Too Much Hockey?

At some point, even Canada gets saturated with hockey.

That may be particularly true when winter turns to spring, hockey tryouts are over and people start looking outside for activity, rather than indoors to arenas or their TV sets.

Right now, hockey fans in the GTA are getting lots of all kinds of hockey, and the response is interesting.

The AHL Marlies are into the third round of the post-season, having crawled out of a 3-1 hole to beat Syracuse in seven games. But the bodies aren't flowing to Ricoh Coliseum, with some crowds less than 3,000 and most less than those the team was able to attract during the regular season.

Then there's the world championships in Halifax and Quebec City. Maybe folks are just too smart to pay attention to this thing before it gets rolling, which is tomorrow with the quarterfinals. But, outside of the two host cities, you can't say there's lots of buzz in the air about this event, and afternoon game times are going to mean TV numbers won't be anywhere as significant as desired. The crowds have been solid, but not great or record-setting, as some had hoped.

In the U.S., meanwhile, this event isn't on the radar.

The AHL and the worlds are both operating, at least in Canada, under the shadow of the NHL playoffs. Interestingly, the most dominant team so far, the Detroit Red Wings, is drawing lots of attention for all the empty seats at its home games, quite probably the direct result of an economic downturn and loss of jobs in the Motor City.

A Detroit-Pittsburgh Stanley Cup final looks to be in the cards, and that could be an attractive matchup that should generate some attention. But it certainly also becomes a very regional matchup, and this has traditionally become the time when enthusiasm for the NHL product begins to fade, particularly as the days increase between games.

Starting next weekend, meanwhile, the Memorial Cup in Kitchener will start vying for attention, and at least the worlds will be over by Sunday, clearing the decks to some degree.

All of this hockey action takes place at a time when news organizations are watching their nickels and dimes more than ever, often withholding coverage of events that were once covered automatically because of costs.

Something's gotta give. Or, at least, something's not going to get the attention it deserves, or wants.

An Ounce of Prevention

Sure was nasty watching the fine young Philadelphia defenceman, Braydon Coburn, take a puck in the face Sunday night in Game 2 between the Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins.

He was cut badly near the eye, and may or may not be able to play in Game 3.

Surely, it could have been worse.

Yet wasn't it also preventable?

Given where the injury was, it would appear a half-shield would have blocked the puck from hitting Coburn in the face. But he doesn't wear one, and so he was lost for the game, and maybe more.

Given that the Flyers were already without Kimmo Timmonen, losing their second best puck mover on defence was a huge hindrance. The Philly power play struggled mightily, although it worked once, and by the third period it was painful to watch Derian Hatcher, Jason Smith, Randy Jones and Jaroslav Modry try mightily but unsuccessfully to move the puck up ice.

Coburn, clearly, would have made a difference. Who knows, maybe a winning difference in a game in which the Flyers clearly had a chance to win.

Now players get hurt, that we know. But if a simple piece of equipment like a visor would allow a team in the conference final to be more competitive, wouldn't it stand to reason that the team would require the athlete in question to wear the protective equipment?

People try to make visors a macho thing, something that tough guys don't wear, or a sign of a sport that doesn't have the same mutual respect between players it once did (which is utter baloney, by the way).

But a deflected puck is an accident. It's not about manhood or toughness. It only makes sense in an industry in which millions and millions of dollars are at stake to have top players protected against such accidents.

If Coburn can't play the rest of this series and the Flyers lose, will it have made any sense at all that a 23-year-old hockey player who would have worn facial protection from the first time he stepped on to an ice rink until 2005 was able to do the "manly" thing and not wear one in the NHL?

Looking Back, It All Seems So Rosy. . .

Call it rear-view mirror syndrome.

Despite 41 years of non-championship play - some call it endless losing - it is remarkable how some of those who were involved with the Maple Leafs as coaches and executives during those years are seen to have been enormous successes.

For reference, look how many people were happy to see Cliff Fletcher return in January, as though all the problems that existed back when he was fired as the team's GM in 1997 had just evaporated with time.

To these people, the return of Cliffy meant Dougie scoring on the wraparound on Cujo and all that was once good. That a '93 Leaf team couldn't win on home ice in Game 7 against a low-seeded L.A. team is simply forgotten.

Lots of people, it seems, would be more than happy if Fletcher stayed on as the permanent Leaf GM, or at least for another year.

