Go Leafs Go - Fan Forum

[Kanada Kev]

Edited March 21, 2007 by Guest

[badams]

I was reading the paper this morning and the way they wrote about that fight I thought it was a classic.

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrring!!!

I once saw Booche fight a co-op student at Toys R Us in 1997. Now that was a classic

[Kanada Kev]

And from the stands it looked like this:

[Whitey]

I would not describe that fight as boring, in fact, it was very exciting to watch.

[Hal Johnson]

It wasnt the most entertaining fight ever, but given the circumstances, Belak did his part and that was what needed to be done, so it was awesome. Looked like for a second there he hurt his right hand real bad.

[djmelbatoast]

All right. The Leafs game is actually going to be on out here. :cool: Two games in one week, unheard of.

[Cully]

Fuck Yeah. McCabe did something!

[djmelbatoast]

Matty Stajan!!!

Yee-ha!!! :thumbup:

[Booche]

I hate all of you.

[Cully]

Holy shit.

[djmelbatoast]

Fuck.

[Booche]

I love all of you and I think you know why.

BUFFALO ROCKS!

[djmelbatoast]

At least I've got Vanek and Pominville in my pool.

[dave-O]

What an incredble game. Maybe not if you're a Leaves fan, but in terms of pure entertainment value, yes.

[SevenSeasJim]

Dear Toronto Maple Leafs, thank you for giving me an aneurysm. If you were here right now i'd piss in your shoes.

[Whitey]

Wow, what a game!!! I can't believe the Leafs found a way to lose that game. It was entertaining as all hell, and the Leafs, for the most part, played well. Man, is Buffalo fast. In the third, they made the Leafs look silly. Depressing game as a Leaf fan because I was already counting the two points. Let us have it today, we deserve it.

[djmelbatoast]

If they lose today, that's it.

[AD]

Lots of room on the Senators' bandwagon, if you're strong enough to cheer for a contender.

[SmoothedShredder]

Easy there grasshopper. Let the parasites finish them off.

[AD]

Yeah, they'd probably talk all through the games too, thinking they had tickets in the golds or something. And they'd talk about Tucker too.

[djmelbatoast]

Go Leafs!

Is it just me or does every line but Stajan's and Tucker's seem to be in slow motion?

[Kanada Kev]

Tucker still doesn't get his hat trick, but what a response to the demise from last night!!!

They played a great game tonight and Raycroft was SOLID.

Two totally entertaining games. Eight goals and 78 shots on net against the top team in the East??? Not too shabby.

I still can't believe that 5 teams challenging for those coveted playoff spots ALL won tonight. This is a fun race.

[misterh]

I'm heading to the game on Tuesday vs. Hurricanes.

I can't wait, the games are only getting more important.

I thought it was huge to bounce back from the choke on Friday night.

[Kanada Kev]

Damn! You get to go again? You lucky bastid

That NJ game last week I found out that I could have gone to. Woman at work got a pair of tix from a friend at 5:02p and I had high-tailed it outta here by then Serves me right.

Guess I'll have to wait until next year unless I get Miracaled

GO LEAFS GO

[AD]

Nice article on Mats Sundin from today's Star

It's taken a long time, unreasonably long. But Mats Sundin, in Toronto, is finally beloved.

If nothing more comes out of this season, there is that: Un-grudging recognition of his sublime talent and a place in the heart.

The evidence is there, every time the Maple Leaf captain takes a game-star pirouette, drenched in sweat and laudation. Every time he scores a goal, bringing him closer to franchise records, in many categories where he is merely stalking himself. Every time he has the puck on his stick, in the offensive zone, fighting through coverage with that remarkable strength, and the situation feels safe as houses.

How often has he brought the crowd to its feet? How frequently has he elevated the profile of lesser colleagues – and they've all been lesser – never making an issue of some of the chumps assigned to his flanks? And how many times have seasons ended where the failure wasn't his?

Sundin is the constant Leaf and, if he has anything to say about it, a forever Leaf.

At least now, the feeling is mutual, between player and public.

"Maybe, if you just hang around long enough, they come to love you."

He says this with a wry grin, to take some of the edge off, because he clearly feels a little silly discussing the subject. But he does get it; that affection has been stingier for Toronto's 17th captain than his predecessors, not so spontaneously extended, that it has evolved only with time and an expanding comfort zone on both sides.

"We all want to be liked," he said last week, between mouthfuls of a big-man lunch, accompanied by three prissy cranberry concoctions, no-alcohol. "When I scored my 500th goal – that was an amazing atmosphere. The reception was overwhelming.

"It's been different the last few years, a lot of it just because I've been around here for so long. But I think it's also because we're kind of in the same boat together. As much as fans have suffered all these years from not winning a championship, the players have too. I have. It's something we feel together."

Should this season come to naught, again, nobody will hurt more than Sundin.

Over the years, the big Swede has often appeared lacking, at least to his critics, in the leadership and dominance realms, a rap that has faded. In the dressing room, it was never true, although Sundin's blinkered vision occasionally rendered him unknowing to the Iago-like undermining of his authority by some teammates (Gary Roberts, come on down).

