The Future, Always a Slippery Notion

Star Photo

Luke Schenn impresses as a rookie.

Ah, it's always fascinating to watch the Maple Leafs "build."

We're into, what, the sixth or seventh rebuilding phase since the '67 Cup triumph, and sometimes there's been the patience to at least try and do it right, and sometimes not.

Jim Gregory tried to do it right in 1970s until Punch Imlach tore it all down again.

In the 1980s, there was an attempt to draft high, keep the
kids and let them develop, but the organization and owner Harold Ballard were too unstable and it didn't work.

Now they say they're doing it again. But how much patience is there to do it right?

Clearly, Luke Schenn is a young blueline gem, perhaps the most impressive Leaf top draft pick to come along and show this well in his first Leaf camp since Wendel Clark in '85.

And he should still go back to junior if the Leafs want to do this right. But you can sense a little wavering on the part of the Leafs, a little wondering about, well, what if we keep the kid for just a while? You know, five or six games? What's the potential damage from that?

Anybody who believes that should go back and review the Luke Richardson saga. Similar stories, not the outcome the Leafs wanted.

Then comes a published report this morning that suggests the Leafs were willing to trade their 2009 first rounder on a conditional basis and a couple of prospects to Anaheim for Mathieu Schneider and youngster Bobby Ryan.

It's an interesting tidbit since Anaheim GM Brian Burke did say last week that he had such an offer, but didn't identify the team. He also acknowledged, however, that because of all the rumours swirling about his possible future in Toronto, the Leafs were a team with which he likely would not deal this season.

Given the nature of the deal, a salary cap swap involving huge futures, it would have been complicated and controversial if such a transaction had gone down between the Leafs and Ducks.

Gary Bettman would not be pleased.

But if the deal was out there, what does that say about Cliff Fletcher and his group? That they can't sit back and let the draft-and-develop process move along, but are already trying to accelerate it by moving first-round picks for players, although the '09 first rounder would certainly have been protected if it turned out to be a top five pick.

I've often suggested the Leafs need to declare a five-year moratorium on trading first-round picks just to let the situation stabilize. But they traded away their '07 pick, and this story suggests they're already looking to move the '09 pick.

It fits with the public pronouncements of chairman Larry Tanenbaum that being competitive every year, not just winning a Stanley Cup, is the goal.

Yes, it's always fascinating to watch the Leafs build.

(Ed. Note: Perhaps I didn't explain myself well enough, although by the comments today, its worth saying it is always amazing to see how willing many Leaf fans are to drink the koolaid and believe that this time the Leafs will build properly, even when its the same people who screwed it up before. To clarify, I have no problem with Bobby Ryan as a solid young prospect. Indeed, in this blog, you'll see above no criticism of Ryan whatsoever. But people will twist things how they want. When I questioned the wisdom of trading draft picks to move up and take Luke Schenn in June, some took that to mean I was ripping Schenn. People will take things the way they want to take things, and I accept. When it comes to this rumoured trade, here's the point, and why, if the Leafs were to try and make this kind of transaction, it amounts to trying to aggressively accelerate the rebuilding process rather than let the process proceed more gradually over time. Ryan, according to the current CBA, will now be a restricted free agent in 2010 - and possibly set for a significant salary hike - and an unrestricted free agent in 2014, just six years from now. Drafting high next June, meanwhile, means that the player the Leafs get wouldn't be restricted until 2012 at the earliest, and if the CBA remains unchanged, wouldn't be unrestricted until 2018, a full decade from now. If you make that move, you're trying to get better faster and get back to the playoffs faster. Waiting to draft next year, and the year after that, without trading them away in other deals, requires the kind of patience the Leafs seem never to have. That's the point. Hope you got it this time.)

Paying to Watch

For years, I could watch the GTHL and all the controversial stories that emanated from the world's largest hockey organization from a bemused distance.

My two daughters played rep hockey, but not in the GTA. So the issues that seemed so rife in the GTHL never seemed to touch our family. Letters and emails would pour in with parents complaining about this or that, about how their kid was getting screwed, and it all seemed to be happening a million miles away.

