Former NHLer Peter Zezel Passes Away at 44

Peter Zezel will be remembered by most as part of the Philadelphia's "Young Turks" from the mid 1980s and a key component of the Toronto Maple Leafs appearances in the 1993 and 1994 conference finals.

Many Toronto area children will remember him as the man who helped them learn to skate or improve their hockey skills, regardless of playing level. Zezel operated successful hockey and sports camps in the Toronto suburb of Markham.

Zezel was single and had no children. He leaves behind his parents Valerie and Peter Sr, sister Neda, brother-in-law Richard, two nephews, and a niece.

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My Internet Hockey Boyfriend

Cross posted (mostly) at Couch Tarts

(Apologies to my actual boyfriend who is on the internet but not into hockey. Also Steve Dangle has no idea who I am. I just admire from a far. He's a little young for me. I'll stop now.)

Have you seen Leafs Fan Reaction lately? You really should. No, seriously. Go now. I'll wait...

Isn't he fantastic? OK maybe I find him funnier than most other people, but I find him both smart about hockey and able to make fun of his team while still showing the love. Below are some of my favorite videos to give you a taste.

Greatest Hits
Getting Brodeur'd - Some of my favorite bits are the ones involving the player figurines. Nothing beats Brodeur. "Blocker side? More like NO GOAL SIDE!!"
Sundin's Hamlet - Just watch. Shakespeare + hockey = Win
Nuh nuh....nuh nuh nuh nuh.... - I'm biased. I love having seen the Sharks beat the Leafs twice in the last 2 seasons. But I also love watching the carnivorous Joe Thornton card.
Hockey Drive-Thru - I think it's fantastic how blurry the figurines get when they get close to the camera. And the McSorley joke is pretty good too.
Hockey Night in Canada Theme - That suit is full of win.
Ron Wilson Signs with Leafs - Gray loves this one for all the Joe Thornton figurine actions. I love his new Hockey Night in Canada theme.

I suppose he's easier to like for me cause I don't often care about the Leafs and the Sharks only face them once a year. Give the kid a chance and at least you'll have a good chance of being amused.

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Comments on a Game I Didn`t See

There was something magical about listening to Saturday night hockey while driving down the Las Vegas strip. There was nothing magical about the Leafs exploding with five unanswered goals to seal a 5-2 win over the New York Rangers. That was the reality of hard work and perseverance, although the Leafs were in mind when rubbing the feet of the Winged Angels at Hoover Dam for good luck.


I didn`t see John Mitchell`s two goals. I didn`t see any of the five goals the Buds scored in 5:21 to obliterate Steve Valiquette`s shutout bid. I didn`t see Dominic Moore, plucked off waivers by Toronto last season, rule the circle with an 80% faceoff average.

I didn`t need to see. I felt the excitement of Leafs fans 3629km away from Air Canada Centre. Best of all, being so far from the arena, no media pass around my neck, cloaked in the anonymity provided by thousands of tourists, I tossed journalistic impartiality out the window and cheered. Not necessarily for the Leafs, mind you, but for the story.

Fans, media, and experts did not expect the Leafs to have a winning season. More efforts like this one and they`ll be winning respect from those who had written them off.

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Leafs Lose Home Opener

Fans who planned the parade following the Leafs season opening win over Detroit got hit with a dose of reality tonight.

Montreal trounced Toronto 6-1 in the Leafs home opener. Toronto wasn't able to bounce back from Montreal's first two goals, scored 99 seconds apart. Roman Hamrlik scored at 11:00 in the opening period, followed by Alexei Kovalev.

Power play problems plagued Toronto's second period performance. The Habs potted three goals in under 5:00 - all with the man advantage. Alex Tanguay's backhand was sandwiched between Sergei Kostitsyn's snapper and wrist-shot goals. Guillaume Latendresse also scored for Montreal. The Leafs' lone marker came from Jason Blake, who drew criticism from some fans for his goal celebration.

Montreal was the more physical team but the only Leaf to try and send a message was Dominic Moore. The normally calm Moore went into the sin bin for double minors after expressing his displeasure at the Habs manhandling of his team.

Toronto again had pivot problems. They won 29 faceoffs to Montreal's 40. Only one Habs' centre, veteran Robert Lang was below 50%. Contrast that with Toronto - only Mikhail Grabovski and Matt Stajan were at 50% The lone Leaf above 50% was Jonn Mitchell, who only took one faceoff.

Next up for Buds are the St. Louis Blues on Monday. It's a 1PM start time due to the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday.

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We are so predictable.

Once again, after a string of screw-ups that basically nixed any reasonable hope of making the playoffs, they make a last-ditch, last-minute effort to get there. Unlike recent years, however, for a few brief weeks, there was a whiff of something that could be (was) mistaken as reform, with JFJ being fired and all, being bottom dwelling and with the possibility of trading away a few of our overpriced no-trades (note: I was never a member of Team Trade Sundin). Well, those expectations have been cruelly dashed.

So what do you guys suggest now?