Now, with the coaching job open, a Star poll tells us the top choice for Leaf head coach is. . .ta da!. . . Pat Burns, with 29 per cent of respondents saying Burns is the man for the job.

No. 3 on the list? Pat Quinn, with 14 per cent.

Failure, it's fair to say, never taints anyone with the Leafs. It seems to make them more attractive over time.

It's not just Star readers. Bob McCown of the Fan 590, a former colleague and a pal, went public this week with his choice for Leaf coach, and it was also Burns.

Now I like Bob. Smart guy. Understands the city and knows the teams. Wrote a book on hockey and everything.

But another person who thinks turning back the page to an era when winning didn't happen is going to make it happen now.

The rear-view mirror syndrome, usually accompanied by new reasons why the person in question didn't succeed last time, why it was somebody else's fault, and this time it'll work for sure. Just a special part of being a Torontonian, I suppose.

Thursday Mail Bag

No surprise today. Tons of email, tons of unrest in the Leaf Nation and beyond.

The MLSE suits, all too clever by half, seem to have stirred up a hornets nest with the firing of Paul Maurice, when the intent was clearly to offer up a smokescreen to quiet the nagging masses.

In other words, people are not impressed. Nobody’s impressed with Cliff Fletcher as the temporary front man of this sham, and it’s pretty clear the Leafs aren’t going to be able to land the “Bryan Colangelo of hockey” as promised. They’ve had a lot more “not interested” responses so far than they would like.

These guys always make things so difficult. There are quality hockey people out there, and they are available. Hire one. Give him the necessary power. Then get out of the way.

What’s the big challenge here?

Now, on to this week’s mail bag:

Q: Hi Damien,

I completely agree with your column today; MLSE suits are obviously still calling the shots, what with the firing of Maurice coming immediately after a "regularly scheduled board meeting" - OH PLEASE. Therefore, in your opinion, why would a well respected and well connected hockey man like Fletch get involved with MLSE for a second go round? I'm sure he'd heard the rumours of these jackasses being more meddlesome then ever before, so why bother? Did Peddie hypnotize him?

Marc Losier, Toronto

A: Well, I imagine he did it for 19 months worth of salary. Pretty simple, and good for him. The only sad part is that he’s obviously being used, and he’s a nice man with a great history in the game who doesn’t deserve to be jerked around for the second time in a decade.

More Draft Intrigue

The more the Maple Leafs dawdle over the selection of a new hockey boss, the more it seems likely the next piece of encouraging news for the Leaf Nation will come through the June 20 entry draft in Ottawa.

And what a draft is appears this will be.

For the Leafs, picking No. 7, there are any number of possibilities in a draft filled with wild cards, from 6-foot-7 defenceman Tyler Myers to Russian forward Nikita Filitov to hardnosed Everett Silvertips winger Kyle Beach.

Well, here's another name to keep in mind.

Joe Colborne, a 6-foot-4 centre who plays for the Camrose Kodiaks of the Alberta Junior Hockey League, is a Tier Two forward committed to Denver University next season who appears to be moving up the rankings, possibly into the top 10.

Colborne, who is playing in the RBC Cup in Cornwall this week with the Camrose club, was ranked 28th among North American skaters in the final NHL Central Scouting ratings. Since he doesn't play major junior, he's a little tougher to gauge for NHL bird dogs, who will be out in large numbers this week to see him.

Last year, Burnaby forward Kyle Turris broke the major junior monopoly by going third in the draft to Phoenix, and ended up leaving the University of Wisconsin to sign with the Coyotes before the end of the regular season and getting into three games.

Now Colborne, it seems possible, could follow the same path. You can bet he's a player the Leafs are looking at very carefully in a draft that's looking more difficult to predict after Steve Stamkos goes to Tampa Bay with the first overall pick.

A Happy NHL

Those of us north of the U.S.-Canada border may lament the exodus of each and every Canadian-based squad from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

We may lament the fact its going to be at least 16 years between Canadian Cup winners.

We may be thinking already about turning the dial over to the world championships in Halifax and Quebec City.

But in Gary Bettman's NHL headquarters, there has to be a celebratory atmosphere in the air.