Well, that bemused distance is no more. I now have a son playing in the GTHL, which means I'm in it up to my hips.

I was fearful going in, but so far the experience has been outstanding. Great coaches, nice parents, good kids mostly from local neighborhoods, reasonable practice times and generally a good environment for my boy.

Hopefully, it will all last.

But as a GTHL newbie, there's one thing that has taken me aback even though I knew it existed, a reality of life for many GTA hockey parents that so far feels uncomfortable and odd to a rookie.

The price of admission.

Paying $5 a pop to watch your child play hockey, and $5 for the child as well, is something that's going to get some getting used to.

I don't know where the money goes, although I do know the costs of minor hockey continue to skyrocket, and the pressures on ice time have never been greater.

It just seems an awkward way to run things. If I invite my parents to come and see their grandson play, I've gotta tell them to make sure they don't come with empty pockets.

If I bring my oldest daughter and my wife, there's $20 right there.

This, as mentioned, is old news to those who have been around this league for years, and I'm certainly not accusing anyone of doing anything wrong, although nobody seems to be able to tell you exactly where the money from admission goes.

It's fundraising, I suppose, and every organization has to do it in some way or another.

Quite frankly, if the need is there, I'd rather pay more in up-front fees. Digging into my pocket just to watch the boy play, and asking others to do the same, just doesn't sit right.

It's how the GTHL works, I guess. Gonna have to get used to a few things.

The best and the, uh, not so best

It's the great contrast in Toronto, a comparison between substance and style.

On one side, Roy Halladay.

On the other side, Larry Tanenbaum.

Care to guess which one's substance and which one's style?

Halladay, for going on a decade now, has been the city's Quiet Superstar, a title he reinforced again Thursday night with his second 20-win season, another year in which he has been non-complaining and largely brilliant, and the team has been mediocre.

He has been the best player on any team - baseball, hockey, football, basketball - in this city for a long, long time, and probably should have a greater profile than he does based on his accomplishments, demeanor and contributions to the Blue Jays.

Others have been major stars - Chris Bosh and Mats Sundin come to mind - but Halladay has been better than any of 'em, arguably the best pitcher in baseball for three or four seasons, with one Cy Young Award on his resume so far.

That's substance.

Then there's Tanenbaum, a wealthy developer and, it should be noted, a philanthropist.

But when it comes to sports, it's been all style, all talk, no substance.

Hearing Tanenbaum's comments on Thursday that he and MLSE aren't interested in just winning one Stanley Cup, but want years of "competitive" teams based on slow, intelligent and steady growth was just too funny.

Being stuck with a very weak-looking roster, it would appear, has the Leaf chairman in search of a new public pose, and a cynic would not think that by publicly admitting that a lousy season lies ahead, and maybe more than one, the Leafs have just bought themselves another three years - five? - before anyone can demand the appearance of a quality team.

He can't tell you who the GM of this team will be in June. But trust him, MLSE has a plan in place. A new plan.

With Tanenbaum as chairman, the Leafs have, as has been the case for much of their history, squandered first-round draft picks and prospects in search of the quick fix.

Now, suddenly, it's time to build slowly, carefully?

The man's found his new hockey religion?

Then, to suggest Detroit executive Steve Yzerman couldn't possibly fit the bill for a new GM because he would be a "rookie" was not only insulting to Yzerman, but given that the Leaf organization sought to hire a new GM in the spring and couldn't find a single, qualified and acceptable candidate, nearly laughable.

Tanenbaum, as a sports executive in this town, has never accomplished a damn thing.

But he can dismiss Yzerman with a wave of his imperial hand?

It's all MLSE blather, all talk to continually try to placate the customer while urging him or her to keep paying while always promising good times are just around the corner. We've got it all figured out this time, the company line goes. The Leafs, with Tanenbaum as the corporate face of the franchise, have made a big deal about buying out expensive veterans in recent months, suggesting it's a large sacrifice but one that must be made, while at the same time making sure it's all paid for by icing a team that will spend roughly $10 million less on the maximum allowed on player payrolls this season.

