What happened?

Well I have had a great summer except when I think of the miserable state of the habs franchise. At least my memories have not faded of better times like the spring of 1971. As the 1970 -1971 hockey playoffs got under way, people were grudgingly accepting the Beatles had really broken up (but for how long), Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were already dead, and Jim Morrison had a few months to live. In Quebec, the October 1970 crisis was over, James Cross survived but Pierre Laporte had been assassinated. Pierre Trudeau, Robert Bourassa and Jean Drapeau were our political leaders. Richard Nixon was waging secret bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia to bring about his peace with honor. Filming of the Godfather had begun and George C Scott had refused the Oscar for best actor for Patton the best movie that year.  Roberto Clemente was leading the Pirates to the World Series and he would be dead a year later. Kareem Abdul Jabbar was centering the Milwaukee Bucks to the NBA championship. M...

Well being a Habs fan I am not sure I should write a blog about the disasterous leafs but what the hell I am safely located in Montreal. I lived in Toronto for four years during another sad era when even John Brophy coached the leafs. They were sad then and they are sad now. Not that I really care. The leafs in the very recent past had been on course to become another thuggish Bruins-like team with Brian Burke at the helm. They beat the hell out of Josh Gorges and Rene Bourque ( good things) and more or less ended George Parros's career. A few years back they took the Bruins to game 7 and were ahead 4-1 in game 7 before they crumbled. It has been downhill ever since. The leafs have never been the same since they traded away Frank Mahovlich. Superstars like Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald, Wendell Clark, Doug Gilmour, Borje Salming, Eddie Belfour and Mats Sundin have come and gone but they were just not good enough. The leafs are about to go through another rebuilding phase and will ...