There is no nice way to put it. The National Hockey League is sharing a room with an elephant the size of Gibraltar and even if there were clear solutions neither the owners nor the PA have anyone in the driver’s seat with the fortitude to make tough decisions. It’s a case of a thousand cuts and if it doesn’t mean death it means a right proper castration at the alter of player safety. Over... 

There area still stalwarts out there who insist Gary Bettman is a veritable genius; a true lover of the game who has had to make hard decisions and has always had the best interest of hockey fans at heart. If you happen upon such a person, you should probably grab them by the shoulders and see if you can shake the stupid out of them. Anybody who insists Bettman was anything but an NBA Black ops... 

Big Poppa Burke did a little public musing about his troops prior to Thursday’s clash with the Hurricanes, their fellow bottom dwellers in the East. He let it be known the current slide was not copasetic with his plans for the franchise and that if he didn’t see a turnaround heads would most certainly roll. Anybody who stopped watching after the first period would have figured the peptalk dressed... 

My stolen Toronto Star had some bleak news this morning concerning the Maple Leafs. Dave Feschuck, in a bid to keep his book about the Leaf’s sucking out of the discount bin for another twenty minutes, penned an entire article about a stat he googled the night before. Some computer dude in the U.S. freelances in sports clairvoyance threw some numbers into the machine and came up with a %1.7 chance... 

The Hockey Hall of Fame swelled both in membership and prestige this week with some of the more worthier inductees to have ever laced up skates, that is, Steve Yzerman and some other dudes. Judging from the coverage and the noticeably amped up production value, the shrine on Front Street and the ceremony surrounding it’s big night has upped it’s game to the credit of the game and everybody in... 

The Maple Leafs were on a seven-game tear until the second period of what turned into a trouncing at the hands of the West conference’s answer to the Maple Leafs. Three unanswered goals meant back to the drawing board for Toronto with the sincerest hopes that Johnny Bower and the rest of the war veterans on hand didn’t take the confused effort personally. Losses to crumby teams happen to the... 

My neighbor has a poster of the great Patrick Roy’s infamous Canadiens helmet in his garage. It’s in the place of honour and when his garage is open it’s the first thing you see. His garage is open all the time. I live West of Toronto and there are enough Habs fans in my neighborhood and in my circle of acquaintances to fill the Bell Center, thousands of little red satellites in a deep blue... 

With the Tuesday’s overtime loss against the Lightning, the Leafs have declared their residence in an upper level of purgatory, where four consecutive overtime losses represent the slow climb from running joke to bona fide hockey club. As bizarre a trend as it is, it does mean Toronto has been an over five hundred team in the last five games, and while that’s not quite worthy of a round of high...