Great Obscure Moments in Leafs History - That time Pat Quinn screwed up the lineup card during a playoff game

In his defence, he did write "overrated waste of money"
so the officials should have known who he meant.

Great Obscure Moments in Leafs History - An ongoing series to honor the greatest, completely meaningless moments in Toronto Maple Leaf history.

Imagine that you're the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs…

Wait! Stop crying. We're not done with the hypothetical yet.

Imagine that you're the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and it's about ten years ago. See! Much better. It's before the salary cap, the team is good, and you're in the playoffs every year.

In fact, imagine you've got a big playoff game coming up this very night. In the final moments before the teams take the ice, what do you need to do?

As best I can figure it, as coach of the pre-lockout Maple Leafs you basically have five jobs:

• Remind everyone not to bother ever coming back past the red line and helping Curtis Joseph in any way
  
• Double-check the line combinations to make sure Mats Sundin isn't playing with anyone good
  
• Tape the emergency ketchup packets to Tie Domi's forehead (Ottawa Senator games only)
  
• Stop by Richard Peddie's office to meet the candidate he's interviewing for the GM's job and wonder how they both managed to get their ties stuck in the fax machine
  
• Make sure you've successfully completely the incredibly simple task of filling out the lineup card correctly
  

Could you handle all of that? If so, you're one up on Pat Quinn, coach of the Maple Leafs squad that faced the New York Islanders in the opening round of the 2002 playoffs.

Read the rest of this post...

Road woes: NHL players vs. moving vehicles

Tragically, the YMCA sing-along
never got past "Y".

Last night's game against the Islanders gave Leafs fans their first chance to get a look at Brendan Witt since he was run over by an SUV on Tuesday.

But while the incident was unique in that it was the first time a news story included "Brendan Witt" and "hit" but not "elbow" and "pending suspension", it wasn't all that unusual. NHL players haven't been having much luck when they step out onto the street these days.

Here's a look back at some of the recent incidents and near-misses involving NHL players and moving vehicles:

The victim: Kyle Wellwood
The incident: Narrowly avoided high-speed collision with twin brother during moped ride.

The victim: Shane Doan
The incident: After a tough loss, stepped out into street and was hit by one of the several dozen moving vans that circle the Jobing.com Arena at all times.

The victim: Andrew Raycroft
The incident: Was so upset after a tough loss that he jumped in front of the team bus -- but it went through his legs! Literally. The force of the impact evaporated his legs. Oh god, it was horrific!

The victim: Jonathan Cheechoo
The incident: Stopped too suddenly at a red light; was rear-ended by the hearse that follows him around carrying his goal-scoring ability.

The victim: Zdeno Chara
The incident: Carelessly stepped in front of a speeding commuter train, causing massive damage to the train and slightly wrinkling his dress shirt.

The victim: John Ferguson Jr.
The incident: Chased a ball into the street and was nearly run over by the short bus that takes him work every morning.

The victim: The Philadelphia Flyers
The incident: Various players suffered bruises after bumpy ride to airport caused by team bus attempting to drive with John Stevens still stuck underneath it.

The victim: Kyle Okposo
The incident: Filed police report after being run over by speeding oil tanker. The charges were withdrawn after a review of the video determined it was actually just Dion Phaneuf.

The victim: Steve Tambellini
The incident: After reviewing the team's salary cap situation during his first day on the job, briefly considered jumping in front of the Brinks truck that will be delivering Shawn Horcoff's paycheck for the next six years.

The victim: Jaroslav Halak
The incident: After a pre-season victory, was nearly struck while leaving the Bell Centre after inexcusably forgetting to always look both ways for cars in case the rioters have thrown a flaming one at you.

The victim: Bill Berg
The incident: Run over by truck driven by Pat Burns, who nonetheless continued to not know who he was.

The victim: Jason Spezza
The incident: Carelessly stepped in front of a vehicle, causing it to swerve uncontrollably, plunge off of a cliff, and explode into a ball of flaming wreckage on the rocks below. Luckily, it was the Senators bandwagon so nobody was on board.

Thoughts on the Maple Leafs "90s Night"

Would I be a loser if I pointed out that
that apostrophe is unnecessary?

When I first heard that Saturday night was going to be "90s Night" at the ACC, I was thrilled. I mistakenly thought it was an indication that the Leafs were planning to try something new and actually record a save percentage in the 90s.

Apparently not. But after finding out that the night was actually intended to honor various Leaf teams and players of the 1990s, I was still excited. After all, there may not be a Leaf fan on the planet who's spent more time chronicling the various highlights of the previous decade.

For those that missed it: the Leafs honored the 90s by having the current roster wear jerseys of 20 different ex-Leafs during the pre-game warmup. They also brought out Felix Potvin, Bill Berg and Mark Osborne to drop the puck.

And while I can't find a full list of the 20 Leafs who were "honored" during the warmup, the list was apparently based on the results of a poll on mapleleafs.com. And while the fan participation angle is nice, the actual poll was... well, bizarre. Have a look.