All baloney in a $2,000 suit. All sizzle and slick rhetoric. Sadly, some fools find this chatter reassuring, as though their hockey team is finally on the right track with the right people steering the ship even though it's the same people at the top who have been full of it time and time again.

Halladay, by contrast, is a true sportsman of substance, the Quiet Superstar for a city where winning rarely happens anymore, where the best idea anyone has is to try to steal another city's NFL team.

Oh yeah, Tanenbaum's in on that one, too.

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THE MAIL BAG RETURNS!

Damien Cox is back with his weekly Maple Leafs mail bag. He'll answer your questions in his blog every Thursday starting next week. Click here to submit a question.

These Boys Will Need Help

So Mats Sundin thinks the Maple Leafs will be "exciting" this season.

So exciting he'd rather watch from Sweden. I know, I know, what else is the guy gonna say?

The Leafs, of course, can't even dare to try to be exciting. They don't have much horsepower at all up front, so the notion of playing free-flowing or wide-open hockey can't even enter their collective imagination for a nano-second. It's going to have to be check and check some more, flip it out and off the glass, relieve the pressure and get a change.

Strangely, some have argued that since the Leafs have depth and experience on defence, they may be well-suited to play this type of game.

Depth and experience? Really?

This is the same chatter we heard last fall when some suggested the Leafs had such depth on defence that they should trade some of it away to help in other areas.

Now we're hearing it again. Folks, it's about more than just having lots of names.

What I see is a defence with two proven blueliners - Tomas Kaberle and Pavel Kubina - and a pile of question marks.

It might be the weakest defence corps in the entire league. Certainly one of the weakest five. To use Ron Wilson's methodology, figure out how many of Toronto's defencemen could crack the lineup of the elite teams in the league, and you have a measure of how strong the Leafs really are at that position.

Only Kaberle and Kubina would have a shot. Of the rest Carlo Colaiacovo is wonderfully talented, but it's gone beyond wondering if he can ever stay healthy enough to play for a long stretch. You still don't know what you're going to get.

Ian White is still learning, still an uncertain commodity. The Leafs brass thinks Jeff Finger is great, but he's had one full year in the NHL and was only qualified to play half of Colorado's playoff games last spring.

Mike Van Ryn was a player Florida was desperate to dump coming off a serious wrist injury. Anton Stralman is flashy but full of holes defensively. The Leafs have wanted Staffan Kronwall to make the team for two years and he hasn't been able to cut it or stay healthy. Jonas Frogren is a complete unknown, and Luke Schenn is going back to junior.

Maybe some of these fellows will jump up and surprise. But even if two or three do, or even if Colaiacovo plays 82 games, that doesn't not make this a deep defence corps.

Sundin may think the Leafs will be exciting, but they can't be, as much to protect their vulnerable group of blueliners as goalie Vesa Toskala.

Three Questions

Multiple matters in the world of sports confuse and surprise yours truly every day, opening up a variety of questions that only occasionally are resolved. Today would be no exception, and here are three queries begging for answers. Feel free to help.

1. Are the Tiger-Cats preparing to trade Jesse Lumsden?
A year ago, two months ago, this would have been unthinkable, as the young Canadian back was at the centre of everything the rebuilding Tabbies were trying to do. Sadly, he just can't stay healthy, and for a team in desperate need of reliable assets, that's a tough thing to carry on the roster.
Signing Kenton Keith doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a team that was already leading the CFL in rushing unless there's another shoe to drop. This is a team that didn't need another running back. It needed offensive line help, and assistance at every position on defence, particulary experienced assistance.
After missing completely on Jason Maas and being frustrated with the play of Casey Printers, the Cats don't exactly have a great record at bringing in high-priced talent, and one does wonder where the CFL's salary cap goes at times like this.
But after trading star linebacker Zeke Moreno to Winnipeg last week for a first round pick in next year's Canadian college draft and the rights to non-import defensive lineman Corey Mace, currently on Buffalo's practice roster, it's clear Hamilton GM Bob O'Billovich views no Ticat as untouchable and wants to add depth to his roster.
Lumsden, as a Canadian back, could bring a solid price in return, particularly from a team who sees opportunity in being able to tweak its lineup by using a homebrew in the backfield.
When this kid plays, he's terrific. Sadly, he just hasn't been able to play enough to help the sad-sack operation in Steeltown.

