A NEW LEAFS - SAME OLD LEAFS

I'm getting a bit of a kick out of how some in the Toronto press, and certain fans from the third-world country of Leaf Nation, think that the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey club is building towards a bright future: They have a good team of young guys who will find their legs and fall into synch with one another next year, or the year after that, and skate to the ultimate prize; after all, they almost 'did it' this year.

No. (I've been hearing that line above since 1971. The current key word is "Randy Carlyle".)

It doesn't work that way anymore, at least not in the National Hockey League; I don't know what the score is for other team sports here in North America. NHL clubs 'almost win the cup' or 'almost make it to the finals' each and every year, of course. But, the year after, they fall to the bottom or out of playoff contention. Even worse than that, teams that win the coveted cup one year are basically AWOL the next. It's rather strange.

There are also no winning franchises anymore: The days of Toe Blake and Scotty Bowman running their respective Montreal Canadiens rosters, and later, Glen Sather guiding his Edmonton Oilers, to a stream of multiple Stanley Cup victories are long gone.

As I like to say: In the off-season a big red button is pressed, by whom, we do not know; the Dymo Label above the button says "Reset".