Still feel shitty? Me too.

Here’s my problem. I know crap about NBA basketball. So when Colangelo took the slap chopto his roster I relied on those in the know out there.

I’m not sure anyone predicted this mess. Hell, the experts were singing Colangelo’s praise with each and every move.

How was everyone so wrong?

“Turkoglu in particular is so abject and so low energy and has such awful body language that it is not a stretch to repeat the sneaking suspicion he is this franchise’s Vernon Wells.”

That from Jeff Blair in the Globe and Mail. Now I know the background on jp and Vernon, but who thought when Turkoglu wad brought in we were looking at this scenario? Now we are wondering if we can get him to play for the Marlies.

Are any other Raptors fans feeling rather helpless right now? The guy we were sold as our saviour, the guy who was going to bring sucess and stability to the franchise can only truly be proud of one thing right now, he’s standup. He’s not blaming anyone but himself.

When MLSE was out looking for a Gm for the maple leafs, they were, it was said looking for the hockey version of Bryan Colangelo. Leaf fans, how many of you are hoping that that blueprint wasn’t totally followed with Brian Burke?

So let’s take stock. Assume we don’t make playoffs or do bit get bounced early. What are we left with? Bosh is gone, has to be if either of those 2 scenarios play out. Then we have Hedo wells and Andrea. Uh huh. Oh, and jay triano. You lining up to renew those tickets?

A season that opened with promise is going flush. Someone has accepted blame. Is that enough?

On Fan 590 Tonight-

- Grapeline with Don Cherry & Brian Williams at 4:45
- Bob McCown’s co-host from 5:00 to 7:00 is John Shannon
-Stephen Brunt & Dave Perkins join on the roundtable

On 640 with Brady and Watters thanks to Mike S.:

- Bill Watters is on vacation in Florida so Greg Brady is solo today

- Ron Wilson, head coach of the Leafs

- hockey insider Darren Dreger at 6:10

College of Sports Media Game of the Night:

On Wednesday night the Toronto Raptors used the luck of the Irish and their green unis to pull of a 106-105 upset of the Atlanta Hawks to snap a five game losing skid. They hope to build on that win when they welcome the Oklahoma City Thunder to the ACC tonight. Chris Bosh had an off night, by his standards, but when the game was on the line he hit the game winning shot over Atlanta’s Al Horford. Rookie DeMar DeRozan came out aggressive from the get-go and kept it going ending with 19 points. Forward Andrea Bargnani had his best game in a while, leading the team with 22 points to go along with 11 boards. With the w, Toronto opened it’s lead over the ninth place Chicago Bulls to two and half games. They also gained some ground on seventh place – they trail the Miami Heat by a half game. The Raps will need a similar effort tonight with the Thunder in town. Oklahoma City is fifth in the West and one more win will secure their first winning season in franchise history (or five years if you go back to the Seattle days). Over their last ten games the Thunder are 8-2, but are coming off a big 100-92 lose to the Charlotte Bobcats on St. Patrick’s Day. The Thunder have a solid core of young players, led by third-year man Kevin Durant. Durant continues to develop into one of the NBA’s elite and is beginning to be included in conversations about this season’s league MVP. He’s averaging a career high 29.7 points (24.8 career average) and 7.5 (6) rebounds per game. The last time these two teams played was back on February 28 in Oklahoma City and it was the Thunder who earned the 112-96 win. Toronto had no Bosh in that one, but he’ll be in the line up tonight and could be the difference between a sweet victory or bitter defeat – just ask Atlanta.

So many of you have emailed me about this that I thought I had better put it up. Doug Gilmour was on with Greg Brady today who was flying solo on the Bill Watters show. Brady was a tad bit fired up on the hockey and headshots things. In any event Gilmour who is usually a lousy interview in my opinion was beyond good especially when he talked about violence in the game. Certainly worth a listen.