After three consecutive Stanley Cup finals featuring either small Canadian markets or U.S. markets in which hockey barely registers - Tampa Bay-Calgary, Edmonton-Carolina, Anaheim-Ottawa - the NHL has a chance for the first time in the post-lockout era to hit a home run this spring in the conference finals and Cup final.

The teams remaining are all among the top U.S. television markets, and they are all pretty strong cities for hockey as well, or at least cities with long traditions in the game.

Philadelphia represents the fourth largest TV viewing area in the U.S., followed by Dallas (No. 5), Detroit (No. 11) and Pittsburgh (No. 22).

Of those four, obviously the Penguins would be the ideal finalist, for that team features the league's No. 1 individual marketing tool in Sidney Crosby. The league's determination to keep that franchise in Pittsburgh, with a new arena coming on stream, has certainly paid off.

A Penguin-Red Wings final would be glamourous, a chance for a boffo conclusion to the season. The least glamorous matchup would be Dallas-Philly, but even that would deliver two major TV markets for the NHL.

For Canadians, the choice will be whether the worlds and a Canadian team stacked with quality players offers more appeal.

The NHL hopes not. But you have to believe it's more interested in the opportunity at hand to generate major interest in the U.S. for the first time in a long time.

The Costs of Taking Your Sweet Time

The Maple Leafs would have you believe there's no rush at all to name a new president and GM.

Everything's working like clockwork with interim boss Cliff Fletcher, and Richard Peddie has assured one and all they'll have a new boss in place by September.

Seriously. The man said by September.

Part of their rationale is that they contend there aren't any critical decisions facing the team at the moment, and so a slow, deliberate search isn't costly in any way.

Well, yes it is. And we may find out as soon as next week.

The Leafs, you see, are like about two dozen other NHL clubs. They covet 23-year-old Fabian Brunnstrom, a free agent out of Sweden who may be the next Johan Franzen or the next Miroslav Ihnacak.

MLSE likes to believe they are the world's greatest franchise, and that every player out there is dying to play for them. Ideally, for less.

So if you're Brunnstrom, you might want to know who will be running the team if he agrees to join the Leafs.

Don't know, would have to be the Leafs' response.

Well, he might want to know who the coach will be.

Don't know, the Leafs would respond.

Okay, but will the team's best player, captain Mats Sundin, be back?

Don't know.

Will fellow Swedes like Alex Steen and Anton Stralman be on next season's roster?

Don't know.

Well, what about veterans like Darcy Tucker, Pavel Kubina, Tomas Kaberle and Bryan McCabe.

Don't know.

Now, sure, an ambitious young man might look at those responses and the current situation and see only glorious possibilities. He might simply have personal preferences, as was the case in 2004 when R.J. Umberger chose Philly over Toronto when it came to his free agent destination.

Or, like Brunnstrom, you might instead decide to look for top-flight organizations with strong management teams in place, like Montreal, Dallas and Detroit.

So if the Leafs get Brunnstrom, then maybe they're right. Maybe there is no haste to get a new hockey czar in place.

But if they don't, you'll sure have cause to wonder if having the entire organization on indefinite pause isn't already proving to be costly.

Thursday Mail Bag

Okay, now we have a fun new parlour game for Maple Leaf fans.

What will happen first?

Mats Sundin’s marriage? Or the hiring of a new president/GM?

My money’s on reluctant No. 13.

Now on to this week’s mail bag:

Q: We hear a lot of criticism of a lack of current Leaf prospects but one name that is rarely mentioned is their second round pick in 2006: Nikolai Kulemin. With little coverage locally one has to troll the web looking for information on him. He seems to be well-received as a prospect on the Internet.

I guess I have two questions about him. Does the hockey world share in the positive sentiments about him and, is there any chance he will be in a Leaf jersey any time soon?

Carl Hill, Toronto

A: Well, Kulemin's an interesting story. He was with the Russian national team at the world championships in Quebec City until he was cut Tuesday morning. The Russians were bringing in Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin and Sergei Fedorov, but there are suspicions this is a way to try and influence Kulemin not to leave Magnitigorsk next season to come to the NHL. Go to North America, the threat would go, and you can forget about playing on the national team in the future. That's the conspiratorial viewpoint. It might also be he's just not good enough, or at least he's not as good as the Leafs are hoping he's going to be. Either way, nobody will really know until he gets over to Canada and starts playing. The Leafs believe he's a power forward-type who will be able to score in the NHL. We'll see. First of all, we'll see if he gets here.

