PLAYOFFS!!1

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Beauty

Now that picture right there is a thing of beauty. I know what you’re thinking. Another delusional Maple Leafs fan over reacting to a hot start. Nope. That’s not it.

It’s early in a long season. The Maple Leafs will not go undefeated, unless I’m playing NHL 09 for Xbox 360 on the rookie level. That hasn’t happened since December 2008, the rookie level I mean. The Maple Leafs will not win the Stanley Cup. I do expect the Maple Leafs to make the playoffs, for one simple reason. NO TOSKALA.

Truth is, I don’t know how the rest of this season will unfold. Right now I just want to live in the moment, and appreciate that picture above.

 

 

Craptors

Seven in a row. The Toronto Raptors have lost seven games in a row. What’s scary is that, this is their 4th such losing streak this season. I mean, four streaks of 5 loses or more. However, I saw one positive last Sunday from the raptors in the fourth quarter. I finally saw some emotion out of Chris Bosh. I finally saw the best player on the team screaming at his team “let’s go”. Then promptly the Utah Jazz went on a 28 – 12 run right after Chris’ emotional outburst to end the game and defeat the Raptors. 

I’ll admit, I haven’t been a the greatest supporter of Bosh this season. However, I wouldn’t like to see Bosh leave. I’ve been big on voicing my opinion that the Raptors should move Bosh. I’ve changed my mind. He’s a 20-10 guy. That’s rare in the NBA. Now at the same time, I don’t think he’s an elite player or a max money player. I don’t think he’s worth 17+ million a year. I would love to see Bosh at around 15 million a year with the Raptors. 

The Raptors are just a horribly put together team. Calderon, while I love his competitiveness couldn’t defend a pylon. Parker’s shot selection is horrible, those spurts where he thinks he’s Jordan are AWFUL. I mean I understand you’re from Chicago AP, but seriously, YOU ARE NOT JORDAN! Marion just isn’t worth 17 million either. Marion truly belongs with Nash, and only Nash. Andrea, he’s still developing, however I see some promise. He’s not going to be the go to guy, but he has made leaps and bounds this year. Honestly, Andrea defends. I don’t see anyone else on this team that puts in the effort that he does on the defensive end every play. Once Andrea develops a bit more of a post game and gets more aggressive, I can see him being a 20-7 guy consistently. The biggest drop off this season has been Jason Kapono. While his interviews are hilarious, his shooting this year is horrible. He’s just been awful. I mean, this is a team where Jason Kapono is your sixth man. That’s pretty scary. Brian Colangelo has a lot of work to do this off season. I mean on a 12 man roster, I only see 3 that are worth keeping, Jose, Chris & Andrea.

I can’t really blame Chris too much for this season, he has done alright. He’s in the top 10 in the league in scoring, that’s not bad at all. While he isn’t the type of guy to take over games, there aren’t many at his position who can. Although, it’s not the offensive end that worries me about Chris, it’s his defense. He seems to have regressed in his defensive presence this year. That worries me, he has been a horrible one on one defender this year. Maybe it’s the fatigue from a long year of basketball when you include the Olympics. I suggest Chris work on his defense this off season. 

In terms of the Raptors, I really do hope there are some wholesale changes this off season. In a city that is the fourth largest market in North America, to not have one team make the playoffs this season is pretty rough. We knew the Maple Leafs were rebuilding, the Jays play in the toughest division in baseball, TFC is still an expansion team, and the Argos, well who cares about the Argos. The Raptors were supposed to be the team this year. I missed every Raptor game last year while working overseas, so I was extremely excited about this year for the Raptors, and I’ve been severely disappointed. It actually hurts, I feel hurt personally when I see them lose. Especially considering the high hopes I had for this team coming into the season. Yet, I still try and watch every game.

This whole season has just been a disaster, from the performance, to the coaches, to the TSN2 fiasco. I mean why would you make a deal with a network where most of your fan base does not have that network. It’s utterly STUPID! Now some would say, maybe it’s a blessing that we aren’t able to view those games, and the matter in which they lose. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’ve invested too much into the Raptors emotionally. I feel like I’m in a bad relationship, where I’m more emotional invested, more supportive, more positive, yet none of it is reciprocated. Yet, I just can’t end it, I can’t break up. Maybe the Raptors will change, maybe they’ll see the dedication, the support, the emotional investment that I and all the other fans are putting in realise. Maybe the Raptors will start to change. Maybe.

