Well, they are who we thought they were. At first we were over-optimistic, then extremely pessimistic, then guardedly optimistic, and now it’s back to realistically pessimistic.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are not a good hockey team.
We knew this, ignored it, and paid the price of missing expectations. Playoffs, while a nice goal, was not a realistic jump-off point for a team in Year One Point Five of a complete rebuilding.
More after the jump!
Whether you’re a fan of basketball, hockey, football, or Ontario curling, the biggest sports news from the weekend was that I’m turning The On Deck Circle into a food blog. More specifically, the sight will now exclusively talk about Asiago Dip.
What can I say, I need to cash in on this Julie & Julia thing, similar to when I tried to cash in on Twilight by using my real name (Edward) for a while.
So…about this Asiago Dip craze…I mean, wild, right? The world is abuzz with questions about what the perfect mix of ingredients is, who the best chef is, what the best dipping tool is, etc, but we can all stop. The debate is over.
Geoff Frigault owns Asiago Dip.
Imitators shouldn’t even try. The world’s top chefs can try. The guy who invented Asiago Dip can try. Nobody will top Geoff Frigault’s Asiago Dip.
He mastered it Saturday night at a going-away party for him and Annie (Andrea…whaaaat?). It was the perfect blend of cheese, mayonnaise, artichoke, garlic, etc. True culinary fusion, and a true culinary masterpiece.
You bitches better recognize.
In addition, I stole the recipe and will be marketing the product in grocery stores shortly. Sorry Geoff, but a hustler’s gotta hustle.
In closing:
“Motherfucker, how come you didn’t tell me the cheese was so good??” – Arsenio Hall
Steve Nash, the greatest basketball player in Canadian history, also happens to be the man who has done the most damage to Canada’s sole franchise, the Toronto Raptors.
In honor of Bright Side of the Sun’s awesome Steve Nash Internet Day, several bloggers were asked to share thoughts, stories, and feelings on Steve Nash. I could have looked at the charity work, his developing comedic side, his two MVP awards, his role in the re-establishment of up-tempo basketball, and probably three dozen other angles (or more, as we’ll see tomorrow when Steve Nash Internet Day goes live). I couldn’t though. I couldn’t take an angle, couldn’t applaud his fledgling filmmaking or honorable community work, or even look at his obsession with another major sport, soccer, and what that could mean for his Life After Ball.
And that’s because there is one Steve Nash memory in my mind that resonates whenever I hear his name. He is one of my favorite players of all time, an icon in my country of Canada (and it kills me that he doesn’t play for our National team), and one of the best point guards in NBA history. Still, though, my predominant Nash quick-association-game answer is How Steve Nash Stole Christmas (kind of…it was a Christmas gift, anyway).
More after the jump!
A brief preview: “I have absolutely no interest in writing about the Raptors right now. If I did, I would write a Choose Your Own Adventure style column, or a Mad Libs column, similar to the following:
“__(curse word) __ (curse word) ___(curse word) Jay Triano ___ (curse word) defense ________ (curse word) polar bears ________ (curse word) OLIVER MILLER!!!”
And I’m sure everyone reading this has already wrote, spoke, or thought that sequence multiple times in the last few weeks. So instead, I’ve decided to put in just slightly more effort than the Raptors on the defensive end and offer a player-by-player First Quarter Bitch SlapEvaluation. Enjoy, and step back from that ledge, my friend.”
December is here just as quickly as November went (obviously?), and not without some all-too-familiar Maple Leaf sentiments. The Leafs are still in second last place in the NHL, still struggling to decide what is to become of overpriced veterans and/or underutilized youngsters, and still trying to keep one goalie healthy long enough to determine the least awfulbest starter.
That said, November was a much better month than October, both in terms of on-ice performance and reasons to be optimistic for the next four or five months of frozen agony. October brought a 1-7-4 record, November brought a 5-5-3 record, and the team sits at an uninspiring 6-12-7 overall (36.5% of possible points). Still, because of the NHL’s moronic insistence on rewarding teams for losing in overtime, the Leafs sit just seven points out of a playoff spot in the East. Don’t get it twisted, this is probably not a playoff team, but the realities of Bettman’s Hockey Funhouse are that teams can be pinned-to-the-bottom-in-cement-shoes for a long time and still float to the playoffs make a playoff run (see: St. Louis Blues, 2008-09).
More after the jump!
