With every year a postseason drought may end while another will start. Some teams continue to excel while others keep drowning in their sorrows. A team may gain another ring while another team goes ring-less. With the season half way over and Olympic hockey going full speed, teams will be looking to keep their Lord Stanley dreams alive. Therefore, a drought is inevitable for every team this year... 

I’ve been trying to think of a good time to write about this topic, but it had occurred to me that there never will be a good time when discussing a tragedy like the one that befell Brian Burke and his family last week. Brian’s son Brendan, aged 21, lost control of his vehicle in a snowstorm and collided with another vehicle. Brendan was taken to hospital where he later died from his injuries. Brendan... 

After a long, long stretch of winless games, 10 to be exact – it appeared that the Bruins bandwagon was on the fast track to the bottom of the Eastern Conference. After dismal losses to some of the best teams in the league – Chicago and Ottawa as well as to some of the worst teams – the ‘Canes and Blue Jackets – both the Bruins and their fans were wondering what the heck had happened... 

Say what you will about Brian Burke, but no one should ever question his showmanship. On Sunday Burke rocked Leaf Nation, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the NHL, when he announced that he had acquired Dion Phaneuf from the Calgary Flames in a blockbuster 7 player deal that, to the relief of Leafs fans everywhere, made no mention of a “first round draft choice”. Later that same day,... 

The last week or so has been particularly cold in Massachusetts, with snow, extreme winds and sharp dips of the thermometer. But no one it seems is colder now than that professional hockey team that plays over on Boston’s Causeway Street. This time last year the Boston Bruins were playing great, so well in fact that they were happily ensconced on top of the Eastern Conference, a comfortable perch... 

A rare occurrence happened last weekend, as the Toronto Maple Leafs did not play a game on Saturday, January 16th. I say this is a rare occurrence because in recent seasons it has pretty much been a given that the Maple Leafs would be playing in the prime-time slot on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada. With the Leafs mired in a 5th losing season since the lockout that should see them miss the playoffs... 

As of this writing, the Maple Leafs have lost their 3rd game in a row, have slipped to 9 points out of a playoff spot, and are having trouble finding the net, scoring just 10 goals in their last 6 games. Their penalty killing seems destined to set a new NHL record for futility, they have lost many players to injury, and nothing seems to be going right in Leaf Nation. Fans are calling for Wilson’s... 

They may seem like buzzwords thrown around in the media to describe Brian Burke’s new look Leafs, but when you get right down to it, these words aptly describe what this Leafs team needs to do to be successful. Truculence My good friends over at dictionary.com describe truculence as being aggressive, brutally harsh and fierce. When the Leafs are on their game, this trait comes out in their forechecking,...