Note - as this is not an official Leaf of the Day post I reserve the right to re-use Jim Pappin at a point of my own choosing for whatever nefarious purpose strikes me as a good idea at the time.

My baseball reading this past summer was Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer.  It had been on my to-do list ever since I reacquired Jack Batten's The Leafs in Autumn and saw that it was among his inspirations. 

It's a masterwork.  I don't know how to describe it otherwise.  While I love The Leafs in Autumn, Kahn's work has a whole extra dimension to it because he relates to the team not just as a fan, but as an insider.  He worshipped the Dodgers growing up, covered them as a young man and now rejoins them twenty years later. The writing is spectacular, drawing you into every aspect of his and the players' lives and the relationship between them.  If you only have time for one sports book, this should be it.  (Thus ends the book report.  Sales is not my job.)

I mention this book because there was one little event in it that has stuck with me from the moment I read it.  A young Roger Kahn has just been assigned the Dodger beat and is now meeting not only the players he will cover but also the writers from competing papers - the people he'll be working with and against.  Dick Young, already a legend in New York sports reporting, sits Kahn down over a drink and gives him three pieces of advice.  The first two obviously weren't that compelling because I can't remember either of them.  The third, though, gave me pause and thus ensured that I remember it.

"Don't be so damned sure."

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The Blue Jays were fabulous. We told our children to cherish the back-to-back titles in 1992 and 1993* because it might never happen again. They scoffed. The folly of youth. Now they are young adults wondering if they’ll ever see a hockey parade up Bay St.  -- Royson James, the Toronto Star

* Editor's Note: Hilariously, this originally read "1991 and 1992" which is all you need to know about James' sports knowledge (ie nil).

Obviously, I should never take any time away for any reason.

When I left, the Leafs were comfortably settled into the second-longest active Cup drought - protected, as always, by the ever-vigilant Chicago Blackhawks.  The Hawks had heroically given Leafs fans an out for almost 15 years, since New York and Detroit ended their own droughts and left just us and the Hawks as the last of the Original Six still standing. 

Now, naked and alone, it's us.

Well, not so much alone exactly, though apparently it's considered poor form to mention it.

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Much ado is being made today about the fact that Paul Henderson's 1972 Team Canada sweater is up for sale.  As of the moment I write this, the auction stands at $131,138 with just under 25.5 days to go.  I think this one gets pricey.  Actually, I think it's pricey already.

This isn't a case of a former star selling off a treasure because he's short on cash.  The next owner of this sweater will actually be the fourth.  Henderson originally gave the sweater to the Team Canada trainer, Joe Sgro, and Joe sold it some time later to the collector who's selling it now. 

I'd love to see this somehow or other wind up in the Hall of Fame, but so long as it's not cut up to put into a hockey card, it's all good.  (That actually happened to the one documented pair of George Vezina's goalie pads.  That's bloody sacrilege.)

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Aside from being absurdly busy on all fronts of late, I've also been struck by a case of writer's block about the size of my grandmother's old Pontiac Laurentian.  (For those who never heard of/saw such a car, they were stinkin' big.  Comfy, though.)

It's got to the point where if I don't break it with something, I have no idea when I'll write anything again.

I had started down the road of the great Leaf teams of the 1940s - the ones that set the standard for every champion between 1942 and 1967 - and how they came to be what they were.  I'll probably still tangle with that.  Just not yet.

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A while ago, back in the days when #3 was worn by Garnet Exelby and the Leafs were staring down the barrel of three games against New Jersey, John Fischer of In Lou We Trust had the following exchange with PPP:

Q. You guys are top of your division. Again. No matter what happens the Devils keep near the top of the NHL. Why is that?

A. The answer is simple: Lou.  Management starts from the top and Lou Lamoriello has established a set philosophy for the team, he keeps close tabs on what the roster does and does not need, and he has high standards for everyone involved.  Whereas other GMs in the league tend to follow trends, staying the course and building the roster around the principles of defensively responsible, transition-based hockey has made it such that the team is always competitive and therefore a desired place for players to play.  If someone can fit in, then where they developed, how big they are, or other such metrics aren't so important.  Likewise, if you're not willing to adapt to the Devils, then you will not last in New Jersey.  While not every decision he makes or deal he signs is perfect, few can honestly say they have a good of a grasp on what the team needs both in the short-term and long-term.

I grabbed that and saved it right away. 

Why?

Because if you take that statement and backdate it anywhere from 40 to 70 years ago, that is as eloquent and succinct a description of the championship Leafs teams as anything I've seen.  By and large, if you get what John is saying about the Devils, then you basically understand the Leafs.  (It also ties a little bit with why I feel Burke is actually building the classic Leaf team, but that's a post for another day.)