A. Hop on the bandwagon and believe against all odds that somehow, the hockey gods will have compassion and allow them to essentially win all their games from here on out and make those playoffs.

B. Resign myself to the most probable outcome and watch their (as of late) rather entertaining games while trying to ignore what a winning streak means for the future.

C. Start scouting for a new team to cheer for the rest of the season.

Right now I'm at B but if you're exceptionally convincing, I may be talked into changing my stance.

PS: I saw the goal Toskala let in the other day. Oh well.

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elation? well....

Because my thoughts on the whole JFJ firing/Fletcher hiring are kind of nebulous and unoriginal (which, I suppose, would be all right if I could come up with an original way to state them), I'm not going to go into this much. It really is nothing new.

I feel bad for JFJ, partially because I'm not particularly discriminating when it comes to doling out my pity, but also (!) because he had a tough run here. By no means is the GM job easy, and factor in the whole crazy Toronto media/fans thing, plus his lack of autonomy and perhaps his inexperience made the whole thing worse.
But hey, its a tough world out there, and we can't be coddling everyone. So the canning, I think, was necessary, and probably should have occurred quite a bit earlier too.

What do I think of Fletcher? I'm copping out and saying I haven't decided yet.

His hiring will probably improve team performance slightly, which is kind of what I don't want right now, as sucking less can easily be mistaken for success here. And I won't lie, watching the team go down in flames might be a tiny bit entertaining. Makes for good drama in the off-season.

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Somebody Fired, Somewhere

It's finally happened Leafs fans, you may commence your rejoicing in the queue to the left.

Bloggity Round-Up of Thoughts
Loser Domi
Battle of Ontario
Mirtle
Sweet Tea, Barbecue and Bodychecks
Four Habs Fans
Hockey Blog in Canada
Bulging the Twine
Pension Plan Puppets

I'm sure one of our actual Leafs correspondents will chime in with their thoughts, jubilation and absolute elation sometime soon.

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confessions of a somewhat wayward Leaf fan

It's been pretty hard to get excited about watching the Leafs this season. I mean, not all of this is their fault. I don't follow them because I'm expecting excellence. But a perfect storm of real-life obligations and their less than mediocre efforts has resulted in somewhat flagging interest on my part. I still watch most of the games, although now I react with not a small modicum of alarm if it appears they'll win it (granted, not a common occurrence lately) because it seems that all it takes is a couple of victories for management to decide everything's all right. Keep in mind I've never been a wholehearted advocate for rebuilding because I am one of those fans that value short-term gratification perhaps more than I should. I figure only one team can win it all, right? What are the chances, even for a team that's almost doing everything right (no names)?

Anyway, with that defeatist attitude, I'm eagerly, but not expectantly waiting for someone to be canned. Perhaps a public firing...one where the camera pans up to JFJ getting a drink tossed on him by a higher-up and being shown the door.

...

Ok, I felt kind of bad writing that. This mess isn't totally his fault. I suppose in theory we're still a playoff contender.

I watched the Toronto-San Jose game this Saturday. For his sake, I'm glad JR never made his way here. This organization turns decent players subpar, so forget about career revival here.

PS - I just labeled this post. "Leafs suck" is a preset label?

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Lightning Doused by Leafs

The Tampa Bay Lightning continued their road trip blues, much to the delight of Leafs fans. After a scoreless 1st period, the Leafs exploded onto the score sheet in the next 20 minutes with 4 goals in 4:42. Despite a roster full of offensive talent, the Bolts could only muster one goal, by Michel Ouellet with one minute left in the 2nd.

Vesa Toskala, who has been sensational for the Buds even provided an assist on Sundin's 15th goal of the season. Chad Kilger potted two goals, and Jason Blake continued his improved scoring. Antropov and Stajan also notched a goal a piece.

Side notes include the solid defensive play of Hal Gill, which is showing up on the scoresheet; he now has 14 points - 1 G, 13A.

The win was a nice touch for Leafs fans who endured some awful games at ACC during the earlier part of the season. The win will be the last game the Leafs play for a while, as the next 7 are all on the road.

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Philosophical Musings from Sam Mitchell

^{REUTERS/Marc Serota}

Caught this story on AOL Fanhouse where Toronto Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell had some comments regarding violence in hockey:

It's part of hockey. That's their culture. If hockey players go in the stands, it's hockey. Right? Seriously. Basketball players go in the stands? Ohhhhh, the sport is out of control.

Hockey players fight up in the stands! Basketball has one incident and all of a sudden... oooooohhhhhhh. It was a major thing. How long in history have hockey players been going up in the stands? Since time began. Why don't you all write about it like you when it happened one time at a basketball game? One time. I have my theories why, but I'm not going to comment.

I can understand Mitchell's frustration. He's the head coach in a city where it's All Leafs, All the Time and even with a winning team, the Raptors have a hard time drawing the same type of crowd the Leafs are able to draw despite being mediocre to down right awful most of the time. Plus, he works for MLSE so is probably privy to whatever clusterf*ck is going on in that organization half the time.

