight, especially [the Bruins]," McCabe said. "Travis has done a great job shutting me down. But I was finally able to put one between his legs."

However, those friendly hellos in the arena hallways will probably have to wait until the summer.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Friday, December 23 at 10:44 p.m.

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Current woes are mild in comparison to the past

The sound and fury over the current state of the Toronto Maple Leafs, notwithstanding their whacky 9-6 win over the New York Islanders on Monday night, is not surprising. It illustrates how easily the fans can forget the years when the team was the hockey equivalent of the Toronto Raptors.

Then again, fans' memories are notoriously unreliable. If you will recall, none of us so-called experts picked the Leafs to do much more than squeak into the National Hockey League playoffs this season. They are a .500 team that can be a little better when everyone is working hard, but cannot play with elite teams like the Ottawa Senators.

What fans should do is look at this season as a mild diversion. The real crunch time for the Leafs is next summer, when their strategy of sticking to one-year contracts for the most part and saying goodbye to high-priced veterans like Gary Roberts, Joe Nieuwendyk, Alexander Mogilny and Brian Leetch will give them lots of money to spend under a salary cap that could go as high as $43-million (all figures U.S.). That is when a close eye should be kept on GM John Ferguson.

There will still be teams with cap trouble, even with the increase, so if Ferguson trades and spends wisely the Leafs should rebound to contender's status by the start of the 2006-07 season.

In the meantime, Leaf fans can console themselves that bellyaching about being in a fight to make the playoffs is a whole lot nicer than a team that has no fight at all. To that end, we bring you a look back to the truly dark years of the franchise, when the late Harold Ballard owned the team and it was an annual embarrassment.

One of the lowest points came on Feb. 22, 1988 when head coach John Brophy got so fed up with his underachievers he blew his cool and launched one of the most spectacular tirades in NHL history. It followed a 4-2 loss to the Minnesota North Stars, which gave the Leafs a 1-2-1 record on a crucial western road trip.

At the time, the North Stars were the only team in the NHL worse than the Leafs, but they were both in the playoff hunt because both were in the Norris Division, known then as the Snorris Division.

Luckily for us perverse historians, Toronto Sun hockey writer Lance Hornby preserved Brophy's rant, which had two acts, on his micro-cassette recorder. In the first act, Brophy's rage was evident at the start. At one point, he told the reporters he had nothing further to say and they went into the Leaf dressing room to talk to the players. But a few minutes later, Brophy sent an assistant coach into the dressing room to fetch the scribes because he decided he was not finished.

By the end of the second session, Brophy had gone from rage to bewilderment to rage, to despair and, finally, to weary resignation. He also set what is believed to be a modern NHL record for use of the f-word and its variations in a post-game interview — 72 (Hornby counted them).

Brophy was a man who spent his entire playing career in the low minor leagues and almost all of his coaching career there as well. He was a hard man who grew up in a hard place and in hard times, in the Depression in rural Nova Scotia. The attitude of the pampered modern athlete was something he could never understand.

That came through loud and clear as he unburdened himself to the Toronto hockey writers:

"Don't ask me to explain it, they've done it all year long," Brophy said in response to the obvious question after the Leafs laid down and died in front of the worst team in the NHL. "I'm tired, and sick and [bleeping] tired about having people that won't come to the rink. They're not [bleeping] fooling nobody and most of all, they're not fooling anybody in the [bleeping] league.

"I'm sick and [bleeping] tired of making excuses."

Brophy's voice then rose to a combination of rage and bewilderment: "Who are those [bleeping] guys anyway? Who the [bleep] do they think they are?

And who the [bleep] do they think they're kidding? Where do they get the nuts to come to the [bleeping] rink every second day and fourth day and play one period a week and get away with it?"

The climax came when he, a man who thought anyone should be proud just for a chance to wear the Maple Leaf, wondered about his players' lack of pride:

"Who are these [bleeping] people that drag that uniform through the mud for [bleep's] sake? There's been great players play in the thing and they act like this here. Who are they?"

