Burke takes the h @e4 m By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor Was it finally happened, just like we all knew it would. Brian Burke has left his post as the general manager of the Anaheim Ducks to take the helm of one of sport’s biggest messes, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Burke recently signed a massive (by managerial standards anyway) six- year contract that will pay him $3 million per year. Burke replaces caretaker Cliff Fletcher as GM and without a doubt, he has quite the task in front of him. With the way the Leafs are looking these days, if Burke can transform them into Stanley Cup contenders, then he should set his sights on bigger problems; fixing the economy comes to mind. The fact is, leading the Leafs is going to be the hardest job of Burke’s career. To say that Toronto is in disarray is like saying that Sean Avery is a little outspoken. Burke has inherited the colossal management errors of previous GM John Ferguson Jr. Burke finds himself with a team stocked full of underachieving, overpaid veteran players and practically empty of any outstanding prospects, with the exception of 2008 fifth overall draft pick Luke Schenn. Also, he’s locked into a hockey mad town that expects him to put Jesus to shame in the saving people department. The fact is though, no matter how good Burke is, he won’t be able to turn four million dollar per year blunder Jason Blake into a legitimate goal scorer worth even half of his salary. In order for Burke to succeed in the most conceited part of Canada, it’s going to take time, and time in Toronto isn’t a luxury most hockey people have. After the year or two honeymoon period, and the Leafs still aren’t winning, what will the currently warm public perception of Burke become? After all, history has shown that when the Leafs aren’t a Cup contender, which they haven’t been for, oh, 41 years now, the average fan becomes about as friendly and forgiving as most Insite users. The problems with the Leafs are almost as extensive as those in Iraq. For still unknown reasons, Ferguson decided to open the vault and dole out the millions to a list of players that would be in tough to make the second line of most good teams. Five years and $20 million for Blake? Now, I might be wrong, but paying a guy who scored 15 goals $5 million last year seems just a tad excessive. Now, he was coming off a 40-goal campaign with the Islanders the year before, but before that, his career high in goals was 28 and he was 33 years old when he signed the deal. Now, they’re stuck with him until 2012 because not even God could find a way to trade him. 16 Garth McLennan sports@theotherpress.ca | Thursday: 1/2 price appies 4-8 pm $5.50 Double Highballs THURSDAY* is $13.00 Pitchers of Brooklyn Lager STUDENT Friday: $3.50 Vodka Cranberries ; N IG H I $4.50 Crown Royal | $10.95 70z Sirloin Steak w/ Caeser Salad, Garlic toast, || & Prawns THURSDAY, FRIDAY & ~< SATURDAY Fy, Tommy a, { @ the ae TUNE TWISTER Saturday: $5.50 Double Long Islands $10.95 7oz Sirloin Steak w/ Caeser Salad, Garlic toast, & Prawns Daily $3 Shot Snecial! With Mats Sundin gone, Toronto has zero firepower up front and with just a quick glance at the “up-and-comers” it looks like things will remain the same for quite some time. On defense, Fletcher was able to rid the team of Bryan McCabe’s albatross five-year salary that last year reached an astronomical $7.1 million. McCabe’s disastrous play and atrocious plus/minus rating became a focal point for Toronto’s ineptitude and McCabe was often booed off the ice. Giving Pavel Kubina five million dollars per year for four seasons wasn’t the most well thought out plan either. Then just this past summer, in a desperate bid to maintain the illusion and ownership’s message that “this is the year...really!” to their fans, Fletcher triumphantly proclaimed that he had signed Colorado’s fourth best defenseman, Jeff Finger, to a four-year, $14 million deal and that things were looking up. Right. The situation in goal has gone about as well as Stéphane Dion’s attempts to convince us that he really is the best man to lead the country. The Leafs dealt top-flight goalie prospect, Tukka Rask, to the Boston Bruins in exchange for goaltender Andrew Raycroft, who lasted two years in Toronto before leaving with a GAA of 3.92. Raycroft now sits on the bench in Colorado. Ferguson then went out and got Vesa Toskala from the San Jose Sharks. Toskala had a decent run and Ferguson went into another spending spree, showering the since-average goalie with $4 million until 2010. So, Burke has quiet the uphill climb in front of him. It’s more like scaling Everest actually... with one arm... blindfolded. With a Stanley Cup from 2007 on his resume and an impressive record of rebuilding the Ducks and Vancouver Canucks, it’s easy to see why victory-starved Toronto fans already have expectations not based anywhere near reality. * It’s also easy to see that after years of shooting themselves in the foot, Burke is walking into a situation that may cause him to crack. Good luck to him, he’s going to need it.