But like Fanhouser Greg Wyshynski pointed out in the comments, having violence and donnybrooks as part of your culture is hardly a flattering image to be saddled with. It makes hockey seem one dimensional and it's bad enough that the American outlets feel that the NHL is only newsworthy whenever these sideshows happen, even though they account for only a small portion of the game.

Like I pointed out in the comment thread, Mitchell is also inaccurate in suggesting people just shrug at hockey players going into the stands. There are boards and glass protecting the audience from the ice for crying out loud, so getting up there is pretty much a chore in itself and it has never and will never be seen as acceptable. The fact that the audience is protected from the on-ice shenanigans is why fighting in hockey is more acceptable and in basketball it isn't because there's no barrier between the hardwood and the audience. The debate can go on forever, but it also needs to be pointed out that there's a difference between two players with pounds of gear that resembles armour exchanging a few punches than two guys in shiny shorts exchanging punches.

Jiri T-Lusty
Deadspin caught onto this story a number of days actually and since nothing much came of it, I figured it would just blow however. However, living in the fishbowl and being privy to Leafs Media, the story of Jiri's Cameraphone was pretty hard to avoid. I'll just say this, even yours truly did a few stupid things when she was 18-years-old and quite possibly had too much to drink. I will say that it is always ill-advised to be snap happy in compromising positions when you're 'famous' because they will inevitably end up on the Internet but everybody just needs to calm down and relax. I'd find the fact that Bryan McCabe just gave another game away last night on a silver platter as a more troubling issue.

^{Cross Posted to Scarlett Ice}

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Blake diagnosed with cancer.

Chronic myelogenous leukemia, to be exact, supposed to be highly treatable, and he's in the earliest stages. I hope that he fares well.

I sort of question of the wisdom of disclosing this when the identity of our starting goalie for the season opener was deemed TMI. Apparently the less we know, the better (I mean, what's really going on with Wellwood?).
He's publicly stated that the diagnosis will have no effect on his playing ability. For his sake, I hope so, cause I don't really see the pressure of playing in Toronto easing at all even with a bombshell like that. Now's probably the time he could use a free pass.

I wouldn't be surprised if JFJ gets skewered by armchair critics for what appears to be a failure to do his due diligence. On the other hand, I am a bit skeptical of the claim that he was diagnosed "very recently." I'm not saying he withheld information during negotiations, or that we shouldn't have signed him. I'm just saying: I don't think we found out the same time he did, which seems to be distinctly implied in what I've read, anyway. Not that he owes us anything.

Best of luck to him in his treatments and hopeful recovery.

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Let Us All Weep for Vesa

^{Cross-Posted to Scarlett Ice}

^{Don't make me go, mommy! I promise I'll be good!}

The San Jose Sharks have traded Vesa Toskala and forward Mark Bell to Toronto for three draft picks, including a first rounder in this year's draft:

The Sharks also receive a second-round pick in this year's draft and a 2009 fourth-round pick.

Toronto's pick was 13th overall.--Via Sportsnet.ca

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Promotions, demotions, and pink slips...

What do I think should happen? Does my opinion matter?

Michael Peca - Yes. The kicker is that he has to be willing to sign for cheap, but we need some seasoned players around to glue the rest of the kids together and turn them into a team, not just a bunch of guys skating in the same direction.
Jeff O'Neill - No...he hasn't really been the same after his brother died and I hear (read?) him and Maurice are not too fond of each other. I sort of feel that his employment prospects aren't that great if we don't take him back and I don't really want his career to end like this...I don't know.
Yanic Perreault - His name is a play on "panic." This has proved to be useful for Toronto media in the past.
Jean-Sebastien Aubin - I have a feeling he's not coming back, although I'm really not sure how the market for backup goalies look right now. My theory is, it's pretty clear that we have a goalie problem, but management is not going to get rid of Raycroft. So even though Aubin is...fairly competent as a backup, he's going to be let go so it'll look like they're working on it. In other words, action for the sake of action. But what do I know?
Travis Green - Barely noticed him. Bye.
Bates Battaglia - He battled back from the depths of the AHL and even managed to score a few goals. Unless we suddenly find ourselves blessed with a glut of goal-scoring forwards, he...uh...may be the next best thing to plug the gaps.

Antropov, thank goodness, was re-signed. You know, for a while there, I was getting nervous. I was thinking to myself, man, JFJ wouldn't be dumb enough to let that gem slip through his fingers, would he?
Okay, sarcasm aside, I'm kind of neutral on the guy. Yeah, he doesn't look like he's ever going to live up to his potential, but honestly, our entire team is made up of disposable players. He's all right, if you think of it from that context. He has gotten better.
And he has cute kids. Yes, I've looked. If that makes me less of a legitimate hockey fan, so be it. I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOUR JUDGING!
Besides, if we get rid of him, who's going to play on the first line? HAHA...*sigh*
I'm earnestly awaiting your magic, JFJ.

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