Is It Okay to Question Now?

Funny how some sports execs in this city are given a long rope, others not so much.

J.P. Ricciardi, for example, was the boy genius when he arrived in 2001, and only now, with so much mediocrity behind him, is he being seriously questioned as the proper man to lead the Blue Jays.

John Ferguson Jr., on the other hand, was widely branded a dope from Day One of his brief tenure.

Which brings us once more to the sainted Bryan Colangelo, a sports suit so accomplished that MLSE simply believes it has to locate a "Colangelo of hockey" to turn around the tarnished Maple Leafs and all will be well.

Well, you sure about that?

Colangelo comes from a famous sports family, yes, and he is a stylish, athletic young man who speaks well.

Last season, his Raptors came up with 47 wins, followed by a mildly disappointing first round loss to the New Jersey Nets. Every move he made seemed to pay off.

Last night, the Raps bowed out meekly to Orlando in five games, ending a season that mirrored, in some ways, the season of the Ottawa Senators; strong start, lousy second half, early exit. This year, every move Colangelo made seemed to fizzle.

When I questioned Colangelo's supposed infallibility in mid-March - never suggested he should be fired, mind you, just wondered what the fuss was all about - the comments from readers poured in, many wondering how I had the nerve to even wonder aloud about the great man.

Well, is it okay to question now?

There are a variety of problems with the Raptors, of course. Some say its all Sam Mitchell's fault, others lament the decline of Andrea Bargnani and the disintegration of the point guard tag team, all about T.J. Ford's apparent determination to be designation the starter surely had something to do with it.

Last night's loss was like a replay of so many in the second half, with the Magic making the shots down the stretch and the Raptors not only missing theirs, but either making bad decisions or having players on the floor unwilling to take charge. When you look at how Atlanta is competing against mightly Boston, with that series tied 2-2, the lack of true competitiveness on the part of the Raps in the mediocre Eastern Conference really is brought into vivid relief.

So surely, even to his greatest supporters, the bloom is off the rose now for Colangelo. What matters now is how he fixes this team, how he makes it better.

He's never won an NBA championship or managed this Raptor team into the second round, yet MLSE has tried to dress him up as the genius of basketball and the model for a modern executive in any sport.

Maybe he is. Now would be a good time to show it.

A Tradition of, Um, Something

The Maple Leafs are gone. Long gone. The Rock is now out, and we all say farewell to Jim Veltman. The Battalion and Majors were long ago eliminated in the OHL playdowns.

Tonight, the Raptors face elimination from the first round of the NBA playoffs for the second year in a row. The Marlies, meanwhile, have followed up a first place regular season finish with troubles in the first round of the AHL playoffs, with Game 7 against the San Antonio Rampage at Ricoh Coliseum tonight.

By tomorrow, then, the Raptors and Marlies could both be gone from post-season play. Ah yes, just another week in the City of Champions.

Geez, with the Blue Jays struggling, all we have to look towards for a message of success would be Toronto FC, and isn't that a change of pace?

With the Raptors — this is a team that has clearly gone backwards, or at best sideways — the fallout from this season will be intriguing to watch. If MLSE applies the same approach to the basketball team as it does to hockey, the most unaggressive path will be taken, particularly with Raptors fans having responded very favourably at the gate this season.

If tickets are being bought, you know the MLSE suits won't feel any compunction to chase a championship.

The Marlies, meanwhile, are an unusual story in that they are supposed to be the feeder team to the Leafs, but their strong regular season tells a deceiving story about the talent on that club. Strangely, one of the few bona fide prospects they do have, goalie Justin Pogge, has been shut down in the playoffs, with Scott Clemmensen getting all the starts.

So let's get this straight. They're playing a San Antonio team that they finished 15 points ahead of during the regular season, but are now life-and-death to beat after losing on home ice Sunday.

They've given up 18 goals in six games — not good, not terrible. Head coach Greg Gilbert says he doesn't believe Pogge is "ready" for playoff action, but it seems this would have been the perfect time to see what the kid can do given that the Marlies, as a team and with Clemmensen in net, are struggling just to get out of the first round anyways.

Oh, what's that? Right. This is another MLSE enterprise. It's not supposed to make sense.

Just another week in the City of Champions ...