At The Crossroads — Again?

TORONTO (Oct. 30) — No person amid the Leafs hierarchy will confess to the truth, but jobs were squarely on the line, in Chicago, one year ago this weekend. The 2–4–1 visitors, having been demolished in Pittsburgh (7–1) and Carolina… Read More

Remembering the Fear… and the Pain

MY DEEPLY PERSONAL STORY (WRITTEN IN 2017) ABOUT BEING DIAGNOSED WITH CROHN’S DISEASE AS A TEENAGER, WITH A NOSTALGIC TWIST INVOLVING THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS: PART 1 My story begins late in the summer of 1975. I was 16½ years… Read More

Leafs Wobble is In–Defense–Able

TORONTO (Oct. 28) — Forget, for a moment, that the Toronto Maple Leafs are a pedestrian 4–3–1 after eight games and have lost to three of the most–feeble outfits (Montreal, Arizona, San Jose) in the National Hockey League. With 74… Read More

How Can Anyone Take This Seriously?

TORONTO (Oct. 27) — In the third week of the seventh season since Auston Matthews scored four goals against the Ottawa Senators in his National Hockey League debut, joining franchise cornerstones William Nylander and Mitch Marner, the Toronto Maple Leafs… Read More

The Arithmetic Says: 60 + 62 = 0

TORONTO (Oct. 24) — At least the New York Yankees won a playoff round and made it to the American League Championship Series, whereupon they were humiliated in a four–game sweep by the Houston Astros. The league–record 62 home runs… Read More

Perkins: “They’re All Geniuses”

TORONTO (Oct. 22) — He has been retired for nearly a decade but there is no person with sports media credentials that continues to call it as straight as Dave Perkins. In fact, it’s almost too easy for me to… Read More

Turnbull: “If I Had A Magic Wand…”

TORONTO (Oct. 18) — The video, posted for all the world to see, was graphic and heartbreaking. Borje Salming, alongside Tim Horton as the greatest defenseman in Toronto Maple Leafs history, breaking down while his wife, Pia, discussed the horrific… Read More

Cut Steve Simmons Some Slack

TORONTO (Oct. 14) — This is a delicate subject and I’m hoping you will carefully read what I am about to say. Toronto Sun sports columnist Steve Simmons touched off a firestorm in his popular Sunday Notes page last week… Read More

Bell Blockheads Take Down Another

TORONTO (Oct. 10) — This blog isn’t about sports. It doesn’t have to be. It’s about the heartless, unconscionable jackals that operate our Big 3 media conglomerates: Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Corus Entertainment. Nameless, faceless people with cash to… Read More

When Will Toronto Finally Get It?

TORONTO (Oct. 9) — The epic collapse by the Blue Jays on Saturday supplied the perfect prolog for the next six months of irrelevance involving our local shinny heroes. Not that anyone will pay heed to this warning when Auston… Read More

The Noise Could End — Quickly

TORONTO (Oct. 7) — The brave talk… the anticipation… the media cheerleading. It all could be over. Seemingly before it begins. Such is the nature of the Major League Baseball playoffs. And, dare we say, professional sport here in the… Read More

Bowen’s 40–Year Odyssey Incomplete

TORONTO (Oct. 6) — Believe it or not, I still have two vivid memories of 40 years ago tonight, when I sat down in my boyhood home to watch the Maple Leafs opening game of the 1982–83 National Hockey League… Read More

Beware Of Pre–Season Results

TORONTO (Oct. 4) — Here we are in the first week of October. Amid Leafs Land, Nick Robertson is scoring at a Wayne Gretzky pace. Matt Murray is stopping pucks like Patrick Roy never did. And, fleet–a–foot Mitch Marner could… Read More

Leaf Spin–Doctors Out in Force

TORONTO (Sep. 30) — Unsurprisingly, it required only three exhibition games for the lap–dogs in the Toronto media universe to pile into the hockey club’s corner. Led, as always, by flag–waver Luke Fox of Sportsnet — and happily joined by… Read More

Leafs Defense A Looming Disaster

TORONTO (Sep. 27) — Here’s an easy prediction: neither Jake Muzzin nor Mark Giordano will last the entire season on defense for the Toronto Maple Leafs. One is slow and dreadfully injury prone; the other, also slow, in his 40’s… Read More

Is Shanahan Beyond Reproach?

TORONTO (Sep. 23) — Interesting, this week, how Brendan Shanahan, president of the Toronto Maple Leafs, promised no security after the coming season to his hand–picked general manager, Kyle Dubas, who later met with reporters and took the bullet like… Read More

The Leafs Are… The Leafs

TORONTO (Sep. 17) — For the first time since launching this website in June 2011, I’ve gone a full month without writing a blog. There is, to my knowledge, nothing wrong with me; neither have I been particularly busy, other… Read More

Money Cannot Save John Derringer

TORONTO (Aug. 14) — Oddly, yet predictably, it required more than 2½ months for those on the receiving end of verbal harassment from radio host John Derringer to gain a measure of justice. Even if my former FAN–590 colleague, Jacqui… Read More