Chris K

1994-95 killed Mike Gartner's string of 30-goal seasons and may have doomed Mats Sundin's shot at universal admiration. Or not. See what you think:

* "Better" is a subjective term and is so context-dependent as to be largely meaningless. Many things described as "better" might not actually be better at all, just familiar and thus comforting. YMMV.

Is the problem with fighting that we no longer have the right kind of fighters?

In trading away Luke Schenn this past summer (remember that?), the Leafs finally completed the whole Gary Nylund do-over. What was different and what did we learn?

(Cross-posted at my liitle piece of the basement.) If one image can capture the single biggest difference between the hockey of the 80s and the hockey of today, it's this one.  Leaf goalie Allan Bester is shown here getting his crease in order as what appears to be

(Note - this actually was written yesterday, but I got pulled away before I could publish.) 52 years ago tonight, March 11, 1959, the Leafs had a home game they really needed to win if they wanted to keep their playoff hopes alive. Facing first-place Montreal, they got pounded 6-2.

I remember listening to a game on the car radio in about 1999, and the newly-resurgent Leafs were icing three kid defensemen that I felt would be the core of an excellent blue line for the next ten years. That blue line never came to pass, at least not in

I've talked before about Cardboard Gods, both the book (which I am now halfway through) and the blog, which is basically a team-agnostic baseball-oriented Leaf of the Day (which I have been very lax with, I know). Quietly, though, Cardboard Gods has been waging/documenting one of the

My grandparents had a dog who was so horrible he was wonderful.  He was old, short, fat and grumpy.  He had a dent in one eye, teeth that stuck out at odd angles and he smelled bad - so bad, that the cat would eventually decide to bath him herself

Over the holidays, one of the games we played was Scrabble.  Our eldest got it from her grandparents.  Now, I have never particularly liked Scrabble, and this is why:  the very first game we played, I took my seven pieces from the pile and wound up (in order) with the

It has been a while.  Aside from normal bouts of busy-ness (as opposed to business, which is also true but not what I wanted to imply), large bits have been falling of the car and I have been patiently explaining to them that they should stop.  My skills at reasoning

There are a few cards that stand out above all the others as my favourites.  They'll have some perfectly-captured moment, beautifully-framed, that is somehow set apart from the rest of a bulk product sold to kids at twenty-five cents per pack.  This is one of them. Here'

One of the more pleasant things about this season's Leafs team is the absence of a cringe-worthy goaltender. Now, the past handful of seasons have been particularly bad in that the goalie to strike fear into the hearts of teammates and fans alike was actually the starter, but

Last year on Remembrance Day, I talked about Alan "Scotty" Davidson.  If there's one player in Toronto history that I'd like to have added to the traditional Leaf mythology, it's Davidson.  For those who forgot, he was the captain of the 1914

One of my newfound favourite blogs is Cardboard Gods.  It's run by a kid from the 70s who takes his old baseball cards and uses each as an entry point into some dissertation on life.  In other words, he's basically me, except that he's

A number of years back (three is a number, you could look it up), the Leafs had their celebration of the 1967 Cup team.  They brought as many of the old players back as they could (Eddie Shack was golfing in the middle east - somehow that fits) and feted

Sometimes a hot start is the beginning of something special, other times it's not. The patron saint of the hot start that goes nowhere has to be Norm Aubin of the Leafs.  Norm was a scoring sensation in the Quebec league who was a third-round pick of the

If James Mirtle happens to wander by today and read this, there's a question I wish he would ask: What is the status of Tyler Bozak's hearing? I saw that he was one of the game stars the other day, which bodes well, but I'

I was listening to Jeff Blair this morning talking about rivalries (and really the lack thereof) in hockey.  I didn't catch the beginning of it, so I don't know if he just wasn't feeling the love for Leafs-Rangers hockey or whether there was something

I actually did my homework.  I just never turned it in. Back when Mt. Puckmore was all the rage, mf37 had the interesting suggestion that we approach our elders and find out who was on their Mt. Puckmore - the thought being that our choices and weightings might be a

As per thinkgeek, there are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't. Back on the first, @RobCollingwood tipped me to the fact that I'd been napping and missed out on a binary date. Today, with that great

And so it begins again.... This year marks the sixth season I've been doing the Leaf of the Day.  They have yet to make the playoffs.  I continue to maintain that this is not my fault, and I will continue to make this joke every season until such

(This is Collector's Corner #9, I think. It has been a while.) The objective of each new day is to learn something. Yesterday, I learned that if I want to write anything on this site, I'd better not be reading it. I was merrily into a

The signs are everywhere: hockey is coming back.  The Blue Jays are done, having completed about the most enjoyable fourth-place season I can remember.  The weather is crisp and October-like.  At the school bus this morning, there were winter coats everywhere along with a smattering of gloves and scarves.   Talk

One of the reasons I've kept up with the Leaf of the Day for as long as I have is that I learn something new each time I write one.  It's not always something profound.  With Bunny Larocque, for example, the only new thing I learned