2. Will the Argos turn back to Kerry Joseph against Calgary this weekend?
After being pummelled for a third consecutive week, the Argos took the day off yesterday. Today around noon, head coach Don Matthews will deliver his latest thoughts, including whether Joseph, the reigning league MVP, will sit again this week in favour of backup Cody Pickett. Pickett was ineffective in the one-sided loss to the Stampeders last weekend, and Matthews painted him as the "victim" of teammates errors in the same way he said Joseph was victimized by teammates' mistakes when he sent him to the bench.
The guess here? The Argos know they'll have to turn back to Joseph soon, but Matthews might start Pickett again this week in case there's any lingering doubt as to who is in charge of this football team now. Either way, Matthews will soon have little choice to start examining the work of his good pal, offensive co-ordinator Steve Burrato, if the Argo offence continues to go nowhere.

3. Would the Leafs ever seriously consider keeping Luke Schenn in the NHL this fall?
The answer should be no, a thousand times no, and certainly both GM Cliff Fletcher and coach Ron Wilson have been upfront with their sentiments that Schenn would have to play out of his mind to stick with the big club this season.
But then, we've heard that before. The Leafs, historically, have not been very good at either identifying young defencemen through the draft or carefully sculpting those that they do take into quality NHL players. The best two defence draftees in Leaf history were probably Ian Turnbull and Tomas Kaberle (Borje Salming was never drafted). Turnbull came to the NHL after four full seasons in junior hockey, while Kaberle arrived at the age of 20 after playing two full seasons with Kladno in the Czech elite league.
To maximize Schenn's chances of being full value for being drafted fifth overall, he needs to go back to junior for a fourth and final year and play on the national junior team, then needs two full seasons in the AHL. That would have him ready for full-time NHL work for the 2011-12 season. He would still only be 21.
If he dazzles before then, you could get him to the NHL for the 2010-11 season. But no matter how good he looks this fall or next fall, putting him in the NHL before 2010 at the earliest will be rushing him. It's been proven time and time again.
The biggest challenge for Leaf management is to set a course and stick with it, and ignore the inevitable suggestions that if Schenn isn't in the NHL soon, he's a bust. They're already saying that about 22-year-old Justin Pogge, who still has a chance but needs more grooming and more patience.
So the answer is no, there's no chance the Leafs will keep Schenn this fall. But the pressure on this franchise to prove it has a future by getting kids to the bigs fast is unrelenting, and has only rarely been resisted for very long.

Time for Change

This is one observer who keenly waits for baseball's second season, the excitement that will begin shortly in eight cities and produce extraordinary tension and drama. TV - particularly high-def TV - highlights baseball like few other sports, focusing in on the raw nerves of players and coaches in the late innings of a tight ball game, without helmets or masks to cover the human condition on display. The wild card has only added to this, producing more baseball that matters.

Once again, however, we won't be seeing any of that live here in Toronto. In fact, HD television wasn't even invented the last time we saw a Blue Jay playoff game. The Quebec Nordiques hadn't even moved to Denver the last time post-season baseball happened at the dome.

The past 10 days, in fact, have proven emphatically the dangers of getting too excited about winning a few baseball games or losing a few baseball games.

It's a sport where the big picture is all that matters, where a player can't be judged by a hitting slump in May because by September his numbers may end up being exactly what they were projected to be, or even better.

For the Blue Jays, the past month has been an exercise in understanding the big picture, not focusing on two weeks here or two weeks there.

But my goodness, what a turnaround in fortunes there's been.

Less than two weeks ago, the club was basking in the warmth of a September hot streak. Cito Gaston looked comfortable and serene again as the club's manager, various bats were booming that hadn't boomed much all year, kids like David Purcey and Travis Snider were appearing to be sure-fire factors for the future and J.P. Ricciardi's job seemed secure for at least one more year.

