Media Roundup...again

The Toronto hockey media is odd. There are more writers covering hockey in this city than there are pock marks on Cameron Diaz's face, yet there is very little in common with their writing. This post is my effort to show that everything you read - even with respect to something as trivial as sports - must be taken with a grain of salt, because most people are full of shit, at least some of the time. Today, for example:

Steve Simmons at The Sun is reporting that John Ferguson Jr. tried to fire Paul Maurice last week. And that the team is also 'frantically searching' for JFJ's replacement.

Mark Zwolinski at The Star is reporting that no changes are coming from the Leafs.

Lance Hornby at The Sun is reporting that JFJ is standing pat with his team.

Darren Dreger at TSN ponders whether the team would be best served by a GM-by-committee approach.

Damien Cox is calling for mass changes in Leafs' management...and dare I say that his article is actually pretty reasonable?

So much opinion. So little fact. For every writer that tries to create credibility in his story by citing anonymous sources, there is another writer citing sources for the exact opposite. I'd love to believe that Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment brass is misleading the media by planting fake stories in an effort to keep the truth from being written, but I really don't believe they have the brains or the bollocks for that.

*EDIT - Fucking Coxsucker. I go and give him props for an article well written, then I check out Cox's other staple - The Spin - and he contradicts what he wrote in the article cited above. See below:

An excerpt from Leafs should start chopping from the top:
"Still, it says here that the Leafs, by recognizing the mess they're in immediately and moving proactively, could by this time next year have made the same leap back into competitiveness that the Philadelphia Flyers made in a single season.

Keep the draft picks intact and draft high in June. Make it clear to the other 29 teams that Mats Sundin, Bryan McCabe, Tomas Kaberle and Nik Antropov are all available to the highest bidders by March. Collect all the draft picks and prospects you can, and then dip back into free agency in the summer."

And from The Spin:
"One of the most popular suggestions these days for the Maple Leafs, a team without a clear immediate future or long-term future, is that the team should "blow up" its current roster, sink to the bottom of the NHL standings for a few years and rebuild with stars through the draft.

You know, just like the Pittsburgh Penguins did it. Sort of.

Well, the Washington Capitals should serve as a warning to the Leafs or any other team considering that strategy.

See, it just may not work. There's no guarantee."

Damien, you're seriously the worst sports writer in the city. Probably in the country. What you've written is that the team has a great opportunity to sell off its assets in order to rebuild, hopefully for next year...and then you go and take the piss out of that very idea in your blog. What the fuck? Just because you don't directly call the former method 'blowing up the team' doesn't mean it's not the same thing. Getting rid of Sundin, McCabe, Kaberle, and Antropov is blowing up the team, and that's a scientific fact.

According to you, the team is in dire straits, has been for 40 years, needs to rebuild drastically...but shouldn't rebuild in case it doesn't work? Do you have any idea how little sense that makes? Maybe in your next article, you'll include the Damien Cox model for team building - you write as if you're an expert on the topic. Even a couple of ideas about how to improve the team might help.

You constantly write about how the team has done poorly in trades, free-agent signings, and personnel decisions, but since your hindsight is no better than everyone elses, why not keep your empty-headed bullshit opinion to yourself? Do you know what I call people that constantly regurgitate the problem without any hint of a solution? I call them Coxsuckers, Damien. And you're the biggest Coxsucker out there.