Just Heard the Big Toronto Maple Leafs News....

A few minutes ago I heard the news that Leafs coach Mike Babcock will be back next year.

Big mistake. That organization must grow; and more importantly, adapt. Important changes are in order. "Coach Babcock" must move on.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are not cursed....but rather, inept. Head office, that is.

That NHL club's lack of success is no mystery.

Book: The Brothers Grimm - 101 Fairy Tales

A Forever Question: Volume

"Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question."

Sir. Why don't cats bark?

Dennis is Back

Two Books to Read

Ford Nation: Two Brothers, One Vision – The True Story of the People's Mayor (2016, Rob Ford and Doug Ford, Jr.)

Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story (2014, Robyn Doolittle)

Photo Graph: Tiles and Tiles

May What Fourth?

May what fourth be with me? The kind found in music? (Don't forget your fifth.)

Oh, yeah. Star Wars fandom.

From the planet Diatessaron, no doubt.

Picturing: A TTC Subway Train Ride to Adventure

Leafs Chances Recycled

Watching a few minutes of the first period of game four between the New York Islanders and the Carolina Hurricanes just now reminded me of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I thought of a story I wrote earlier. I thought it was from last year, but when I searched for the piece I discovered it was from two years ago; April 2nd, to be exact.

Some things really don't change....

Leafs Talk in a Toronto Coffee Shop

We writers must keep our ears to the ground in search of a story. Sitting in a coffee shop is one way to do our work; to mind one's business, but not feel like an eavesdropper should fellow patrons talk of cultural issues at an audible level.

Recently two older gents sat at the table beside me and debated the chances of the Toronto Maple Leafs making this year's NHL (National Hockey League) playoffs.

Gent 1: "They have a real chance of getting somewhere this year."

Gent 2: "Really? We've been hearing this for years."

Gent 1: "Yeah, but they have Auston Matthews."

Gent 2: "Yes, I know, but we've heard this kind of story many times before; for a long time."


"Gent 2" is right. Over the years there has been a Darryl Sittler, Rick Vaive, Curtis Joseph, Wendel Clark, and more. Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner are just the latest stooges who will take the Toronto Maple Leafs to a place nowhere....

(I use the word "stooges" in the Toronto Maple Leafs Masterplan context. I'm sure they are nice people; and they are/were fine hockey players, of course. Most forgotten is the fact one must have a good team, not just two or three good players. Sports history is littered with Leafs-type teams -- they are nothing special in that regard.)

On Politics Via Alberta

Alberta, Canada, has a new premier. His name is Jason Kenney.

He said again today: "Job-killing carbon taxes."

For some reason that utterance reminded me of a favourite line of Ontario's own philosopher king, Doug Ford.

I like these intellectual heavyweights. They make politics and economics simple. Hobbes and Galbraith did not understand. ("Ya got it all wrong, boy. Ya got it all wrong!")

De Throned?

Today I was in the Chapters-Indigo bookstore at Bay and Bloor Streets here in Toronto. Hanging out with a bunch of books was not too painful. Near the "fiction" section was an island display of Game of Thrones material. Every time I looked over at the display, or walked by it, which I did a few times as I bounced between categories, not once did I see anyone perusing the Thrones. And I was there for over half an hour.

I've noticed over the years that nobody in my circle of friends ever talks about Game of Thrones. I could extend this notion to my business clients and casual conversation I might overhear in coffee shops. This curious phenomenon was explained a few years ago by my esteemed peer, John Kenneth Muir, in a piece he published to his blog. He talked of how television has changed. “Watercooler conversation" is not what it used to be. Television has become fractured, each “popular” series more cult than broad….if one uses the traditional application of those terms. There are exceptions, most of which belong to the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC).

What happens is some newspaper columnists and media personalities like a series and give much copy to the subject. Understandably this can give one the impression that “everyone is watching it”.

Doesn’t happen anymore. Anyway, I’d rather go to my books….

The Toronto Sun's Not Like the Other

When I was a kid in then West Germany, the television listings magazine, the name of which I've forgotten, was a glorious four-colour affair. Not only did it list programming for German networks ZDF and ARD, and French television, at the back of the magazine were two paintings; each subtly different from the other. The reader's job was to spot those differences. I loved those puzzles.

