cent

Alec has asked me to add my two cents hereabouts from time to time, and I've agreed to do so with some trepidation.  For those of you who don't know me, I'm Junior, from Heroes in Rehab: the blog.  I don't want to step on the toes of any of the other contributors on the site, so I want to contribute something a little different from the others.  What follows is, at it turns out, a bit of a (lengthy, sorry about that) manifesto for what I hope to produce in the coming weeks for you all.  Some of it's even about hockey and the Leafs!  I don't really see my self as the Stuart Smalley of Leafs Nation, and the affirmations I offer will be far from daily, but...well, just read, won't you?

One lousy heart-stopping, craptastic win-that-almost-wasn’t against the Thrashers Predators (update: oops, thanks Nights, I'm an idiot.  Stupid interchangeable southeastern teams!).  One crummy “W” from a five game road trip through the Southeast, the division where NHL hockey goes to die.  The Maple Leafs can’t be happy with the way that worked out.  When the trip began ten days ago, it seemed obvious that the Leafs were expecting to get pasted by Ovechkin and the Caps (first clue: starting Vesa Toskala); after getting the better of Bruce Boudreau’s squad a couple of times earlier this year, it was essentially a foregone conclusion that the Blue & White would have the least amount of fun in a DC amphitheatre since Abraham Lincoln, and that’s exactly how it worked out.  But they had to be hoping for more out of matches against Dixie’s puck-playing tomato cans: Nashville, Atlanta, Tampa and Florida.

Of course we know now that it didn’t work out that way.  Much to the chagrin of the local populace, Ron Wilson, Brian Burke and the team have arrived home with only two points to declare at Customs.  As far as road trip expectations go, this is the equivalent of a “buddies road trip to Vegas” turning into “an insurance seminar in Peoria.” [more…]