Burke needs to focus on Leafs’ future

Brian Burke

By Siavash Emamzadeh

ancouver Canucks fans know
that hesitation never plays a
part in Brian Burke’s mental
process. He’s direct, knows what
he wants and as soon as he does, he
pounces to get it. That’s the Burkie way
and it works about 90 per cent of the
time.

Take his acquisition of the Sedin
twins back in 1999 for instance.
During his first year as the Canucks
GM, that turned out to be a brilliant
move that’s still paying dividends for
Vancouver. Or how about his tenure
with the Ducks, where he signed
Teemu Selanne, Chris Pronger and the
Niedermayer brothers, all of whom
played a large role in Anaheim winning
the Stanley Cup in 2007?

It’s evident from these examples
that it’s hard to find faults with Burke’s
decision making... until now. As the
GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs this
season, he’s been there as the team’s
record has plummeted to 3-11-5. That’s
not exactly Burke-calibre.

To suggest, however, that reversing
the ways of a losing franchise happens
overnight would be unrealistic. In
fact, Burke has acknowledged the
magnitude of this turnaround in saying
that the Leafs will be in rebuilding
mode for some time to come.

Pardon the cliché, but actions
speak louder than words, and not
only have Burke’s transactions as a
Leafs GM drowned out his words, but
they have also muddled them. Two
transactions in particular come to mind.

One of the questionable moves
Burke has made is the collective
infusion of grit. Now, any person that’s
in the know about the goings-on of
the NHL in the last little while is well
aware that gritty players follow Burke
like debt follows college students. In
Vancouver, he maintained a team with
the likes of Todd Bertuzzi, Matt Cooke,

 

Jarkko Ruutu and Brad May, just to
name a few. In Anaheim, Burke traded
for tough guy George Parros, bruising
defenseman Chris Pronger and— guess
who—Brad May.

Now in Toronto, he may have gone
too far in his grit binging. Not only has
he so far signed wild-man Colton Orr
and the physical Mike Komisarek, two
well-known tough guys, but he’s drilled
in his toughness-first philosophy pretty
good. A testament to this is the Leafs’
20 major penalties, which happen to be
three off the league-high, quite likely
playing a part in their miserable loss
column. Hardly sounds like rebuilding
if the Leafs are spending more time in
the penalty box and less developing
their game.

Acquiring Phil Kessel for a couple
of first round and second round picks
also doesn’t give the impression of
“rebuilding.” Instead, it suggests that
Brian Burke has intentions to gauge
his team’s chance at the Cup (or more
realistically, the playoffs) this year.

Nowadays, basing a preliminary
team plan on “rebuilding” and later
carrying out the opposite is a common
method employed by GM’s to
silence their boss and please the fans,
respectively. All the while, they hope
that somehow their season will be a
total success.

As far as the starting-from-scratch
strategy is concerned, drafting Nazem
Kadri and signing Jonas Gustavsson
are the only commendable moves. But
that doesn’t help much considering
that Kadri isn’t even playing (he was
returned to junior) and Gustavsson
hasn’t yet turned out to be the savior
most Leafs’ fans were imagining
when he was making all those saves
were Farjestad in Sweden last year.
Someone has really got to remind Brian
Burke that the Maple Leafs are deeply
immersed in a culture of losing. A
quick fix is not going to cut it this time.

 

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Ireland deserves to play in the World Cup

2010, not France

By Kevin Wong

he World Cup Soccer tournament
Te start in June 2010 in South

Africa, and if you love soccer,
you don’t want to miss any of the action
next summer. Indeed, the final 32 teams
that will play in the World Cup have been
confirmed. Some of them, such as Algeria,
are pumped up because they have earned
one of the final spots and just managed to
earn a place at the World Cup.

hand ball totally destroyed the Irish hopes
of advancing.

Certainly all the Irish are very upset
about the final result. I was disappointed
too after I have watched the highlights.
Anyway, the Euro 2012 will be played two
years after the upcoming World Cup. I’m
hoping that Ireland can advance to that
tournament and play well for their fans.

Finally, if fair play is important in any
sport, then I believe that that FIFA should
follow the NHL’s lead and set up more

“If fair play is important in any sport, then I| believe that that
FIFA should follow the NHL’s lead and set up more cameras
near the net area.”

Ireland is one of the teams that I
expected to qualify, because they have
played better than France in their own
World Cup qualifying group and both legs
of the playoffs. Unfortunately, they were
beaten by the “cheating” Frenchmen in
the second round of the playoffs. French
forward Thierry Henry obviously made a
handball before the ball was scored by his
teammate. How come none of the referees
saw the foul and acted to correct it? That

cameras near the net area. If any player
complains about the goal, the referee can
stop the play and review the video. The
judges can decide whether or not the goal
should be allowed. If FIFA does not change
their old rules before the opening game
of the World Cup then we will see a lot
of surprising results and more arguments
between the players and the referees in
every game. Do you prefer “fair play” or
“foul play?”

 

Wie wins her first title! Does anyone care?

Michelle Wie
By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

ell, it only took her four years
and 65 attempts, but Michelle
Wie has finally won an LPGA

tournament. Arguably one of the most
overrated and overhyped athletes of our
generation, Wie, 20, finished first with a
two-stroke advantage Paula Creamer in the
Lorena Ochoa Invitational.

For almost half a decade now,
pundits have been telling us all about how
Michelle Wie is the “next big thing” in
professional golf. After all, how could
she not be? She had been competing via
sponsor’s exemptions in LPGA events
on an off-and-on basis since she was 13
years old. Her size, 6 foot 1 by the time
she was 15, made her stand out even more.

 

Then, when she turned pro back in 2005

at age 16 and immediately signed a $10
million sponsorship deal with Nike and
Sony, despite never actually accomplishing
anything of note, her future seemed set.

But then a persistent problem began
emerging, and it stuck with her for so long
that it eventually threatened to shunt her
career off to one side in the classification
of former child stars and freak one-
shots: despite all the hype around her, an
increasingly arrogant attitude that enraged
a number of her fellow LPGA players,
Michelle Wie couldn’t win.

Not only that, but she displayed
a remarkable lack of professionalism,
including moments of withdrawing from
events due to bad play, feigning injuries
which earned her widespread criticism and
walking through playing partners’ lines.

She pissed everyone off even more by
repeatedly accepting sponsor’s exemptions
to play with the men on the PGA Tour
despite not ever winning a tournament
doing anything to justify taking the spot of
a PGA Tour regular. Not surprisingly, she
never once made the cut in any of her five
PGA tries, and she threw a public hissy fit
when she applied, and was turned down this
year for exemptions into several events the
PGA holds in Hawaii, Wie’s home state.

Her play grew so poor, marked by a
24 round stretch where she failed to post a
single below par round, that she was forced
to (gasp!) go to LPGA qualifying school in
2008 to earn her tour card.

But to her credit, for what it’s worth,
she now has, finally, her first LPGA win.
Unfortunately, it’s come about three years
too late. After far too many blown chances
and failure to live up to the hype, Wie has
become just another bust, despite her recent
win. Even with her hysterical celebration
afterwards, nobody cares anymore.

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