Today, things are much different. The club is now 3-5 since losing a theoretically important back-end of a double bill in Boston, Shaun Marcum appears lost for all of next year, the possibility of finishing ahead of the Yankees is the "goal" left to play for (do you think the Yanks have their eye on that prize?) and with A.J. Burnett likely heading out the door as well, spending millions of dollars more on free agent players to buttress the lineup appears to be the likely plan.

It's the same plan that's been in play for a while now, different than what was sold seven years ago when Ricciardi took over. Then, the Jays were supposed to become the Minnesota Twins of the east, a smart, resourceful team that didn't spend zillions on other team's players but developed its own and throughout the organization played the game the right way.

Ring a bell?

Seven years later, there are some younger players on the big league roster, and some good ones. But no progress has been made in the standings despite an enormous infusion of cash. Fifteen years out of the playoffs is 15 years, and Ricciardi's teams haven't made so much as a dent in that problem.

So now its a straightforward choice. With next season looking damaged already because of the loss of Marcum, Dustin McGowan and probably Burnett, keeping Ricciardi now probably means keeping him for another two seasons, minimum. Could he ultimately produce a winner? Well, Joe Madden would tell you anything's possible.

On the other hand, changing management now could be an opportunity to re-define what this team seeks to be and offer the fans of the ball club at least the hint that year after year of mediocrity isn't acceptable.

Its one thing to constantly lament playing in the American League East with New York and Boston, but quite another to have watched Tampa Bay zoom past the Jays as well. Would Toronto baseball fans have willingly endured all those years of horrific losing in Tampa to be where the Rays are now, or do fans prefer a the steady drumbeat of being competitive but not nearly good enough?

Its an intriguing question.

Two weeks ago all those wins had some, not all, Jays fans giddy with possibilities. In a city where the football team's gone south, the hockey team is already expecting a bad season and only the basketball team is a serious factor in its league, any team that can put together a string of victories is bound to get a lot of attention. Heck, a couple more wins and the Buffalo-Toronto Bills will be getting a parade up Yonge Street.

Today, the feeling about this baseball club, however, is more "here we go again," more helplessness than optimism.

You don't have to regard Ricciardi as the worst GM in the history of baseball to want change.

He put the team in this position, of that there is no debate. All season he asked fans to wait and see how the season played out, and it has played out in a defineable way.

Surely it's time to see if another executive can build on Ricciardi's foundation.

Unless more of the same is what you want.

Farewell to a CFL Legend

Can't say I knew Ron Lancaster as a close friend.

Then again, he was a big part of my life.

Weird, huh? That's how you remember the sporting heroes of your youth, and Lancaster was a figure out of western Canada who appeared on snowy days to perform magic with George Reed for every Canadian's second favourite team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

He wasn't athletic, didn't look like he could run very fast and threw tons of interceptions. But that never stopped him from throwing the football and becoming one of the biggest stars of the CFL throughout the 1960s and 1970s, arguably the heyday of the league. Can't even tell you who was the backup quarterback to Lancaster all those years — he was always the guy under centre.

He died Wednesday night of lung cancer, making me awfully sad that when I saw him in the press box at Ivor Wynne Stadium on Labour Day, I didn't immediately go over and offer my best wishes. Then he was gone and the game was on and that was the last time I saw one of the legends of Canadian three-down football.

I knew him personally only as a coach, and always thought it admirable that after failing terribly as a head coach the first time around, he succeeded wonderfully in Edmonton and Hamilton. He could be a bit growly at times, but usually had time for pretty much everybody and certainly didn't carry himself with the slightest pretence, the slightest sense that he had been a king on the football field once upon a time.

As a native Hamiltonian, I will always appreciate that Lancaster found a way to lose to Chuck Ealey and the Tiger-Cats in the 1972 Grey Cup Game at Ivor Wynne, and similarly appreciate that he brought the Grey Cup back to Hamilton in 1999, not just with one of those lucky winners but a truly outstanding football team. Sadly, ownership wasn't strong, and that era in Steeltown football faded.

At 69, Don Matthews is back coaching in the CFL, and at the same age the Little General has left us. Not fair, but never to be forgotten.

When Panicking is Good

The Argonauts, it's fair to say, are in a full-out state of panic.

The good news is that sometimes, panic is the correct response.