The Leafs finished the 1987-88 season with a 21-49-10 record, but still made the playoffs. They lost in the first round to the Detroit Red Wings.

That series was notable for the lowest point in franchise history. The Red Wings humiliated the Leafs 8-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Game 4 of the series to take a 3-1 lead. As they had done so often in the regular season, the players quit once the Red Wings opened up a 3-0 lead.

But on this night, the regular, complacent corporate crowd was not in the stands. The toffs had either sold or given away their playoff tickets, so the stands were full of ordinary fans. And they had had a bellyful of their heroes.

When one angry fan took off his Leaf sweater, tied it in a knot and threw it from the end blues to the ice, it set off a torrent of rage. Debris and verbal abuse showered down from the seats and the game had to be stopped. This continued off and on for the rest of the game.

Change for the better was still a long way away. Brophy held on to his job, but by Christmas of 1988, he was gone, fired by GM Gord Stellick. The Leafs missed the playoffs altogether in the 1988-89 season.

This season's troubles seem mild by comparison.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Tuesday, December 20 at 12:15 p.m.

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Quinn tries out new defensive combinations

The shakeup of the Toronto Maple Leafs defence moved from the theoretical toward the practical Thursday when head coach Pat Quinn shuffled his pairings.

As mentioned in Thursday's Globe and Mail, the top pair of Bryan McCabe and Tomas Kaberle were split up for the Leaf practice. McCabe played with Alexander Khavanov, while Kaberle worked with Ken Klee.

The third pair of Aki Berg and Carlo Colaiacovo remained together but that could be temporary. Staffan Kronwall has not been cleared to for full contact in practice but that could happen by the weekend. The Leafs will probably keep both him and Colaiacovo, which means a forward like Mariusz Czerkawski will be placed on waivers to create a spot on the 23-man roster.

Quinn said the defence shuffle is an experiment and may not last until the Leafs' next game, Saturday night at the Air Canada Centre against the Dallas Stars.

"We'll see whether or not we have some changes that will serve us better," he said.

The problem for the Leafs is that their defensive shortcomings are severe enough that McCabe and Kaberle have to get most of the ice time. However, playing close to 30 minutes a game will soon wear down even the best defencemen.

Klee was quite happy with the experiment. Playing with Kaberle reminded him of his old partner from his Washington Capitals tenure.

"I was fortunate enough to play with Sergei Gonchar for a few years," Klee said. "[Kaberle] is the same kind of player. He's definitely been one of the best guys in the league at handling the puck for the last few years."

Kaberle did not mind the swap, either. At least not for public consumption.

"We'll see if we keep going like this," he said. "I don't mind playing with someone else. I'll play the same way as always. I wouldn't change a thing."

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Thursday, December 8 at 3:11 p.m.

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Thoughts from six days on the road and I'm a gonna make it home tonight

ATLANTA — Since when did taxi-cab drivers stop lifting luggage? Somewhere in the last few years, it became commonplace for cabbies to loll behind the wheel as you approached with your two bags and then pop the dashboard trunk button as if that were a grand gesture.

Actually, I think they are playing their role in a larger conspiracy among the service industry to extract the maximum number of dollars from the sap, uh, customer.

The way it works is that as you leave the door of your hotel, the bellman calls the cab. The cab pulls up, cabbie pops the trunk and bellman lifts your bag into the trunk. Now you have to tip the bellman plus the cabby. At least you do if you're in the silent majority that does not object and coughs up.

The larceny is worse when you arrive at the hotel. When the cab pulls up, the first thing the cabby does is pop the trunk. Then, while you are occupied paying the cabby, and tipping him, of course, a bellman latches on to your luggage. He (it's never a she, by the way) then loads it on to a cart and trucks it 20 metres or so to the front desk. He expects a tip.

Then, after you have checked in, the desk clerk says, "Would you like assistance …" and then smacks the bell to call a second bellman before you can get your objection out of your mouth. The bellman gloms on to your luggage faster than a wolf on a pork chop and now you have to haul out tip No. 3.