"He's our leader, simple as that," says Darcy Tucker, who, along with Bryan McCabe, Sundin describes as his closest confidantes on the club. "When he speaks, he has our ear.

"He really understands what it means to carry the burden."

If the fans didn't embrace Sundin with the ardour shown Doug Gilmour and Wendel Clark – a notion that Tucker rejects – it might be because this captain isn't quite the open book, a grade-school primer with pictures, that made the others so easily digestible.

"He's not complicated, he's just guarded," says Tucker. "I don't think he ever lets his guard down around the media. It's different when you guys aren't around."

Sundin has never been a supplicant for public affection and has, frankly, withstood an absurd amount of amateur psychoanalyzing since arriving in town, probed and scoped to death, most inquisitors puzzled as to whether he's all surface or too deep to plumb. Maybe it's the either/or theorem that's at fault.

"I'm a very uncomplicated man. I'm what I appear to be. I never try to put on a façade."

He's one of the few professional athletes who, when he says he doesn't read the sports pages, is telling the truth.

"It's not that I don't care. I just don't care about what it says in the paper. There are so many people who have opinions about you. What matters to me is what I do on the ice and I know exactly when I've had a poor game. I'm my toughest critic."

Sundin has become, a dozen years on, the embodiment of all good things Leaf-ian, if also a poignant symbol of what didn't happen over that period of servitude, vanquished aspirations and crushed hopes, perhaps not assertive enough with ownerships, failing to grasp the potency of his position.

It's been widely assumed that Sundin was the one who, last summer, urged GM John Ferguson to blow the budget on defencemen Pavel Kubina and Hal Gill. Not so, he insists.

"I never talk to John about personnel decisions. I never told him defence was the primary area to improve on. But I thought it was.''

In any event, if he were whispering entreaties in Ferguson's ear, why not ask for a power forward winger? In Toronto, Sundin has never enjoyed any wing yin to his pivot yang. "It doesn't matter who my wingers are. You look at the top teams and you need to have all four lines playing well to win a championship. The days are gone where you have two top lines. Even two top guys on one line – it doesn't work that way anymore.

"I'm not sure things would have been any different with different wingers.''

Still, one doesn't expect he'd say so, if he thought otherwise, not someone who names the reticent Joe Sakic as among the NHLers he most admires.

In off-the-record conversation, Sundin is startlingly open. But he's too cautious to dangle provocative statements or revelations for attribution. In that vacuum lies the perceived enigma of Sundin – a bit too phlegmatic, prone to clichés, emotionally elusive, no traction to comprehend what lies beneath.

When the questions veer towards the personal, he becomes palpably discomfited.

Some bare factoids: He's a bachelor-about-town after splitting with his Swedish girlfriend of seven years. "We just grew apart. It was a mutual decision. We're still good friends."

Not a cook, save for Swedish pancakes, he eats most meals out. Women, naturally, are drawn to the handsome stud, some more persistent in their pursuit than others. "Sometimes I get pictures in the mail, women in their underwear and phone numbers. I throw them out. That's not my gig. Let's just say, I like to have real relationships. I'm available.''

At 36, he remains a pro hockey anomaly, unmarried and without issue. "I'd love to have kids but it's got to be the right time. I hope I will feel it when the time is right, when the right person comes along."

In the meantime, he enjoys the company of his older brother's three children, who visit in the season, golfing and fly-fishing with the family in Sweden over the summers. He's close to his parents and siblings but misses Toronto when he's "home" and says he will always keep a place here, even when his playing days are over. The Rosedale mansion that famously went on the market last summer, leading to speculation about Sundin's intentions, is no longer for sale and he lives there alone.

"I've been in Toronto 12 years. It certainly feels like home.''

He's enough of an ersatz Canadian that he even thinks in English now.

Unlike other older players, with one eye on a post-career future, Sundin has no outside business involvements, hasn't even stopped to ponder that future. "Too busy. In the winters, it's always go-go-go. When you're done at the rink, it's just about re-energizing, especially when you get older. I don't want to do anything the rest of the day, just get some food in me and relax, watch a movie.''

It's gone largely unnoted but this is actually Sundin's last season as a sewn-up Leaf. Under terms of the Mats-a-million contract, next year is the club's option. There have been no discussions.

"They know my position. I don't want to go anywhere else."

At the trade deadline, there was talk – nothing serious – the Leafs would cash in their best asset, assuring a future in prospects while releasing Sundin from bondage so that he might have a real chance at the Stanley Cup final he's never experienced. Sundin maintained throughout that he was not looking for a change of venue.

"If I don't win a Stanley Cup, sure, I'll feel like I missed out on something, no doubt about that. But that's also the biggest carrot I can have. There's a lot of positives that come with not being satisfied. It's something I use to get energy. I see it as a great challenge, too."

Sundin has a no-trade contract, but says he would waive it if the Leafs asked. Have they ever? "No."

Take him at his word, then.

"The longer I'm here, the more I enjoy it. And I understand it. I understand that I'm at the end of my career. You appreciate it more because you know it's not going to last forever. Putting on the uniform of the Toronto Maple Leafs, going against the best players in the world, in the best league in the world, in front of the best fans in the world, a sold-out building every night.

"Maybe the fans can sense that too. How much I appreciate all this."