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Back in December, an article appeared over at thehockeywriters.com that purported to be a comparison of Leaf and Hab fans.  In the end, it was just a thinly-veiled spin of the old "Habs have a 'winning tradition' and therefore the fans don't accept mediocrity" blather.

There was a moment of interest in the notion that the French/English dynamic in Montreal was somehow reflected in this fan experience, but that never seemed to get beyond the point that some Montreal players were, in fact, English.  At no point was it ever really shown that this was a) by design or b) relevant.

What really irked me was this:

If you go deeper into the statistical analysis using the annually updated "NHL Official Guide and Record Book", it’s easy to uncover the underlying reasons for the greater number of cheering opportunities that lucky Habs fans have enjoyed from the start. As of 2009 and in exactly the same number of games played in all-time NHL history (5,874), the Canadiens have scored 19,284 goals. Over the same all-time period, Toronto has scored 18,189 times. Not even close. The Canadiens have won 3,021 regular-season games, the Leafs 2,569, a significant difference. The Canadiens have had better goaltenders, as evidenced by the incomparably higher number of Vezinas in the trophy cabinet. They’ve had better defensemen, as indicated by the Canadiens’ ten Norris trophy wins compared to zero by the Leafs. In fact, they’ve had more star players in virtually every category.

Now, if you really get into the numbers, a lot of this comes off as absurd. 

The "not even close" goal total?  The difference between the two teams is 1095 goals.  Sounds like a lot, but that's taken over 91 seasons.  It works out to a difference of 12 goals per year.  If you prefer, it's the difference between a team that scores 3.29 goals per game and a team that "only" scores 3.10. 

The win difference works out to just less than five per season.  Now, five wins is ten points, even in Gary Bettman's NHL.  That's significant, isn't it? 

Well, yes and no.  Let's look a little further into it. 

The truth of the matter is that virtually the entire win discrepancy boils down to one factor:

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"History is written by the victors." - Winston Churchill

(Not everything I write will come from Holzman and Nieforth's Deceptions and Doublecross: How the NHL Conquered Hockey - actually, quite a bit doesn't - but it's a good bet that this book will have influenced it.  Seriously - go get a copy and read it.  It's good.  Wikipedia is also your friend.)

 Karma

One of the striking things about the whole move to oust Eddie Livingstone and the Blueshirts from the NHA is how little most of those involved profited by it.  Virtually everyone involved in the process was out of professional hockey in very short order.

The most dramatic case involved Sam Lichtenhein, owner of the Wanderers and Livingstone's most vocal foe.  His team survived just six games into the NHL era.  The Wanderers had been suffering at the gate for a while, completely outcompeted by the Canadiens.  With Livingstone out, it's possible that the other owners began to take particular notice of how difficult Lichtenhein was to get along with.  For whatever reason, his pleas (or more accurately, his imperious demands) for help all fell on deaf ears.  He would stick around to vote on NHA matters, so long as it meant stopping Livingstone from getting anything started, but he'd never be a factor again.

George Kennedy of the Habs got sick in the flu epidemic of 1919 and was never really healthy again.  He died in 1921.  The Canadiens are apparently still playing.  Now, it seems to me that it's got to be close to 100 years since that franchise was founded.  You'd think they'd have mentioned it.  Odd.

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"History is written by the victors." - Winston Churchill

(Not everything I write will come from Holzman and Nieforth's Deceptions and Doublecross: How the NHL Conquered Hockey  - actually, quite a bit doesn't (save for these last couple installments) - but it's a good bet that this book will have influenced it.  Seriously - go get a copy and read it.  It's good.  Wikipedia is also your friend.)

----

Heading into 1918-19, the NHA was in almost the exact same place it had been a year earlier.

The NHA, of course, hadn't really ceased to exist when the NHL was formed.  They simply hadn't played.  The NHA still had a lawsuit before the courts with respect to the $3000 bond that they wanted to claim from the 228th Battalion.  If the league disbanded, this would be lost.   They continued to hold meetings, attended by representatives of each team.  This included the Wanderers, who had otherwise ceased to exist after their arena had burned down, and the Blueshirts - still run by Livingstone.

The NHL was never meant to be the permanent league.  The NHA was supposed to be back in business once Eddie Livingstone had sold off to someone easier to deal with (read: someone who wouldn't call the other owners out on their misbehaviour - perhaps the Montreal-based owners of the Arena Gardens).  Once that happened, they could fold the new league, go back to being the NHA and everything would be sunshine and roses.

And yet here they were.  Livingstone hadn't gone away.  He still owned the Blueshirts, the one-year lease agreeement with the Arena Gardens was over and the NHA had itself a problem - well, a couple of them.  These were new ones to go on top of those they already had.

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