The room-service people have a nice little scam going, too. If you read the small print at the bottom of the page on the room-service menu, you will see that hotels commonly add a 20-per-cent service charge to the bill. But this does not stop them from having a blank line on the check for you to fill in a tip. And the person who delivers the food stands there with that look that suggests a tip is in order. I imagine most people fall for it.

These people do not always like me. When the cab pulls up to the hotel, the first thing I do is get out. That way, I can rescue my luggage before bandit No. 1 gets a grip on it. Then I pay the cabbie. If he is one of the rare few that made any sort of effort to lift my bags into or out of the trunk, he gets a tip, usually around 15 per cent, 20 if my bags are really heavy.

Luggage on wheels is one of the few weapons we, the customers, have in this war. I only have rollaway bags, and I let bellmen take them only when I am exhausted near the end of a long trip, such as today. But I didn't tip the first guy who took them to the check-in desk. I gave the second bellman three bucks for taking one large suitcase and a briefcase (also on wheels) to my room. I figured he could settle up with bandit No. 1.

Atlanta, by the way, is one of the least favourite NHL stops among the media. The downtown is desolate, with few decent restaurants but plenty of street hustlers. You cannot walk half a block without fending off the most aggressive panhandlers in North America or people offering directions or advice on where to get, uh, adult services. For a lavish tip, of course.

You cannot even escape them in hotel lounges. Once, in the lobby bar of a plush downtown Atlanta hotel, several writers and I had a well-dressed couple plop themselves down at our table. They launched into a long tale of woe about being on their way to a Christian convention when their car broke down. They needed money for a tow truck, the story went, so us softies coughed up about five bucks each. When I saw them coming out of the lounge the next night, I knew we had been had.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Thursday, December 1 at 3:43 p.m.

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Defending the Cup is tough work

TAMPA — Life as the defending Stanley Cup champions has not been to the liking of the Tampa Bay Lightning until recently.

They opened the National Hockey League season like the Lightning of old, staggering out of the gate with a 7-7-2 record. The speedy, puck-control team that was expected to thrive in the new, wide-open NHL was nowhere to be seen.

"We went through a period where we thought we were playing hard but we weren't," Lightning head coach John Tortorella said on Wednesday. The teams playing them, mindful of their status as the 2004 Cup champions, sure did.

"We were getting teams' 'A' games," Tortorella said. "We did not get anyone's backup goalie. We always played against the top guy. That's the price of success."

The bottom was hit on Nov. 11 when the Atlanta Thrashers sent the Lightning to sixth consecutive loss by scoring five times in a row.

Tortorella cancelled a day off and told his players to report to the arena on a Saturday afternoon. When they got there, he showed them a video of Game 7 of the 2004 Stanley Cup final, their win over the Calgary Flames that brought the Cup to Florida for the first time.

"When we showed them that game, we had a number of guys come up and say, 'Geez, I don't think we are even close to that,' " Tortorella told The Tampa Tribune. "I think it's tough to play 82 games at a Game 7 level, but I think we needed to get closer than we were. I think that's helped."

Since then, the Lightning went 6-1-1 before Wednesday night's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. They are back to moving the puck quickly up the ice, especially after they pounce on turnovers at or between the bluelines.

"Where they are fastest is on counters," said Leafs head coach Pat Quinn. "So you don't turn the puck over to them in bad spots. When there is a turnover [the Lightning] seem to have a lot of open ice.

"That's one of their best assets as a team. They have a lot of really good open-ice players. Generally, on a turnover, you're going to get open ice and they operate really well in that situation."

The Lightning also work hard to make sure they have the puck more than the opposition. If they lose it, they immediately start checking hard to get it back.

"Good teams are always trying to get open. They have that philosophy if they don't have the puck, they're trying to get it. Some teams, guys want the puck only under their circumstances, when they're ready for it. Good players want it any time. They're ready for it all the time."

Tortorella says there are still a few things his team needs to improve, the power-play being the biggest one.

"In the last while, we gave up seven scoring chances on our power play," said Lightning centre Brad Richards. "That's just unacceptable. It also seems we gave up a penalty shot a game in the last two weeks. We have to tighten that up."