Can anyone figure out the point behind dividing up the players that way? I suppose they wanted to avoid having fans vote en masse for the players from the 1993 team because... well, I'm not actually sure why that would be a problem, but it's the best guess I can come up with.

But have a look at group three for the forwards -- you're telling me that only two of Sundin, Andreychuk and Borschevsky can be part of the Leafs all 90s teams? Really?

And it gets worse: check out groups four and five. Yes, fans, you get not one but two chances to vote for Todd Warriner, Mike Johnson and Freddy Modin!

And while guys like Eddie Olcyzk, Kirk Muller and Darcy Tucker didn't even make the voting list, we did get beloved former Leafs such as Darby Hendrickson and Mike Craig. I'm amazed they overlooked Brandon Convery.

Anyways, I have no idea whether the online poll was actually used in the end or not. It just seemed strange that nobody caught those errors.

Some additional thoughts:

• At first I was going to criticize the team for not spending more time matching up the current and past players appropriately. I mean, Rick Wallin as Mats Sundin? But then I realized that we don't have any players worthy of wearing most of these guys' jerseys, so I felt better. And by "better", I mean "terrible".
  
  
• Wayne Primeau as Wendel Clark? Ugh. They should have just had the real Wendel Clark take the skate. And then stay on the ice and play on the first line.
  
  
• Ironic to see Mikhail Grabovski wearing Peter Zezel's jersey considering their respective faceoff skills. I'm pretty sure Grabovski would lose over 95% of his draws to Zezel. And not in their prime. I mean today.
  
  
• Speaking of which, MLSE couldn't have thrown me a bone and had Grabovski play Berezin, and Ponikoravsky be Modin?
  
  
• It was great to see Felix Potvin mentioned in the opening, and it was a brilliant move to use the occasion to replay his Hextall fight on the main scoreboard. I just wish Felix himself could have been there to take part in the ceremony. Anyone know why the Leafs invited his dad instead?
  
  
• How many Leaf fans do you think watched the game at a bar, a party, or for some other reason had the volume turned down and momentarily thought they were having a stroke? Toronto's 911 lines probably lit up for a good ten minutes.
  
  
• If you're going to a 90s night, why not go all out? You're telling me you couldn't have arranged for the anthem to be performed by Color Me Badd or Dee-lite?
  
  
• Finally, I loved the idea for the ceremony and thought the execution was solid. But is anyone else concerned that we're starting to get a little Habby with all the ceremonies lately? I like an occasional nod to history as much as the next guy. But as a rule of thumb, if you find yourself holding a pre-game ceremony that prominently features an appearance by Mark Osborne, you might be overdoing it.

Remembering Peter Zezel

Terrible news today, as Peter Zezel has lost his long battle with a rare blood disorder. Zezel passed away today at the age of 44.

Zezel played for seven teams in his NHL career, and was one of my favorite Leafs from the 1993 and 1994 teams. While he never put up much in the way of offensive numbers in Toronto, he was a tenacious worker and defensive specialist. Together with Bill Berg and Mark Osborne, Zezel formed arguably the best checking line the Leafs have ever had. Zezel was the best defensive center on those Leafs squads, which is saying something considering those teams also featured a Selke nominee in Doug Gilmour.

During the Leafs' deep playoff runs in 1993 and 1994, Zezel took just about every important defensive zone faceoff. While I don't have the stats in front of me, I'm fairly sure that he won 100% of them, despite never touching the puck with his stick. Zezel was the master of tying up an opponent and then working the puck backwards with his skates, not surprising given his talent for soccer (at one point during his Leafs stint he also played for the North York Rockets, making him one of the few Canadian athletes to play two different sports professionally).

While the Wendel Clark trade was the big off-season news of 1994, the loss of role players like Zezel and Bob Rouse did almost as much to spell the end of that Leaf team's run as a contender. Fifteen years later, the Leafs still haven't found a player to fill Zezel's faceoff specialist/defensive center role.

Other random memories:

• His appearance in "Youngblood". Seriously, he's was in there. Even has his own IMDB page.
  
  
• His thick neck, combined with a hunched over skating style, which made him the easiest Leafs player to impersonate. If you were a kid who played road hockey in the early 90s and you didn't get to be Wendel or Dougie, you could count on a laugh if you declared yourself Peter Zezel and then played a shift with your ears between your shoulders.
  
  
• His key role in the Leafs elaborate pre-game ritual which would see the entire team gather around Felix Potvin's crease to offer the goaltender glove and stick taps. As each player left the crease they'd bang fists with Zezel, who stood twitching nearby until he was the last player remaining. At that point, he'd charge in a deliver a two-handed slash to Potvin's pads before sprinting off the ice. I always liked to imagine that the mild-mannered Potvin had absolutely no say in the conception of this ritual.

Send out some good thoughts to Peter Zezel and his family today.

Down Goes Osborne

Mark Osborne
Pre-crushing defeat

There may not be a fan alive who loves the 1992-93 Leafs more than I do.