 

Deadline Day

This is one of my favorite days in the hockey season. The NHL trade deadline day. The excitement, the intrigue, the surprises. First I’d like to take a minute to bid a fond farewell to Nik Antropov and Dominic Moore. You guys wore the Maple Leaf sweater proudly. Played with heart. Sports And The City said it perfectly, I suggest you check him out. 

On the bright side, Tomas Kaberle and Pavel Kubina are still Maple Leafs.

Every year there are a ton of deals and usually one or two star players changing teams along with draft picks. What’s amazing about this year is that ONLY ONE first round pick was traded, I can’t remember the last time that only one first round pick was dealt on deadline day. It seems like GM’s are really clinging to their first rounders. 

Seems like the Rangers stocked up, Antro & Derrick Morris. However, in my mind, so far the Flames have made the best move landing Olli Jokinen. Imagine a line with Jokinen and Iginla.

It seems like the Ducks are slowly heading towards rebuilding based on the trades they made.

UPDATE – It was just reported, Patrick O’ Sullivan was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes. I honestly don’t understand why the Kings would give up such a promising young player. But when does anything the L.A. Kings do make sense. Then the Canes have turned around and traded O’Sullivan to the Edmonton Oilers for Eric Cole. Apparently Buffalo is also involved in the deal with Kotalik also going to 

On another note, WHY THE HELL ARE THE LEAFS PICKING UP MARTIN “SOFT AS A BABY” GERBER OFF WAIVERS? And why the hell is Ottawa trading for a goalie? Do they not realize they are out of the playoffs? Seriously, it’s over.

I wonder what other trades will trickle in as the day moves along…

 

Starting Over

After spending a long time contemplating starting a blog I finally decided to go ahead and do it.   First and foremost I would like to give a lot of thanks to my friend over at Sports And The City for the encouragement. He pushed me for some time to get on this.  Well eyebeleaf, it has begun and i’m excited.  

After a painstaking two weeks searching for a title, I had another dilemna.  What should be my first post?  I had a few ideas, but what would be worthy of my first ever post.  My first post to the world.  While driving home the other night it hit me.  Oddly enough my most provocative thought process takes place while i’m driving.  I live in Mississauga, I do a lot of god damn lot of driving.

Anyways, back to the subject of the post.  Well, it’s sports.  What about sports?  Everything.  I lived overseas last year without any sort of cable and well… I didn’t catch a single hockey, baseball, basketball, football game for the whole year.   Of course I did follow sports online, but I wasn’t able to watch a single game for an entire year.  It was most definitely the hardest thing i’ve ever had to do.   I’m a sports junkie.  I’m addicted.  I’m a sportsaholic and proud of it.  

What’s worse, I might have possibly  missed one of the greatest sports years in history.  The remarkable undefeated season by the Patriots, who went on to be involved in one of the greatest Super Bowl finishes in recent memory.  The dominating season of the Celtics.  I can’t believe I missed watching them destroy Kobe in the Finals.  It really hurt that I wasn’t able to watch Kobe get dominated.  I missed watching the Boston Red Sox come back from being 3 – 1 down in the ALCS.  Then again, maybe it’s better that I missed that.  I have a bitter dislike for the Red Sox and Sox Nation.  I also missed every single game of my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs.  Many friends said to me that it was a blessing I missed the Leafs painful season last year.  I disagree, win or lose, to miss every game last year was actually very depressing. 

What I missed the most however, was the boys getting together to watch the game.  With everyones busy lives, sports always remained our common denominator.   Sports would bring us together.  I missed the sports road trips, two of them in fact.  One of which was to hallowed Yankee Stadium.  I’ll never get to watch a game in that historical ball park, which is something I always wanted to do.  I missed out on a full year of ball hockey.  Playing between the pipes every Sunday kept me in shape and was something I looked forward to every week.  

Since i’ve been back I’ve been in sports heaven.  The radio is set to Fan 590 on a daily basis.  I’ve made a concious effort to catch every Jays, Leafs, Raps and NFL game possible.  My homepage is yahoo sports.  I’ll be starting ball hockey in about 3 weeks. 

I missed out on sports for a year, but now that i’m home, maybe we can start again.