The goaltending has also come around. John Grahame, who had to step into the No. 1 job when Nikolai Khabibulin was lost as a free agent, was as inconsistent as his team until his last five starts.

"He was hard on himself when we were going through that six-game losing streak," Richards said. "It wasn't just him. It just seemed like every mistake at an important time was going into the net.

"He battled very hard. You can tell his confidence is up. We're a lot more confident in front of him."

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Wednesday, November 30 at 8:40 p.m.

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Taking a baby break

Darcy Tucker and Carlo Colaiacovo missed all the fun in the sun when the Toronto Maple Leafs took a break on Sunday, but neither was complaining.

Tucker, in fact, missed the Leafs last two games before they played the Florida Panthers on Monday night. However, he had a good excuse — he was with his wife Shannon, waiting for the arrival of their third child.

The tardy little fellow arrived at 7:05 p.m. on Saturday night, a time that was lost on Tucker but not on the rest of his family. "The nurse shouted out the time and everybody started laughing," Tucker said shortly before the game against the Panthers. "I couldn't figure out why, and then somebody told me it was the [official] start time of our game against the Habs."

Tucker said the timing of his son's birth allowed him to watch "most of the second and third periods" of what turned out to be a 4-3 overtime win at the Air Canada Centre.

The latest member of the Tucker-Corson family (Shannon is the sister of ex-Leaf Shayne) is named Cain. He joins older sister Owynn, 6, and brother Cole, 5.

Tucker and Colaiacovo caught a late flight to Florida on Sunday, to catch up to their teammates.

Colaiacovo was not unhappy about missing the fun on Sunday, either. He was called up from the Leafs' Toronto Marlies farm team to replace fellow rookie defenceman Staffan Kronwall, who is out for seven to 14 days with a knee strain.

This means Colaiacovo will get a longer stay with the big team than last time. He was called up on Nov. 8 for a game against the Washington Capitals and put on his best performance in a Leaf uniform.

But Colaiacovo's reward was to be sent down the next day for what were, at first, salary cap reasons. By sending him down, Leafs GM John Ferguson saved a few thousand bucks under the NHL cap.

As it turned out, the injured veteran he was called up to replace, Aki Berg, came back sooner than expected so Colaiacovo would have been sent down anyway.

With Kronwall — who won a job with the Leafs when Colaiacovo was injured earlier this season and could not be promoted — out for an extended period, Colaiacovo is assured of a minimum three-game audition.

While Tucker and Colaiacovo were making their way to Florida, their teammates were enjoying a few games of beach volleyball at their Fort Lauderdale hotel. This was topped off by some down time around the pool.

The Marriott Harbor Beach Resort, by the way, is a decent enough place if you like young, beautiful blonde women strolling through the lobby in bikinis so brief they do not cover any more territory than a cocktail napkin. It is not my cup of tea, of course, but I suppose some may like it.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Saturday, November 28 at 4:56 p.m.

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Shooting the breeze on the beat

The game-day skate has long been a ritual in the National Hockey League and long been the bane of the existence of us ink-stained wretches.

It stretches an already long work day by several hours, since it is the only chance to interview the players and coaches before the game. This exercise is necessary to fill the early-edition stories that will give way to the game stories in later editions and the notebooks — such as this blog — that are a necessary part of our coverage.

The times of the skates rarely vary. The home team is on the ice at 10:30 a.m. and the visitors are on at 11:30. Both dressing rooms are opened to the media 10 minutes after the first player leaves the ice.

Hockey writers have long envied their baseball counterparts, who need only to show up for batting practice a couple of hours before the game to get all they need for their early stories. Then they can retire to the press box, write and file their stories, grab a bite to eat and work the game. It makes for a smoother work day than the split shift in hockey that adds up to about 12 hours.

There is a rule in hockey that players are to be available to the media about two hours before the game, but it usually means only one or two players are available. Plus, we are so used to the custom of the morning skate — no one is clear on when it came into being, the late 1960s being the most common guess, or why — that we file into the arenas in the morning.