Now that's a bold claim, but I think I can back it up. After all, I'm the guy who wrote this. And this. And this and this and this. I named my blog after a long-forgotten fight from that season. I once showed my future wife a game-used Bill Berg stick to try to impress her. My infant daughter learned to identify Wendel Clark in photos before she recognized her own grandparents.

And please note that I didn't say I "loved" that team. No past tense. I still love those guys. Every one of them.

And that's why it's so difficult for me to publicly humiliate one of the members of that team.

Here's the deal: The Score has organized a "bloggers vs. experts" challenge that will see their Sports Federation bloggers go head-to-head with their Hardcore Hockey Talk experts to see who can do the best job of predicting the playoffs.

And I'm calling out Mark Osborne.

Now make no mistake, I plan to win the entire challenge. I mean, who's going to beat me, Al Strachan? But like a crazed Patrick Roy during a minor scrum, I'm skating out to center ice and singling out the one guy I want.

It's you and me, Ozzie.

Visit Fantasy Hockey Scouts for the full details of the challenge. You can see my picks here. Osborne's are here.

As you can see, Osborne and I had the same picks in the series that opened last night, except for one: I have the Penguins, he has the Flyers. In other words, I'm already stomping him. If he wants to just concede defeat now, I'd be fine with that. If not, then it's going to get ugly.

Down Goes Brown vs. Mark Osborne. Stay tuned for updates through the post-season¹.

¹Unless I'm losing, in which case you'll never hear about this again.

92-93 Trivia: The answers

Thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations to General Borschevsky, eyebleaf, The Meatriarchy and mf37 for being the first to come up with various correct answers. (If you missed the original post, click here.)

#1 Who scored the goal that gave Gilmour a record-tying sixth assist in one game?

Good old Dave Ellett. Joe Bowen's call was classic (aren't they all?)

#2 In the late stages of game two against the Wings, and well on their way to a 2-0 deficit in the series, the Leafs showed some fight during a mini-brawl that featured Doug Gilmour taking down Bob Probert and Bob Cole's famous call "and oh, we're going to have a donnybrook here". Which Leaf threw the series of sucker punches that started the fight, and who was his (deserving) target?

It was the normally mild-mannered Felix Potvin, who drilled superpest Dino Ciccarelli to touch off the rumble. This was the first indication that Felix wasn't the pussycat we all thought he was. Of course, years later Ron Hextall would confirm this theory the hard way.

#3 After Borschevsky scores the goal to eliminate Detroit, who's the guy going crazy with the water bottle on the bench?

It's then-waterboy and current equipment manager Brian Papineau.

#4 Wendel Clark famously beat Bob Probert in a pair of fights during a December game at the Gardens. Other than the fights, what else was notable about that game for Probert?

It was Probert's first game back in Canada after a lengthy time when he couldn't come north because of his legal troubles. After this game, Probert immediately sent his lawyers back to court to ask that the ban be reinstated.

#5 Who was Pat Burns referring to when he made his infamous "I wouldn't know him if I ran over him with my truck" quip? Bonus question: what was that person's comeback?

Burns was referring to Bill Berg, who had just been claimed off waivers by the Islanders. The story goes that when Berg arrived in Toronto, he was asked what he planned to do first and replied "Probably find out where Pat Burns parking spot is".

#6 What classic Canadian rock song greeted the Maple Leafs before their first home playoff game in three years?

The Boys Are Back in Town, by Thin Lizzy. If the boys want to fight, you better let them.

(Update: This was also a trick question, since apparently Thin Lizzy aren't actually Canadian.)

#7 The day after Wendel Clark beat his face in, Marty McSorely appeared on the cover of the Toronto Star with a massive shiner. According to the headline next to the photo, who was "in the hangar, awaiting orders"?

Who else would be in the hangar but The Bomber?

#8 Which media member was honored with their own novelty rap song? Bonus question: according to the lyrics, "Lackawack, Cheektowaga, all through Buffalo, he's know as the ..." what?

It was play-by-play man Joe Bowen. In addition to referring to him as "the mic commando", the song had a chorus that focused on Bowen's call of a certain scrap.

#9 The Leafs used three different artists as anthem singers during the 1993 playoffs. Two regulars who alternated, and a third artist who made one disastrous appearance. Name all three artists.

I have to admit, I think I originally had this one wrong. I could have sworn that the Barenaked Ladies sang the anthem before Game Six of the Wings series. But I think I'm mixing up my anthems and General Borschevsky is right -- it was actually Pat Burns' favorite country band, the Good Brothers. In any event, they did a horrible meandering version of the anthem that killed the crowd and helped the Leafs get blown out.

The two good singers were Michael Burgess and John McDermott, although I would have also accepted "The guy from Les Mis" and "The Irish guy".

#10 Prior to Leafs/Kings game seven, CBC played an awesome montage of highlights from the series. The montage was set to the theme song from which sports movie?

Confession: I love sports montages. Back in the 80s and early 90s they were everywhere, and I loved it. These days you don't see them as often (although the amateurs on youtube are bringing them back). This one was one of my all-time favorites.

Anyways, the song here was theme from Hoosiers. You can hear it in this otherwise random youtube video starting at about the 1:15 mark.