Headley Talks

It may be a new season, but it’s the same old litany of disappointments. More than two and a half weeks into the 2009-2010 National Hockey League campaign, the Maple Leafs are still looking to christen the schedule with their first win.

A break in play is temporarily relieving them from ridicule. The ‘dope show’ resumes Saturday. The Leafs will fly into Vancouver where they will try their hand at losing in a different time zone.

I hope they’re ‘down’ for the challenge. After all, if you can fail in ‘the big smoke’, then bottoming out on the west coast shouldn’t be a problem. I’m just thankful that despite the time change, the game is being played at 7:00PM. I’m getting old, but I wouldn’t want to go to bed before witnessing another Maple Leaf slaughter. The question is no longer ‘will they lose?’ It’s by how much?

A few suggestions for Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment:

1. Don’t attempt to provide Leaf Nation with hope in the off-season. That whole John Tavares thing? The Buds never get the pretty girl! Now Colton Orr, there’s a player who is more your speed. You haven’t won in over forty years so stop pretending you have standards.

2. Change the name of the franchise. It’s sad enough that you’re an awful hockey team. You don’t need to be grammatically incorrect too. It’s ‘maple leaves’, not ‘maple leafs.’ What elementary school dropout started this racket anyway? Maybe you would be more successful if you played against the New York Raingers or the Dallas Starz. Just because your fan base is loyal to a fault, it doesn’t mean you have the right to turn them into a mob of illiterate boobs.

3. Where do you get off making people pay to watch games on Leafs TV? No discerning male forks over hard earned money to see a grotesque woman in a peep show. Why would anyone in his right mind dish out additional cash to see the open mic night of the hockey world. Half of your roster looks like it won a Bud Light fantasy contest. I guess people used to attend freak shows, but then again, it didn’t cost hundreds of dollars to get inside the tent.

4. Take a marketing tip from the movie, Cool Runnings. If you’re going to lose big, it might be more interesting if you did it with a Jamaican hockey team.

5. Don’t attempt to inspire Vesa Toskala by hiring The Love Guru. Mike Myers was much more influential when he was Austin Powers. By the same token, Toronto’s goaltender was much better when he was Ed Belfour.

6. If you’re going to install real grass at BMO field, you might as well do it at the Air Canada Centre. Considering the fact the Leafs suck on the ice, it couldn’t hurt to try field hockey.

7. If you’re going to lose games by huge goal differentials, then you need to provide the fans with an alternative form of entertainment. When the team loses by five goals, the fans have not received value for their dollar. The players should be forced to perform the popular improv show, Who’s Line Is It Anyway? Imagine Tomas Kaberle hosting party quirks. Jonas Gustavsson shows up as a mad scientist and it’s all up hill from there.

By: Alex Headley

(The very Headley of, Headley Talks, the official blog of the National Hockey League)

Tags: Hockey, leafs, Sports

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Hockey, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.