Now that I have all of you in deep sympathy with me, it must be said that there are some good things about the skate. It is a chance to shoot the breeze with other hockey people, from scouts to other writers to coaches to broadcasters and get up to speed on the latest NHL gossip.

If there is little gossip that day, there is also the chance to be entertained by the various amateur comedians who populate the ranks of the hockey community. One of the best is Jim Ralph, the an analyst on the Leafs' radio broadcasts on 640 Toronto, although given Ralphie's lucrative sideline as an after-dinner jokester, he gave up his amateur status years ago.

Ralph was a goaltender who never cracked the NHL but cracked up his teammates on many junior and minor-league hockey teams. His career is the fodder for much of his humour, and Ralphie notes that few of his coaches found him funny.

His best talent is mimicry, as anyone who's heard his Don Cherry routine at a sports banquet can attest. Friday, as the Carolina Hurricanes and Leafs went through their skates, Ralphie entertained a few of us with just about every line Bill Murray uttered in Caddyshack, while the rest of us lamented the fact it is not considered a movie classic by the Hollywood cognoscenti.

Ralph's funniest line came during a Leaf broadcast a few years ago. The Leafs were in Montreal on the night the Canadiens paid tribute to Jean Beliveau's 50 years with the organization. Play-by-play man Joe Bowen was describing the pre-game ceremony and then noted that a second banner was being raised, one that marked his 50th wedding anniversary, which coincided with the hockey celebration.

Ralph did not miss a beat. "That's one banner they'll never raise for us, Joe," he said.

REASON No. 437 THAT CAROLINA IS NOT A HOCKEY MARKET: Not even the security guards who work at the Hurricanes' arena know anything about the team.

During the Hurricanes' morning skate on Friday, a security guard approached a man sitting in the stands. "Excuse me, sir," he said, "are you with the Leafs or Hurricanes or the media?"

"Well," the man said, "I'm with Bret Hedican."

"Who's he?" the guard said.

The guard obviously wasn't a figure-skating fan, either. The man was Jim Yamaguchi, father of Kristi, who is married to the Hurricanes defenceman.

Kristi Yamaguchi, by the way, gave birth to the couple's second child, another girl, on Nov. 17. Yamaguchi, who met Hedican at the 1992 Winter Olympics where she won a gold medal, retired from skating three years ago, not long before she gave birth to their first child.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Friday, November 25 at 4:14 p.m.

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Sometimes everything just clicks

When every part of a team's game is clicking, when the confidence of every player is high, there are moments when their game positively shines.

The Toronto Maple Leafs had one of those moments on Saturday night, one where you could see the play developing and just know by the way they were moving the puck around that it would end in a goal.

It was seven minutes into the first period of the game against the Atlanta Thrashers and the play started with defencemen Bryan McCabe and Tomas Kaberle bringing the puck up the ice. Then forwards Mats Sundin, Alexander Steen and Jeff O'Neill got involved as the puck got near centre ice.

Through the neutral zone the puck flashed back and forth between the forwards and defencemen as the Thrashers looked to be standing still. Then McCabe moved it to Sundin, who was at the Atlanta blueline and moving forward at the boards. Kaberle was in front of him and he stayed ahead of Sundin, circling around the net along the boards.

As Kaberle went by the Thrashers net, Sundin moved the puck ahead to him, and Kaberle looked up to see McCabe streaking into the slot. Kaberle laid the puck on his stick and McCabe ripped a shot behind goaltender Adam Berkhoel to give the Leafs a 2-0 lead and effectively finish the Thrashers for the evening.

It was a classic "tic-tac-toe" goal, as Howie Meeker used to say. It seemed as if every Leaf on the ice had touched the puck at one point.

"On that goal, we made about six passes," Leafs head coach Pat Quinn said. "It's the kind of [puck] support you need to be a good team."

For McCabe, the play summed up the kind of year he is having. By the end of the night, he had a healthy lead as the top-scoring defenceman in the National Hockey League.

The goal was McCabe's ninth of the season, his middle point of a three-point night that gave him 30 in 21 games.

"He is really getting to the right spots," Quinn said. "He really read that play well and got to the good spot so he could score."

