From The Branches

Talking with some of the old guard around these parts, its become clear that a set of ground rules need to be established when it comes to posting, commenting, tweeting and blogging.  Now PPP has posted the rules of the road a few times; but I want to go a

Tonight at 8pm EST the PPP NHL10 Tournament is on. Up for grabs is a free copy of NHL11. Surprisingly, in the sign-up threads Chemmy, Skinnyfish and puckurgently all admitted that they suck. So this'll be the one and only time you can probably freely beat up

The following is what happened yesterday relative to the Leafs: The following are links to Leafscentric blogs from yesterday that didn't write a post speculating on the eventual Tomas Kaberle no trade: The following is a statement from Brian Burke on the Kaberle no trade: The hockey club

This time tomorrow morning, we'll have a solution to the "Tomas Kaberle Affair". I'm not even going to bother trying to think up anything clever or witty for today's FTB. We all know today is about one guy. If this is his

Come with me, and you'll be... in a world of pure imagination. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Birky and I'll be the Willy Wonka to your Charlie Bucket on weekends starting today.  Please keep both hands inside the

So yesterday I was summonsed to the local county courthouse for one of America's longest standing and most cherished traditions; jury duty! Lame, I know. the horror stories of jury duty are widely known and involve hours upon hours of tedious boredom as potential jurors await there fate

I would like to officially congratulate Jerry D'Amigo on signing his ELC, and welcome him to Toronto.  Jerry, if end up being the type of player that so many Leaf fans hope you can become, welcome to the kind of adoration that you can rarely find anywhere else.

I'm gonna just go ahead and say that I really don't care what happens with Kovalchuk or the other contracts under investigation by the NHL. Boring.... Can't there just be hockey games to watch already? I might be going stir crazy. T-Minus 4

There was one name in Leafs lore that popped into my head last night which noone has yet mentioned as a possible candidate for Mount Puckmore: Harold Ballard (my inspiration was the revelation on twitter that Jeff Marek literally dug Ballard's grave). Now I know we want Mount

It rained all weekend here in Vancouver, the first rain we've had in at least a month.  It was needed, there have been an incredible number of forest fires around the province, and downtown Vancouver was full of smoke last week.  But it was a summer weekend with

Well not literally right now as I write this, but whenever you're reading it.  I'm exhausted, I've been staying up way too late playing Zelda on my N64 and had an incredibly busy day yesterday (stupid busy day coinciding with Mt. Puckmore post :() so

I write this on a Thursday night after a day like so many others of late where absolutely jack squat is going on in the hockey world. Oh sure there's the ongoing Kovalchukzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Or the potential sale of the Phoenizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Or the cap situations of the Hawkzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, Flyerzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,

For today's FTB, I have few words. Yesterday, details about the Winter Classic was released, along with the jerseys. Quite quickly, twitter was full of McDonald's jokes regarding the Flames' jerseys. Honestly, I think these are even worse than the Habs' barber shop jerseys

August 3rd, 2010 will go down in history as being yet another day in which jackshit happened with regards to the Toronto Maple Leafs. That is all. The Leafs' Top 25 Under 25 Yakov Mironov ranks the Leaf prospects from 25 to 1. Mt. Puckmore? What about a Mt.

So for our long weekend, we took off to Harrison Hot Springs. It's a cute lakeside town about an hour and a bit from our place with super nice sandy beaches, a couple of decent hotels, and uh... that's about it.  There's only one

It's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. You now know what I'll be watching on TV ever night this week. If you don't like Shark Week, we cannot be friends. Links after you jump the shark: Leafs could use a modern day King Clancy

Since today is a long weekend up in Canada (WOOOO CIVIC HOLIDAY!) I'm gonna assume that the Canadians are away and this post will only be read by Americans.  So here are some guns, fireworks, grits and bombs.  And here are some links: * Defensive Contribution DoctorMyBrainHurts takes a

Ya you know me! As I kid I used to collect sports cards; like a lot of sports cards. I had binders and binders full of 'em. My prized possession was an autographed Teemu Selanne rookie card that I mailed to Winnipeg to have him sign. It was pretty

So did anyone from PPP here get some of those Fan First tickets yesterday?  There were some awesome pictures on twitter from Leafspace Monika, Chansler and a few others of the crowds forming at each location where tickets were being handed out.  If I still lived in Toronto I would&

Well, this day had to come. The European Jaunt has ended. Places were visited, pictures were taken, and much delicious food was consumed. Now I need to be home for a rest. Instead, I get to hammer out my Maple Leafs Annual piece (spoiler alert: the magazine's going

So right now, as I write this, I'm in a bad mood. Just kinda frustrated with everything, really. So I decided to take out this frustration on a favourite target of mine, Kevin Bieksa. I guess it starts at the fact that his appearance for the Canucks coincided

I had a fun but tiring weekend of paintball in rural Pennsylvania. Yes I went to a Wal-Mart while I was there, and yes the shoppers there looked like they were straight out of People of Wal-Mart. It was terrifying. So glad to be back in New England

I thought you guys might like an FTB for today, so here you go.  Not much to say, it's 25 and gorgeous outside so that's where I'll be.  Here's your links. * As we wait for the Kaberle move, Vintage Leaf remembers the

So who remembers back in the mid to late 90s when AIM released a bunch of "smart" bot accounts that you could "converse" with for a laugh? Good times had by all, let me tell you what. Well now there is a new smart chat bot

So this off-season, until recently, had been shaping up as one of the most painful, boring off-seasons I could remember.  Last year there was a flurry of free agent signings, interesting trades (I still can't believe the Habs gave up their best prospect for Gomez), and