When the Toronto Maple Leafs canned Paul Maurice as their head coach, they proclaimed to the world that everyone and their mother would die for the chance to coach the Leafs, and that it was a 'plum gig'.

Now, given that there are only 30 NHL head coaching jobs in the world, I guess it is quite special, to a degree. It's not like you can go to university, train to be an NHL Head Coach and expect to get that job.

Yet, I can't understand why any coach would ever want the job. You have to face the most intense media and fan pressure in the league, every single move you make or don't make gets dissected like a Biology 11 frog, and you know management and ownership won't give you quality players to work with.

Sean McCormick of Sportsnet.ca rightly called out the Leafs for their BS.

If it's so plum, then why is it that only three of the last 17 coaches in Toronto have ever coached another game in the NHL? That's not "plum," Dick, that's career suicide. And the statement was pure arrogance.

Is the job in Toronto "plummer" than being the head coach of the New York Rangers, an original six team, in what's commonly referred to as the greatest city in the world? How about the one in Montreal, where the head coach is charged with guiding one of the most successful franchises in North American sports history? Detroit anyone? Who on earth would want to work for one of the most respected and consistently successful NHL franchises over the past decade and a half?

The Leafs have yet to find a real GM, too, and it's not as if people have been beating down the doors to be a puppet of MLSE.

I know that I was a coaching candidate, I'd stay the hell away from Toronto. I don't care if there are only 30 such positions, it's just not worth the pressure and hassle, and it's pretty much guaranteed to end badly.

As is typical with the Toronto sports media, everyone and their mother has been rumored to be traded to or signed with the Leafs. The Leafs GM search? What name hasn't been dropped? Brian Burke, Dave Nonis, and now the NHL's Vice President of Operations, Colin Campbell.

From Dan Pollard of TSN.ca:

From everything I have been told the Leafs have not formally contacted Campbell to ask him if he would like to take over a senior hockey position with the team but that could very well become a formality once the hockey season ends. The Leafs have been doing their "due diligence" talking to people in the NHL and the league office about Campbell's work while he steers the on-ice product through the playoffs.

The Leafs like what they hear.

For one thing, I'd be suspicious about hiring somebody who pronounces their name like a body part that is used to empty the body of 'dirt'. Secondly, I'd be suspicious about hiring someone who has done as bad of a job as Colin Campbell has done as Gary Bettman's 'Sheriff'.

Let's see here ... Campbell's reign has seen the most inconsistent string of suspension handouts in league history, with most of us wondering if Colin Campbell simply spins 'The Wheel of Justice' to help determine what random number he'll assign to any suspension. Double-standards or no standards? With Colin Campbell, it is hard to tell, considering he seems to forget his own words quite easily.

It is just like the Leafs to scrape the bottom of the barrel, and it would amuse most of us if the Leafs actually hired the guy. Just when you think the franchise couldn't possibly be worse off, then 'stupid happens'.

Oh, Hockey Gods, please make it happen!

According to a report in the Toronto Star, Blake would welcome a trade if one came along.

"I don't know," Blake told the Star when asked if he wanted to return to Toronto.

"It's a long time from now until the beginning of the year. We'll see. It was obviously a frustrating year, the most frustrating year I've had in the NHL."

The Star asked Blake if he would put up a fuss if he were traded, he said: "Oh no, not at all, if that's the route."

I can't blame the guy. He had a frustratingly bad year that came along with a healthy dose of cancer. When you hear the 'C' word, hockey instantly gets put on the back burner. Add to it an organization in turmoil and a team that is lacking both a coach and general manager and it's not hard to see why Blake isn't exuberant about playing in Toronto. Heck, if I was him, I'd be on the next plane out. But that's just me. And heck, that would make for some great daytime TV -- something the Leafs are proficient at.

As a confirmed tech nerd, I like to count myself lucky to have become an adult in the kind of world that I only dreamed about as a child. In uplifting moments I'm grateful for all the awesome information technology that's transformed the world. Then again, in other small minded moments, I'm grateful for a lot of the mischief this same awesome technology has facilitated.

Case in point: Carey Price, Pension Plan Puppets and Hockey Reference.

All I'll say right now is that Hockey Reference, like its sister sites, allows individuals to sponsor pages with personalized messages. PPP, albeit with some help from its readers, decided it was time to strike in defense of Leafdom, with Montreal goalie Carey Price being the first target. When you get to his page, the sponsorship line now reads:

More Ken Dryden (Liberal leadership candidate) than Ken Dryden (1971 Conn Smythe Winner)

Fresh off its foray into online hijinks, PPP is embarking on a long-term plan to buy up as many pages as possible to annoy fans of rival teams. Childish? Perhaps. But in terms of online marketing, it's sheer brilliance. I can't wait to see who might be next in line. In fact, if I was a less charitable man, I'd think that the folks at Hockey Reference might actually be behind this campaign. But that would just be naked speculation.

Now excuse me for a moment, I need to check out Cam Ward's page.

As an American observer of the NHL, it can be hard sometimes communicating just how important the Toronto Maple Leafs are to the league. What we're talking about is the league's top franchise in Canada's top media market. By all reliable measures, the Leafs are the most valuable franchise in all of hockey.