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Saturday, November 19 at 11:41 p.m.

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The high-stakes game of autographs

You see them outside the door of the Leafs' practice rink, or near the driveway of the team hotel, standing there with binders of photos and player cards. They are a mixture of kids, adolescents and adults, all with a single purpose — to get as many Leafs as possible to sign their photos and/or cards.

Once that happens, not all of them still have the same purpose. For some of the kids, just securing the signature of one of their heroes is enough. But for most of them those signed photos and cards will soon make their way to dealers or to eBay, the giant on-line auction house.

Unfortunately, those collecting autographs for commerce are in the majority, which means the players can be reluctant to sign. Most of them have developed strategies to deal with the merchants, generally refusing to sign for anyone who is not a child. But even that is no sure bet the signature will not be sold.

"You know what they do now? They hire kids," said Eric Lindros. "That's the hard part. Generally, the security guys here know who's dealing and who's not.

"It's too bad, too, because there's always going to be one kid with a legitimate desire for an autograph who's going to be overlooked because of the seekers."

Since Lindros is in his first year as a Maple Leaf, he is not as familiar with the regulars as Tie Domi, who gives them a pass.

"I don't sign for the guys who sell them," Domi said. "You get familiar with their faces. You can tell."

Not that this will stop some from trying to sell Domi-autographed items anyway. Domi issued a warning to be careful to anyone who sees stuff on e-Bay that purportedly carries his signature.

"Take a look at e-Bay and see how many different autographs there are of mine," he said, implying not all of them are genuine.

This brings up another strategy players like to use to foil dealers. They will change their signatures once a year or so, which begs the question why does the autograph market continue to hold its value?

Players will also use one signature to sign autographs and another to sign the autographs that really matter, the ones on their personal cheques and other legal documents. Domi, in fact, says he uses three different signatures. So what's the third one for?

My kids' notes for school," he said with a laugh.

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Friday, November 11 at 7:11 p.m.

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Are the refs to blame?

To hear the Toronto Maple Leafs cry sometimes, you would think they are the most penalized team in the league. They were in full voice yesterday, which drove me to the NHL stats sheet.

And there the Leafs were, all down at No. 15, tied with the St. Louis Blues for number of times shorthanded. Both the Leafs and the Blues penalty killers had to face 95 power-play opportunities by the end of Sunday's games, well behind the Chicago Blackhawks, the league-leader at 123.

The Leaf penalty killers are also in the middle of the pack when it comes to their competence. They are ranked 16th overall, with an efficiency rating of 82.1 per cent, which goes a long way to explaining their 7-6-2 record.

But to anyone who asks if the Leaf players failed to get the memo on the new officiating standards this season and the new rules is told the referees have to share the blame. The Leafs may be inconsistent in their play this season, but so are the refs.

"The refs seem to be calling it a little bit different every night so we've got to adapt," defenceman Ken Klee said. "We've got to play by the way they're calling it."

While the Leafs have always been among the league leaders in whining, they do have a point. The officiating in their games of late has been inconsistent. Some nights, it is up to the new standard and on other nights, such as Oct. 31 when the Leafs beat the Florida Panthers 2-1 in an ugly game, it is like the campaign against obstruction never happened.

"They have different calls every night," centre Jason Allison said. "Last game [a 5-4 loss to Washington on Sunday], McCabe goes in a corner, guy steps on his stick and falls and there's a penalty. Two games ago, you could grab guys hook guys, do whatever you wanted."

Either way, if the penalty killers don't figure it out soon, the Leafs will be kissing even a .500 record goodbye.

Send your comments on this item to dshoalts@globeandmail.ca
Updated Monday, November 7 at 4:35 p.m.

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It's a hard knocks life in the NHL

First of all, this really is a Leafs blog and not a Kyle Wellwood blog. I had another item planned for today — Ken Klee thinks diving is getting to be a problem in the new NHL — but Wellwood's name came up in Pat Quinn's scrum today and the coach came up with such a good response I had to change plans.

