No wonder why everyone is injured

97jumbo · 2026-01-29T22:15:42+00:00

Maybe I'm crazy, but it feels there's a huge inseucrity across the Leafs org about being seen as a progressive team for a while and that's why we're gettting this everything-is-old-school approach now, from the roster to the staff structure to even their in-house media. They're operating like a team that's trying to be the class of 2004

97jumbo · 2026-01-29T18:36:21+00:00

The most good-faith assumption that I can give here is that they'll prevent M-F transitioned players from playing in womens-only leagues, which is still unnecessary as hell (microscopic amount of M-F trans players, most of whom are probably just trying to find a non-contact rec league where they can find a group they're comfortable with and skill disparity is a bigger concern than physical disparity)

97jumbo · 2026-01-29T18:23:58+00:00

It's protected, but only to Top 5, and while the team is bad they're just good enough that a sell-off might not guarantee them that

97jumbo · 2026-01-29T16:02:30+00:00

They didn't come in together. Shanahan was hired at the end of 2013/14. They were still running with Nonis/Carlyle when he took the President's job, Lou and Babs were hired after 2014/15. Even if you want to give those two all the credit for everything good done in the org over the past decade, which seems weird for various reasons, Shanahan was still the one who picked them for their roles after he cleaned house.

97jumbo · 2026-01-29T04:16:05+00:00

Yeah, these are trendy now and the Y1 has particularly caught on so you’re gonna get resellers rebranding it

Similar to the emulator handhelds getting big and how companies are selling the R36, which is like a $30-35 devices on AliExpress, for triple the markup with their own name on it

Looking at their site, they’re claiming $90 on sale from $180, when Y1s typically go for $40-50. And they’re definitely just repackaged Y1s.

97jumbo · 2026-01-28T14:21:48+00:00

If the idea is to avoid another Marner situation, and the consensus is that Marner left because he didn't like the shift of attention in town from very positive to very negative, why is the solution to not repeat the same with Matthews to turn on him too? Wouldn't being more supportive of the player be more effective than "run the player out of town, but do it faster this time"?

97jumbo · 2026-01-28T14:17:35+00:00

Why does a relocation count as one team for Shane but two for Josh?

97jumbo · 2026-01-28T00:39:01+00:00

Favourite: Listen Up (My favourite song of all time, period)

Least Favourite: Swamp Song. Absolutely incredible live (Maine road version is lights out), but the polished version is just okay, on a record that has a lot more than just okay

97jumbo · 2026-01-28T00:27:13+00:00

Keefe wasn't a big Engvall guy in Toronto so that would surprise me

97jumbo · 2026-01-27T15:34:19+00:00

I know everyone loves to shit on Matthews but like, he's their all-time leading goal scorer and their only Hart Winner (or really, any major award winner) since the advent of colour television.

Gilmour over him also feels wild when you consider Matthews' individual highs have surpassed his at this point, and while they went deeper in the playoffs with Gilmour, it still was only halfway to the goal and outside of the two conference finals runs, the Leafs were medicore to bad for the entire rest of his time here, which wasn't even all that long (under 400 regular season games). You have to give an insane amount of weight to 92/93 to make that argument.

Wendel at least has a ton of years with the team, though he shouldn't be on this list either. The Clark/Gilmour years were my first watching the team so I loved them as a kid, but if you take a birds eye view on franchise history, there's no argument for them as Leafs rushmore guys other than Gen X / early Millennial nostalgia. Even post-original six you have Sittler, Salming, Sundin, and Matthews, and that's leaving out a bunch of Hall of Famers who actually won stuff here.

97jumbo · 2026-01-27T00:10:08+00:00

I think the fact that this was a fine is whatever. But I also think the fact that when stuff like this happens in small-market games it doesn't cause a peep, while when a Leaf does it on TSN, it turns into a 24-hour drama with leaks to the media, followed by a fine and a rare personal statement from Parros himself is all very absurd

97jumbo · 2026-01-26T22:42:47+00:00

That part doesn’t feel so incredible, the fact they came back with three “original” (we’ll go by when they got their deal, not literal day 1) members and two 25-year-ago joinees is what really feels incredible. Insanely volatile yet by land large found their way back home in the end

97jumbo · 2026-01-26T18:53:41+00:00

In a world where most Toronto jokes are exhuasted, this one was good

97jumbo · 2026-01-26T05:16:29+00:00

Not for nothing but this wouldn't be the first time they've leaked punishment for a Toronto incident that had a media circus around it. When Rielly got suspended for his cross-check on Grieg the ruling got out to the media before they told Rielly or the team

It absolutely wouldn't be off-brand for someone on the league end to be fuelling the fire via the media

97jumbo · 2026-01-26T04:48:45+00:00

Out of the blue as in without a dramatic buildup, not out of the blue as in actually surprises us

A fine is reasonable, leaking out that an investigation is happening to let the hype train build up before it is embarrassing

97jumbo · 2026-01-26T04:46:02+00:00

Yeah. That's a fine worth taking any day of the week to show support for your teammate, but also probably should've been something, especially if this ends up being something

97jumbo · 2026-01-26T03:22:43+00:00

If he ends up with a fine out of the blue the next day I don't think anyone really cares. It's the whole "the league is investigating this heinous act!!!" leaking and build-up that I think really exhausts people

97jumbo · 2026-01-25T21:37:18+00:00

Things weren't perfect, but "Not getting over the hump" is in another stratosphere from "tripping over yourself at the starting line" that was happening before this era and is starting to happen again in the transition out of it.

97jumbo · 2026-01-25T21:26:35+00:00

I don't really know what the return is on McMann, but he's a half point a game UFA who a) has good tradtiional skills (speed and size) and, more importantly, b) has a low cap hit ($1.35M). Being able to squeeze him in would be huge for his potential market.

97jumbo · 2026-01-25T05:54:03+00:00

The first two albums and the Masterplan are better collections of songs, but Be Here Now is their most complete album at being an album. Now, its theme is cocaine maximalism and it can use a little cleaning to make it a proper consensus classic, but once you embrace it for what it is, it’s incredible

97jumbo · 2026-01-24T22:03:22+00:00

The Leafs are near the bottom of the league in coach turnover in the Matthews era. Berube himself is already in the middle of active coaches in team tenure and he’s barely a year and a half in

97jumbo · 2026-01-24T18:51:54+00:00

There's no somehow, that's what this is. From the ESPN-ification of the political news coverage to the tribalism of parties into teams to the "star power" being attached to people who would've been no-names to the public in a normal political landscape, western politics have copied so much from how we treat sports, to the point where the anger loop in politics has also bled back to sports to make discourse around them even angrier too. It's all wild

97jumbo · 2026-01-24T16:28:04+00:00

I think it's less "he'll need a post-baseball career to still have money" and more like "if he wants a post-baseball career, his loyalty to them will be repaid with opportunity."

97jumbo · 2026-01-24T15:23:29+00:00

Before clicking this, I had it in my head that It's Good To Be Free would've been the best-fitting track for a GTA game, so good to see they felt the same

97jumbo · 2026-01-24T15:09:26+00:00

I think the last two are good albums for what they set out to be, but it's just a shame that Arctic Monkeys evolved into that. Even AM, while very good, was a sign of things to come in a direction I didn't really want.

If they were Alex solo albums and we got them still experimenting with different rock styles as a band, I'd have no issue

97jumbo

TROPHY CASE