And given Canada's linguistic schism, for many years, the Leafs were simply the team of all of English Canada, permanently pitted against their greatest rival, the Montreal Canadiens. To this day, you have large pockets of Leafs fans all over Canada, one of the reasons why it's so important for teams out West to expand the intraconference schedule, and get the Leafs to make regular road swings to Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

Which is why the firing of Paul Maurice as Leafs head coach after just two seasons is really big news. Sure, for any other run of the mill team that had missed the playoffs three years in a row and hadn't won a championship in over 40 years, this sort of news is expected pretty regularly. But this is the Toronto Maple Leafs we're talking about, and the position of head coach is arguably one of the most stressful jobs in all of Canada outside of Prime Minister.

Five days ago, Rick Westhead of The Toronto Star broke news about a scandal within the Maple Leafs' parent company Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. Citing "ticket irregularities," a senior executive resigned and five other employees were fired. Today, Westhead defines those "irregularities" as MLSE employees allegedly pocketing money from the resale of personal seat licenses that cost as much as $30,000:

When the Air Canada Centre opened in 1999, MLSE charged $15,000 for personal-seat licenses for 1,500 platinum-level seats (along with a $2,500 annual fee). Buyers got the first chance to buy tickets to concerts; reserve seats at special restaurants; access a business centre at the Air Canada Centre, private washrooms and a coat check; and also the right to resell their licenses.

Yet within two years, MLSE executives realized they had missed an opportunity to make millions of dollars more by selling PSLs for other sections of the arena. They offered season-ticket holders in lower-priced sections a chance to buy PSLs for their season tickets, which in some cases had been in families for several generations but which were becoming harder to transfer. "MLSE had become very strict about the transfer of tickets," said a former MLSE executive. "It used to be that you only had to say you wanted to transfer seats to your cousin, and it wasn't a problem. But now the company's attitude is you have to prove you're a direct blood relative with a birth certificate."

How big can this scandal get? Both the police and the NHL Players Association would like to know the answer to that, too.

Say, when is that Mike Myers comedy that mixes humor about spiritual self-help with NHL-endorsed hockey hi-jinks supposed to hit theaters?



Ah, thanks. As "The Love Guru" creeps closer to a multiplex near you, reviews have started to filter in from advance test screenings of the film -- in which Myers plays Pitka, a guru who attempts to mend the broken heart of a star player for the Leafs after his wife begins dating L.A. Kings star Jacques Grande (Justin Timberlake).

So is the flick any good? Do we have another "Austin Powers" on our hands, or a cinematic hockey atrocity on a "Slap Shot 2" level? Ain't It Cool News offers some muted praise and potential trouble for one of the summer's biggest comedies.

Richard Peddie, the president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, has a bit of Toews envy. Or maybe it's Mueller envy. While the Leafs are out of the playoffs for the third straight season, they don't have the silver-lining that also-rans like Chicago and Phoenix have in their next-generation talent -- a fact Peddie publicly lamented on Hockey Night in Canada this weekend:

It was in an interview with Hockey Night In Canada's Elliotte Friedman that Peddie said he was "disappointed" and "a little humbled" that the Leafs had missed the Stanley Cup playoffs for three consecutive seasons. He added that Toronto's future looks bleak, because the organization lacks high-calibre youngsters in which to build upon. "Actually, I look at this team and I can't see we're making any progress towards winning a Stanley Cup," Peddie said. "It's not 'We're out of the playoffs but, boy, we're young and we have all these parts' ... I don't see that."

Yikes...no wonder Leafs fans have a paper bag to wear on their heads for every occasion. So why is there no urgency on Peddie's behalf to find someone that can reverse Toronto's fortunes as a general manager?

Not the best month for Leafs goalie Vesa Toskala. With a loss to the Bruins last night, Toronto was finally eliminated from achieving its unlikely and counterproductive postseason berth this season. His former team, the San Jose Sharks, is looking like the favorite to come out of the Western Conference and play for the Stanley Cup. And then there was the rather unfortunate matter of the 190-or-so-foot goal that he gave up to the Islanders' Rob Davison, making him the laughing stock of hockey until ... well, until the Leafs were eliminated from the postseason again.

But no worries, Vesa: As long as Andre "Red Light" Racicot exists in our hearts, minds and endless YouTube footage, life goes on. The video below appears to be from the 1991-92 season and a game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Winnipeg Jets (R.I.P.). Kris Draper dumps the puck in from center ice, and Racicot lives up to his nickname. At least Toskala was a victim of some quirky bounces that helped mask his laziness on the Davison goal; Racicot just casually places his stick blade down and hopes for the best as the biscuit bounds towards him:

This year's playoff chase is quickly turning into one of the wildest - and weirdest - ever.

How else you define what's gone on on the fringes of the race, where teams like the Oilers, Maple Leafs, Panthers and Capitals, all well out of the race a month or so ago, are the NHL's best over that stretch?

Since the trade deadline
Florida: 8-1-2
Edmonton: 11-3-0
Toronto: 8-3-1
Washington: 9-4-0

Bubble team total: 36-11-3 (.750)

This one rates up there with crop circles in terms of the search for an explanation. How can four teams, previously inept, all turn it on at the same time and make unlikely runs?

The Oilers were the only one of the four in action last night, and - surprise, surprise - they pulled out a big 5-3 win at home against the Wild with some more big performances from the kids.