The powers that be in Toronto have decided to take the odd and mixed blessing of a week’s downtime in an Olympics-compressed schedule and have a little fun with it. The Buds spent the week jumping from brooding high-paced practices where Ron Wilson mused about fights breaking out amongst frustrated teammates, to games of dodgeball and a cavalier three-on-three tournament where the first goal was to have fun.
If cheering up the sullen troops was the aim, then he certainly hit the mark. When the young team left the ice everybody to the man had that “can you believe they pay us to do this” grin pasted all over their mugs. The talking heads have smelled blood in the water all this short season and in the scrum they had to do a double take at this new devil-may-care coach preaching the gospel of serendipity.
Wilson can’t really get anymore red-faced at the troops than he has at this point; they’re all in the same boat wearing dunce caps and big red targets. There’s a real bad taste to the Toronto air and if this streak doesn’t turn itself around soon everybody in the club from the top to the bottom is liable to be found hanging from the ACC rafters beside that ’67 Stanley Cup banner. In a city that sways on the poles of hyperbole, a couple of practices spent maxin’ and relaxin’ is either going to look like a stroke of genius or a declaration of war. A win or two on the upcoming road trip could see the Leafs a transformed team come back from the edge of dead with a good head of steam, but with Phil Kessel still weeks away and both starting (though uninspiring) goalies banged up but good, the team will have to do it with heart where talent is waning. A loss on Saturday will make this the worst opening season in Maple Leaf history and you can bet more than a few fans would remember the week-long lock in at the rec center as a centerpiece of the failure.
Win or lose, a good chunk of Southern Ontario is looking at the 6 – 2 Coyotes (who as of this writing just popped an overtime winner against the Red Wings) and wondering about what could have been.
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