You have to admit that the royal suit worn by Don Cherry in the Coach's Corner segment last night was his most tasteful ensemble yet. Scary, but true.
Too bad there was so much time spent discussing life in Stratford, Ontario, during the Hotstove portion of the show, because it would have been nice to hear more about the moves that were being made by Brian Burke in Toronto.
Dion Phaneuf is coming from the Calgary Flames to the Maple Leafs. J.S. Giguere is leaving the Anaheim Ducks to help the Monster in Toronto. The Toronto Globe and Mail doesn't publish a paper on Sundays, but that doesn't stop them from putting out a full report when news happens.
Burke told David Shoalts of the Globe and Mail that the moves were made to break up the country club feeling of privilege that exists in Toronto.
Well, I don't know about Mr. Burke, but perhaps his team would feel less like the entitled class if the team wasn't granted the royal status on "Hockey Night in Canada," which usually schedules the Maple Leafs in the regal 7 pm Eastern time slot.
On Saturday, a very hot Ottawa team played host to Montreal in the afternoon slot. Sometimes, neither Ottawa nor Montreal merit a national audience on CBC, that is, unless they are playing the Leafs. (Francophones can catch the Habs nationally on RDS; Radio-Canada, the French television branch of the CBC, surrendered "La Soirée du Hockey" in 2002.)
Toronto is the center of the hockey universe, at least that is what we hear out of Toronto. Other teams that move from the end of the line to the middle are just that, middling teams. But when the Leafs move from the rear to a seat somewhere between the last row and the front row, they become contenders. That is what Burke is working against.
In Eric Duhatschek's thumbs up review of the Burke moves, he looks back at the 1992 Calgary-Toronto swap that included Doug Gilmour.
Gilmour’s presence turned the Leafs from a laughingstock into a contender.
He made them better, but a Cup contender? Well, they did lose to the Los Angeles Kings in the Campbell Conference finals in 1993. But contender should mean more than that. It should mean a contender to win the Cup from the start of the season through to the playoffs, not just in years when the really good teams are upset early and only the middling teams remain to win the Cup.
The good thing to come out of Burke's moves is that the Maple Leafs are now a more interesting team to watch the rest of the season.
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