***

This Toronto Sun reader loves not only that rag's inept journalistic standards but its mindless and transparent editorials and columns. One of my favourite writers on that front is ____________.

The print and modified online version of a certain column (from March 30th) by ____________ contain the following paragraphs....

"I’m referring in particular to Shelley Carroll, Gord Perks, Joe Cressy, Mike Layton, Kristyn Wong-Tam, Paula Fletcher, Josh Matlow and Jim Karygiannis.

"I’m convinced the raison d’etre for these windbags is to promote their pro-union, anti-car, free-spending, addict-enabling, transit-obstructing, anti-white virtue signallers wherever else they can."


Here's the original second paragraph....

"I’m convinced the raison d’etre for these windbags is to promote their pro-union, anti-car, free-spending, addict-enabling, transit-obstructing, anti-white supremacy oppression agendas wherever else they can."

Picturing: A Shoe Over Grass

Photo Graph: Concrete Mix

History's What It's Cracked Up To Be

"Go ahead, sir. I'm in no rush."

My offer went appreciated but ultimately rejected.

The bloke explained his position: "I'm in no rush, either. There's no Leafs game to watch tonight."

I told him that I'm old enough to have remembered the last Toronto Maple Leafs Stanley Cup victory had I seen it, but I was living overseas in 1967. My memory was in full swing by that point.

As I explained to the gent, "I could tell people that I saw the Leafs win the Stanley Cup". (What a claim that would be. With beer and pretzels.)

Then depression set in. That was a long time ago!

Sorry, Leafs fans. Fallen to the cracks of history.

A Canadian Conundrum

With now all too common severe flooding here in Canada and an electorate upset at a certain initiative intended to help the environment, comes a conundrum.

Let's deal with negative environmental change by fighting anything that costs us money.

There is a consensus among some Canadians that the ruling Liberals are losing favour primarily for implementing and promoting a "carbon tax".

"Tax!" rings the klaxon.

A Forever Question: That Team Sport

"Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question."

Sir. How can a boring sport be popular?

Thurston Howell's Line for All Time (Profanity Alert)

Summer, 1991.
Ontario Place, Toronto

I walked with a friend whom I'd known since high school. The grounds were flat, concrete based, a parking lot, and there were lots of people strolling in the beautifully warm sunshine.

We heard swearing of a kind commonly associated with foul-mouths. My friend and I stopped chatting and observed as a gaggle of teenagers approached. They were the origin of the profanity, which continued to roll-out in processional pomp as both parties closed the distance. The metal-head black t-shirts were cool and, unfairly perhaps, looked the uniform of the profane. More audible: "F__k (this), F__k (that); F__k!"

The swear squad passed to our right. I turned to my friend and said: "Must be a Yale man."

My buddy, all too well knowing my reference, laughed out loud. (He's a loud laugher.)

As I looked back to my path ahead I noticed a hand-holding, cute older couple who were looking back at me and smiling.

Note: Guns N' Roses was playing that day at the CNE Grandstand....not that that was an indicator of profanity in the park.

News and Editorial

A new Leger poll commissioned this month by The Canadian Press shows that just 27 per cent of respondents would vote for Justin Trudeau and his Liberals if an election were held today. Andrew Scheer and his Conservatives would grab 40 per cent. One question asked if Canada would be better off with a Liberal or a Conservative government: 30 per cent picked the Liberals and 25 per cent the Conservatives. What is of more interest to me is the way the above news was editorialized: "Not good news for Trudeau with the election being just six months away."

Just six months away? That's a lifetime, or two, in politics. The switch gets flicked back and forth and around many times in "just" six months. By way of example, during the last federal election here in Canada, which Trudeau and Co won with a majority government, polling done just a few weeks before the big day showed the Conservatives were positioned to glide to victory. We don't know until we know.

I suppose I should be asking who owns 680 News....

I Marvel at the Choices

As I've stated here previously, I have not seen a narrative film in a movie theatre since March of 2010. The flick was Avatar. A one-dimensional film stretched to 3-D. I don't know what was more irritating, the conversion specs or the narrative itself. It left me cold; whatever "it" was.

A few months back, the month now unknown, I checked the movie listings here in Toronto: "A Marvel Movie." Not long after that, a length of time now lost, I decided to take another shot at the escalator: "Another Marvel Movie." The cycle again: "Yet Another Marvel Movie."

Bloody Marvellous!