In Argo-land, players are flying in, bodies are being dumped overboard, coaches are being fired, legends are being hired and everyone is pointing the finger at somebody else.

Add in a 4-7 record with Winnipeg breathing down their necks, and the Argos are sensible to be panicking as the 2008 season threatens to turn into a total nightmare.

Enter Cody Pickett.

This, now, is not intended to in any disparage Mr. Pickett and his football-throwin', signal-callin' abilities.

But when you take the reigning league MVP - Kerry Joseph - and send him to the bench in favour of a raw CFL rookie - Pickett - it's not because you believe it gives your team the best chance to win.

You're either panicking and desperately grasping at straws, or you're using Joseph as a lightning rod to get the attention of the entire team and put the fear of God into those that have thus far treated the CFL season like a casual workout down at the local gym.

Or maybe it's a little panic and a little strategy mixed in together.

The best guess here is that by the time the Argos return to town in nine days to play the back end of their home-and-home with the Calgary Stampeders, Joseph will either be back starting or at the very least finishing that game.

The Stamps, you can bet, have a rude welcoming planned for Pickett on Saturday, and it seems unlikely he has the experience to handle what he's in for. This looks like Mike McMahon all over again. If Pickett were told, don't worry, we'll give you a few games, you're our man, that would be one thing. But if he can't make it happen immediately Joseph will be right back in, and that's a tough position for Pickett to be in. It's easier to throw Pickett to the wolves on Saturday and then come back with Joseph than to start Joseph this week, have him struggle again and then be faced with the option of returning home and starting Pickett.

When it came to shock therapy for this ailing football team, Don Matthews didn't have many options.

Benching Joseph was one, although that had already been done. Cutting veteran linebacker Mike O'Shea, who despite his years of stalwart play and leadership simply can't play at the same level anymore, would be another dramatic move. Axing receiver Arland Bruce III, who likes run the pattern that fits his mood at that moment, would have been another. Bruce made half the team laugh and half the team bitter with his Spiderman caper on Labour Day in Hamilton, and it's hard not to see his act wearing thin in T.O. despite his obvious playmaking abilities.

But moving on O'Shea or Bruce would have cost the Argos a player, while shunting Joseph to the bench for a game doesn't delete him from the lineup.

So Joseph got to be the scapegoat. The question now is not whether Pickett will play so brilliantly that it will be impossible to take him out of the lineup, but the frame of mind Joseph will be in by the time he moves back under centre.

He's not a guy likely to whine and pout. It took him forever to get his chance to play quarterback at the pro level, and he had to deal with the difficulties of being part of the Glieberguys Ottawa Renegades operation before landing out west.

TSN's outstanding football analyst Duane Ford probably has the best take on the Joseph situation, suggesting the Argos need to find ways to tailor their offence to Joseph's strengths, not try to get him to change his game to fit Steve Burrato's offence.

Benched twice this season in favour of his backups, it's not wonder Joseph might not be the most confident guy in town right now.

But if the Argos are to survive this current state of panic and make post-season play, it'll almost certainly be Joseph at the helm. It's one thing to panic and give Cody Pickett a shot, quite another to believe he's the answer to a season gone south.

New Blood

Wayne Gretzky thinks the NHL would work in Hamilton.

Wayne Gretzky thinks the Maple Leafs are going to be "fine."

Wayne Gretzky isn't going to lead Canada's hockey team into the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Gretzky, Gretzky, Gretzky. Amazing how the man can still make headlines with the most innocuous comments, more now than back in the days when he surprised the hockey world by calling the New Jersey Devils a Mickey Mouse organization.

Now, Gretzky's thoughts on Hamilton or the Leafs are relatively meaningless. After all, what's he going to say? That his hometown of Brantford has as much chance of landing an NHL team as Steeltown? That the Leafs, now run by an executive that Gretzky's own Phoenix team unceremoniously dumped, are going to be horrible?

The Olympic stuff, however, matters, and its a testament to the goodwill that Gretzky has built up over the decades that all the errors made in putting together the team that floundered in Turin - remember shut out by Switzerland? - have never stuck to him. Nobody blames him for picking Todd Bertuzzi, or not picking Sidney Crosby. It all just rolls off him, and if he'd wanted the top job for Vancouver, you can bet it was his to have.