Quinn was asked if there was any way his young centre could breathe easy about his job security now that Mats Sundin will rejoin the lineup Saturday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The coach responded with a snapshot of what life is like for Wellwood and many of his fellow NHLers, be they aspiring but skilled rookies like Wellwood or veterans who have to use every trick they've learned over the years to hang on to their fourth-line jobs.

"That's a hockey player's life," Quinn said. "When you're coming in the door, or trying to knock on the door or knock it down, to be at the NHL level, then you've got to be prepared for everything.

"Some guys go through their whole careers and have to make the team every day. That's the way it is with Kyle. We're 10, 11, 12 games into the season and he hasn't really blown us away in any sense. But he's been good.

"He has to keep coming here every day and thinking I've got to be better today. That's the challenge for every athlete. Every person has that challenge, to be better every day.

"There are guarantees in this thing, there never is."

There are half a dozen or so players on every professional hockey team in that situation. Coaches and general managers are constantly looking at how to improve their team and those last six guys on the roster are the ones who get dropped if someone they think is better comes along.

It may be a little more difficult to drop veterans than it used to drop rookies, but it still happens. As a rookie, Wellwood is more vulnerable because he can be sent to the minors without going on waivers.

Fans may look at NHL stars and envy their fame and money, but there are lots of players who have to deal with the reality that one little mistake could cost them one of the best jobs in the world.

The good news for Wellwood is that he is not going anywhere, even if Quinn seems to think he needs a verbal jab every now and again. His skills are perfectly suited for the NHL, and when the Leafs have to make a roster move to accommodate Sundin, veteran Nathan Perrott will probably be the odd man out.

That means Wellwood has cleared one hurdle in his career — made himself so valuable that the team will take the chance Perrott will be lost on waivers (highly unlikely, by the way, since fighters are a disappearing breed in the new NHL) in order to keep him.

And next time, I promise, nothing on Wellwood.

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Updated Friday, November 4 at 6:49 p.m.

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Timing is everything

Like most rookies, Kyle Wellwood has a little to learn about timing. As in he picked a bad time on two fronts to display a little sleight of hand that most players limit to practice.

Late in the Toronto Maple Leafs' game against the Florida Panthers last Monday, Wellwood found himself with the puck in front of goaltender Jamie McLennan. He had a little extra time to shoot, so he decided to show off and fired a shot from between his legs, something he admitted later he had been working on in practice.

McLennan, like just about any other National Hockey League goalie, was not fooled and easily stopped the trick shot. The score was 1-1 at the time, and even though the Leafs went on to win 2-1, head coach Pat Quinn was not impressed.

"He'll end up in the stands if he fools around like that," Quinn said. "There's a time and a place for tom-foolery.

"It was a 1-1 game and it was a chance for us. It might have been the only chance we were going to get. You have to approach it a little more seriously than that."

The second reason Wellwood's timing was bad is the imminent return of Mats Sundin from an eye injury. When Sundin is added to the lineup, probably for Saturday's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, somebody will have to go. Wellwood is one of the candidates since he was called up from the farm team when Sundin was injured.

As a rookie, Wellwood can be sent to the Leafs' farm team, the Toronto Marlies, without being placed on waivers. Ditto fellow rookies Andy Wozniewski and Staffan Kronvall.

Luckily for Wellwood, who ran up seven points in 11 games, Quinn was a little more mellow about him on Tuesday when the subject of who will get the axe was broached. It looks like either Wozniewski or Kronvall will get the demotion.

"Kyle's done very well," Quinn said. "He's much improved in his overall play. It's going to be a hard call."

As for the trick shot, you can be sure that Wellwood will limit it to practice from now on.

Anyone who watches NHL teams practice will see all sorts of tom-foolery, as Quinn calls it. Players love to amuse themselves with between-the-legs passes and shots, picking up the puck and carrying it aloft on the blade of their stick, or seeing how long they can bounce the puck off the blade of their stick.

Often, there is a wager of lunch on these little displays although, as Wellwood discovered, the stakes can be somewhat higher.

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Updated Wednesday, November 2 at 6:15 p.m.

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