I recently read a piece on Kyle Korver discussing his impending return from injury, and why it was delayed. The piece said:
“Although he’d hoped to return in the coming days, Korver will have to wait a little longer. He said Thursday that Cybex testing showed he still has strength to regain in his hamstring and quadriceps following surgery.
As a result, Korver will cease court work for a week and focus on rebuilding strength in his leg. Korver said he would need to test at 75 percent to be “borderline” to play; his quadriceps was 70 percent and his hamstring 56 percent.”
To this point, I wasn’t really clear on what was meant by Cybex Testing. I had only vaguely heard of it from NFL Combine chatter, but the passage intrigued me. Here, it seemed, there was a scientific method in place for measuring the recovery of injured muscles and joints. Being the Sports Maven that I am, I had to do some research to find out what exactly Cybex Testing is, and what future potential it has for the sports industry.
More after the jump!
I have a new article up at Raptors Republic…it’s about Bosh again. This time, though, I’m analyzing his stay-or-go decision looking strictly at finances – I applied the NBA cap rules to all 30 teams, and adjusted for taxes and cost of living to see how many “real” dollars teams can offer CB4 this summer.
Here’s a tasty teaser:
“It is easy to get overexcited, as Raptor fans, about Chris Bosh’s performance through the first 12 games. There are reasons to be guarded, to be pessimistic, or to deem his success suspect thus far.
At the same time, it’s easy, as Raptor fans, to let his success thus far underwhelm you, to take the attitudes expressed above and use them to completely discount the tear that CB4 has been on.
Curiously, it’s a tough balancing beam for Raptor fans when Chris Bosh bursts out of the gate so hot, posting would-be career high numbers nearly across the board, dominating games for longer stretches than we’ve seen, and generally leaving fans asking for even more, especially late in games. After all, there are reasons to think Bosh won’t keep the pace up, reasons to think Bosh is guilty of the “contract year statistical inflation,” and, of course, the fact that the Raptors are 5-7 while Bosh has been lighting it up.
With all of that in mind I wanted to take a look at Bosh’s torrid start to 2009-10 and try to determine if it’s something he’ll be able to keep up moving forward, and how I should really feel about it as a Raptor fan.”
Since I last wrote, the Leafs have railed off three straight losses. I’m not sure why I’m surprised; perhaps, my concluding paragraphs last Tuesday were too optimistic, too hope-inspiring, effectively turning on the Blue-blinders that we as Leaf fans all too often adorn.
Upon closer reflection, it was the month as a whole that I was optimistic about, beginning with a “momentum” game against the Wild. The Leafs faltered badly, and followed up with a “measuring stick” type of loss to the Blackhawks and a “shoot me now” type of loss to the Flames. That is, the Leafs hung in there with a better Chicago team, but followed it up with a loss to Calgary despite severely outplaying them. This type of stomach-punch loss has been commonplace for Toronto this season, though this particular 40-22 shot advantage in a 5-2 loss was excruciating.
With last week’s intense face-slap now behind us, the Leafs sit at 3-10-5 and four points out of 28th in the league. While November could still be a promising month (Carolina is a must-win on Thursday, though), it might be time to shift our collective focus just a little bit, and appreciate a few smaller points to get over last week’s disaster.
More after the jump!
Idle hands are the devil’s playground, so they say. I guess, then, it’s good that I’ve been a little too busy (and under the weather) to write much in the way of coherent sports analysis the past few weeks. I say that, of course, because if I had wrote the latest Leafs’ update at the following times, the titles probably would have looked something like this:
October 25 (0-7-1) 8/82 of What We’ll Know: I Shouldn’t Have Come Back to Hockey Fanhood
October 27 (1-7-1) 9/82 of What We’ll Know: Holy F’N S! OMG They Won! ROFL BAHAHA I’ve Lost IT! GO LEAFS WHOOOO!
November 4th (1-7-5) 13/82 of What We’ll Know: As Much as I Hate a Point for an OT Loss, It Is Saving Toronto
As it is, today (3-7-5) the title is as above. Things are looking just a little bit brighter and more promising than a week or two weeks or three weeks ago. The Leafs have a few wins, haven’t lost in regulation in seven games (Is this worth boasting about? Yes.), and now sit tied for 28th in the NHL, with a chance to claim sole possession of 27th with a win tonight against the almost-as-lowly Minnesota Wild.
So what have we learned through 15/82 (18.3%) of the season?
More after the jump!