But he doesn't. So where to turn?

Well, common sense suggests it would be appropriate to turn the operation over to the boys from Motown.

Sure, it's going to be a group effort, and Gretzky will even be involved in some way. But having Steve Yzerman and Ken Holland at the top - give 'em whatever titles you want - with Mike Babcock going behind the bench makes an awful lot of sense.

For starters, Yzerman has put Canada's team together for the past two world championships, and given that he isn't currently managing or coaching an NHL team, he has more time to devote to the effort than most high-profile NHL executives.

Holland has earned a shot, both through his work with the Wings and Canadian international effort. He's among the top five NHL GMs, and might even be the best. Babcock, finally, took himself to a new level by winning the Cup with the Wings last spring, giving himself the heft required to stand behind a bench of NHL stars in a pressure cooker situation like Vancouver will be.

it's a group likely to do Canada proud at the last Olympics involving NHLers.

 

The Kids Have Taken Over

The only quarterback anybody wanted to talk about in the weeks preceding the NFL season was 38-year-old Brett Favre, and for good reason. Favre's been a star in the league for a long-time, his divorce from the Green Bay Packers was messy and moving to the New York Jets put him squarely in North America's biggest media market.

But here's the funny thing. The NFL is really No League For Old Men any more, at least when it comes to the quarterback position.

Sure, there's Favre, now 1-1 as the Jets' starter, and 37-year-old Kurt Warner, who passed for 361 yards as 2-0 Arizona beat dreadful Miami on Sunday.

But watching Philip Rivers of San Diego and Denver's Jay Cutler - two men who apparently dislike each other intensely, by the way - battle on Sunday afternoon in a shootout in the Mile High City cemented the impression that a new generation of appealing new quarterbacks have taken over the NFL. Seeing Cutler going for the two-point conversion - and the win - in the dying moments was a welcome sight in the often conservative league, and reinforced the notion that the young gunslingers are in charge.

Rivers is 26, and Cutler is 25. Elswhere around the NFL, Ben Roethlisberger is just 26, although it already seems like he's been around forever, and reigning Super Bowl champion Eli Manning is 27 years old.

Favre's successor, 24-year-old Aaron Rodgers, has been brilliant so far for the Packers. Buffalo-Toronto Bills QB Trent Edwards is only 24, Cleveland starter Derek Anderson is 25, Washington quarterback Jason Campbell is 26 and Tom Brady-substitute Matt Cassell is 26.

Former No. 1 overall pick Jamarcus Russell is 25, athough he's going to get older fast playing for the Raiders, and Kyle Orton is No. 1 in Chicago at the tender age of 25. Tavaris Jackson, while struggling for Minny, is still starting at the age of 25. With the disgraced Michael Vick, still only 28 and once the brightest of the young quarterbacks, incarcerated for his misbehavior and cruelty to animals, 23-year-old Matt Ryan has become Atlanta's No. 1 signal caller.

Troubled Tennessee quarterback Vince Young is 25, while Carson Palmer and Tony Romo are hardly old men at 28.

The one name we haven't mentioned? That would be former Heismann Trophy winner Matt Leinart, labouring behind Warner with the Cardinals. But the 25-year-old Leinart will get his shot.

Its an invigorating shot in the arm for the NFL, as if it needed one. Quarterbacks get more attention than any other position players, and when so many are so young, it adds a layer of freshness to the entire operation and new intrigue for a Sunday afternoon of couch potato-ness. Morever, its not like these guys are only being trusted with handing the ball off. They're throwing it, often and effectively.

For the CFL, all the quarterbacks tend to be older because they generally try their luck at the NFL or Arena Football before heading north. Darian Durant of Saskatchewan might be the brightest young quarterback in the league, and he's already 26. But so many come through the league without staying very long or getting a meaningful chance - Eric Crouch, Kevin Eakin, Mike McMahon, Shaun King, Jesse Palmer, Ted White, Tee Martin - that the wave of new blood never seems to arrive and the bigger names get moved around and recycled.