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Hockey Widow wrote:Help is on the way. Booth assigned to Marlies for conditioning stint.

Topper wrote:Did the NFL send a Lynch mob to teach media relations to the Leaves?

The Leaves will keep Booth's rehab conditioning on a tight rope.

For a brief moment there was some hope that everyone involved with the Toronto Maple leaves latest self-made debacle – which is to say, the leaves players who cooked up their petulant plan to forgo their traditional post-game fan salute – would come to their senses and do what thinking people do when they realize in the cold light of day what they did in the heat of the night was dumb.

Or ill-considered. Poorly thought out. A petty gesture carried out without proper consideration of the message or the consequences of the message.

That was the hope as the team met behind closed doors after practice Friday.

But it didn’t last long to be dashed. It didn’t take long to realize this edition of the Toronto Maple leaves is as flawed off the ice as they are on the ice; that the same athletes who can’t quite pull themselves into the mainstream of the NHL playoff conversation are so tone deaf and bunkered that they can’t grasp how deep a hole they’re digging for themselves.

The meeting was merely to figure out who was going to come out and carry the water for their collective charade. Then the dressing room doors opened and the leaves leadership group took turns reading from the same hastily prepared script, basically asking people to believe that A) not saluting the fans was not a snub directed at their fans and B) they can’t believe anyone would take it that way.

Seriously.

Put another way: there are only two possible reactions when the leaves captain – backed by his robo-answer teammates – says suddenly stopping their ritual of skating lazily to centre ice and half-heartedly raising their sticks to the crowd was simply an effort to change their luck.

One is that they’re not quite bright enough – dumb is a harsh word – to understand what they were getting into. That stopping thanking the fans after a week in which they lost back-to-back games 15-4, were booed on home ice and jersey tossing became a thing could only invite the interpretation that players were getting a bit pissy about how they were being treated at home.

The other is that they’re not telling the truth – again lying sounds so much worse – and they’re arrogant enough to believe that as long as they cling to their flimsy version of the facts tightly enough, people will believe it.
In either case, it’s as good an example yet that the leadership group of this team doesn’t quite get it. At all.

How simple all this would be if someone – let’s say Phaneuf – emerged and told some version of what can only be the truth:

That upon reflection, choosing their first win at home after two nearly historic losses – 6-2 to the lowly Buffalo Sabres and 9-2 at the ACC to the Nashville Predators – as the moment to stop doing their fan salute was a bad idea, and we apologize.

The reality is this is not that big a deal. No one really cares about the salute and if they never do it again, it won’t matter.

... choosing to [stop saluting the fans] the first time you win after one of the most embarrassing home losses in recent memory is absolutely the wrong time.

Still everyone makes mistakes; people, parents; hockey teams.

But in all cases it’s not the lie that gets you in the end. It’s the cover-up.

rats19 wrote:I just hope it doesn't get so bad...I feel legitimately sorry for them..

So far so good..

Strangelove wrote:

rats19 wrote:I just hope it doesn't get so bad...I feel legitimately sorry for them..

So far so good..

Hmmm.... I do believe that makes you an "asshole" bro.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/11/21/wh ... s-thinking

But then came the ill-fated decision not to salute the fans.

Look, if the players figure people are coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs for blowing “Salute-gate” out of proportion, that’s their prerogative. What the team’s so-called leadership core is guilty of, however, is not having the streets smarts to know that, rightly or wrongly, this incident was going to blow up the way it has.

Rip the media for reporting it if you want, but comments citing outrage over “Salute-gate” lit up Twitter immediately after the game, long before it appeared on a blog or the web or TV highlights.

These were the fans speaking, not the media.

The same fans who have seen just one playoff series in 10 years.

The leadership core should have seen this coming.

dangler wrote:.................maybe deliberate controversy to take attention away from the recent big losses and shake things up

Hockey Widow wrote:Kessel is the real cancer on that team. He is a lazy selfish cry baby. As snipers go, his will be a short career. He doesn't have the work ethic or ability to adapt his game as his skill set diminishes. See Heatly, Yashin, etc etc etc. he has no idea what leadership is. That team needs Mark Messier fast

okcanuck wrote:I will never feel sorry for the Laughs. They've brought it on themselves. Since 1967( were talking almost 50 years folks) the Leaves have been a complete disaster. It looks good on that city. Bunch of complete arrogant assholes. I spent 6 months in TO in the late sixties easily the worst 6 months of my life. Centre of the universe? Fuck that!!! Toronto is the asshole of North America