Both drive home shows today took on Colin Campbell and the NHL on the hitting gate. Jim Kelley joined Mccown early on and their take was a failure at the top of the NHL to deal with the issue. Kelley talked about how someone(s) above Campbell was pulling strings and Kelley thought that Colin was either going to quit or get fired over this issue. The Fan 590 doesn’t have the Kelley audio up, however I thought Kelley was good on this point.

Up the dial, Brady went postal on the issue. Imploring that the execs in the game were ruining the game. On a few separate occasions calling for heads on platters. 640 Toronto doesn’t allow for all segments to be downloaded, however I suggest you take a listen in here for all the Brady stuff- it’s certainly entertaining, I’ll leave whether or not you think it’s accurate up to you. I will say this, if you are going to fly solo, you may as well come out firing like he did today. The best solo show he has ever had.

Speaking of good, did anyone hear Don Landry sign off on the big early this am, it was pretty funny. He was talking about the Texas Rangers manager, Ron Washington, the guy who tested positive for cocaine last year at the ripe old age of 57. Landry was really funny saying how, Washington had never done drugs before in his life and at 57 woke up and decided to try cocaine. The best part is that Washington came out tonight and admitted to smoking dope years ago in addition to popping a few pills. What’s next, he’s going to claim he was a Vietnam Vet?

Does anyone think I am nuts on this, but why do morning radio shows end at 9:00? No seriously. I drive my kids to school. I drop them at 845-850. I don’t really get into my car much before 8:30. Now, I understand tons of people drive a hell of a lot earlier than I do. However, based on the number of people dressed i work attire I see dropping their kids off with me in addition to the amount of traffic I see in the city heading downtown when I am, why not extend the morning drive to 10 am? Thoughts?

Date: March 18, 2010

Rink: ACC (Toronto)

Puck Drop: 7:30PM ET

Radio: AM 640

TV: TSN

Once again the Leafs are fairing quite well when it doesn’t matter….that’s what most of the critics will say.  While this may be true, the difference in my opinion is that it’s not a bunch of under performing veterens like in past years.  We’re seeing marked improvement and strong performances from young players that will likely be part of this squad for years to come.   At least we are seeing entertaining hockey.

Though Jonas Gustavsson has played extremely well of late, Ron Wilson will continue with the alternating games approach so expect to see JS Giguere between the pipes.  Fredik Sjostrom returns from injury and various reports indicate that it will be Wayne Primeau that takes a seat.  Garnet “trade me” Exelby got back into the line-up against the Sens and TSN Ice Chips has him playing again tonight.  Finger must have missed his press box seat. 

I know it’s the day after St. Patricks Day but….I wonder if we’ll see this tonight?

Forwards
Kulemin Bozak Kessel
Stalberg Grabovski Caputi
Mitchell Hanson Lundmark
Orr Wallin Sjostrom

Defence
Phaneuf Beauchemin
Kaberle Schenn
Exelby Gunnarson

Goalie
Giguere (start)
Gustavsson

Scratch: Finger, Primeau

Inured: Van Ryn (ofs), Komisarek (ofs)

LT

On Fan 590 Tonight-

- Grapeline with Don Cherry & Brian Williams at 4:45
- Bob McCown’s co-host from 5:00 to 7:00 is John Shannon
- Jim Kelley
- Darren Rovell
- Nik Kypreos
- David Branch
- Jerry Colangelo
- Buck Martinez

On 640 with Brady and Watters thanks to Mike S.:

- Bill Watters is on vacation in Florida so Greg Brady is solo today

- Doug Gilmour

- hockey insider Pierre McGuire at 6:10

- Jolly Jonas Siegel from the ACC to preview tonight’s Leafs-Devils game

College of Sports Media Game of the Night:

The last time the Toronto Maple Leafs played the New Jersey Devils, the Leafs had a 3-1 lead with less then four minutes left in the third period, only to blow it and lose in overtime. Tonight Toronto gets a shot at revenge as they host New Jersey at the hangar. A lot has changed in Leaf-land since that tough defeat. Gone are players like Matt Stajan, Niklas Hagman, Jason Blake and Alexei Ponikarovsky. Instead it’s all about the youth movement in TO. The first line doesn’t have another player over 24 and the entire team is the second youngest in the league. It seems to be paying off as the Leafs have won four of their last five games, including a 4-1 win over their division-rival Ottawa Senators. The Devils are coming off a big-win as well. They beat the defending Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2 for the sixth time this season. The Devils are tied with the Pens for the lead in the Atlantic division and for the second in the East. Zach Parise has continued his hot play since winning silver with the US back in the Olympics. Last night he had a goal and an assist for his fourth multi-point night this month.

In other news, taxes are going up and yes, we are all going to die one day.

No really, the guy just can’t shut his yap. Can you think of a guy in recent memory who didn’t own a team that had a bigger ego then this clown? Seriously. Go league by league and look at guys who have never won and find me a bigger ego with a bigger mouth.

Most of the Toronto press soured on the guy pretty quickly. The act, they say, wears thin pretty quickly.

Steve Simmons ran this piece the other day:

“I see where the legendary

J.P. Ricciardi is throwing stones at the ownership of the Blue Jays.

How quaint.

“I’d go into another job with my eyes a lot more open and probably do a little more homework on who the ownership group is and what their expectations were because that’s what ultimately controls everything.”

Funny, didn’t he initially say he could win without money, the Moneyball thing, later he spent money and couldn’t win, then he couldn’t spend enough to keep up with the Yankees and the Red Sox who spent too much, then all those bad contracts: Yep, somebody has to be blamed for that Frank Thomas contract.”

I love the blame game. Of course none of what happened here was J.P.’s fault….

So, some MSM’ers will say that the media here was biased against J.P. because he favoured the US media outlets (of which he is now a member). Well, take a listen to Pat Gillick on Prime Time Sports tonight with Mccown and John Shannon. Gillick is great to listen to and even though you may not know a hell of a lot about baseball (which I don’t) you can tell he knows his stuff. The majority of the interview is about non-Blue Jays stuff. He does talk a lot about Roy Halliday. Mccown does ask him about what he thinks about the Toronto Blue Jays and what they doing. Listen carefully to what he has to say, something along the lines of the current regime wasn’t left with much in terms of talent. Some times we say more by saying less and I certainly got the sense that Gillick was dumping on J.P.

Speaking of PTS, if you listen to this interview you just can tell that Shannon is out of his element. I really don’t understand why he has been given this regular slot. I think he’s a great guest when the issues of sports business, radio or television rights or coverage are topical. When it’s nuts and bolts sports issues it’s uncomfortable listening to him simply because he sounds uncomfortable doing it. Brunt, Arthur, Blair, Deacon and even Kelley are better suited to talk x’s and o’s than Shannon is.

Meanwhile, was it or was the tonight’s Toronto Raptor game played in an audio toilet bowl. The audio on TSN2 sucked. No, really it sucked. It wasn’t the announcers, it was something funky going on in either the truck or the ACC.

Simmons is here

TSM

@yyzsportsmedia

On Fan 590 Tonight-

- Grapeline with Don Cherry & Brian Williams at 4:45
- Bob McCown’s co-host from 5:00 to 7:00 is John Shannon
4:10 John Mascia, Remy’s Sports Bar In Boston
4:25 Bruce Dowbiggin, Globe & Mail
5:25 Doug Smith Courtside
5:45 Kevin Koe
6:06 Pat Gillick, Phillies Senior Advisor
6:30 Dan Shulman, ESPN
6:45 Bert Sugar, Boxing Historian

On 640 with Brady and Watters thanks to Mike S.:

- Bill Watters is on vacation in Florida so Greg Brady is solo today

- Tyler Bozak of the Maple Leafs

- hockey insider Pierre McGuire at 6:10

check out the TSM Pressbox here