The move they always wanted to make

The morning links, in like a Lion (More Detroit than Nittany):

Bryan Colangelo introduces himself to Toronto and for now, everyone's job is safe.

NATHAN DENETTE/CANADIAN PRESS

For their next move (hopefully), Peddie fades out of the picture.

(Down in Arizona, the question now is when the elder Colangelo departs the Suns, an unthinkable notion up until recently).
Two things about this: Colangelo over and over referred to the Raptors as a well-respected franchise, a model -- that was your finely-honed message track yesterday, and given the barracking the Raps have received over the past couple years and the decline in the ACC house, hardly surprising. He was rock steady throughout and quite successful, and the media response was in step, amounting to a virtual standing O.
As to the puzzling timing of the firing of Boy GM in January, yesterday provided the answer: the ensuing "search" Richard Peddie talked about then had only one focus. As Colangelo said himself yesterday, looking around and saying "I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here", Colangelo was contacted 19 months ago during the run-up to Babcock's hiring. Colangelo was the Raptors' guy all along, and given his deteriorating relationship with the Suns' new majority owner, they pounced, tossing Boy GM over the side after he kept the seat warm for 19 months. Over at Raptorblog, Scott Carefoot takes a closer look at this angle.
The sole fly in the optics yesterday was Richard Peddie sitting next to Colangelo. Peddie has sounded contrite of late. Now he has to step back -- way back -- and let the new guy do his job.

We now return to our regularly scheduled linkage: Leafs lose to the Capitals, and in a classless finish, Jason Allison runs Alex Ovechkin into the boards from behind.

LotN, NHL: Joe Thornton's goal and three assists as the Sharks beat Detroit.

LotN, NBA: Kirk Hinrich's 30-13-9  (and no turnovers) as the Bulls beat Minny.

I should have updated this yesterday but didn't get the chance: Michael Ballack has, er, Ballacked reports he will sign with the most hated club in the world.

Comments

[DB]

Regarding the classless act by Jason Allison taking out Ovechkin at the end of the game. Let's put that into some context. Here were the Caps up 5-3 with less than a minute to play and a two man advantage. And not once, but twice Ovechkin winds up and blasts his hardest possible slapshots at the net and Belfour. Clearly Ovechkin was looking to pad his stats at the end of a game that was won and well in hand. He could have seriously injured Eddie.

I applaud Allison for sending his message to Ovechkin. Allison was showing some grit (finally) and standing up for his teammate. It was Ovechkin who was selfish and classless on this day.

[marcus reid]

Lets wait and see what this guy brings to the table in the Raptor Organization. Please bear that some NBA players are not too comfortable coming to Toronto. I hope that Colangelo and his people will be able to calm the fears of players that might see Toronto as a lame duck organization.
I think that an established GM/president coming to Toronto, shows that the Organization is thinking Championship, and not just existing.

[Illan Kramer]

DB, did you just seriously argue that Belfour could have gotten hurt by pucks being shot at him? Isn't that his job? He's a highly paid professional whose only role in life is to somehow get in the path of pucks flying at a high velocity. And clearly, he's pretty good at it considering he's been doing it for his whole life.

I agree that Ovechkin didn't need to try to pad his stats at the end of the game, but that's more for sportsmanship reasons than for legitimate injury concerns about the goalie.