Julian Sanchez

Canadians are, on average, far too humble about our country and its institutions. Part of that is an ingrained aspect of our national character.  Our national motto could be "live and let live". Unfortunately, part of that is the effect of having the US next door. We are

Well, you can't say that Canadian athletes are playing with some fire in their belly. The water polo team had their coach suspended and three players ejected during a rough and tumble game against Australia. Mike Brown's fourth place finish is heartbreaking but impressive if you

Still no Canadian medals but there were some close calls and the Canadian records are being smashed which helps give the next generation of athletes more to strive towards. No panicking here. Anyway, here are some links to get you through the day. As always, toss in any that you

This is another Olympics-inspired off-topic rant. If you just want the links they are after the jump. The Olympics are in full swing and of course that means that Canada's getting going in their favourite sport: hand-wringing. Read the comments to any article about an athlete posting a

Lots to read as you stare a 5 day workweek in the face. Also, check out Maple Leaf Blue's recent addition to the growing amount of anti-Berger literature. On to the links: * LD is writing from the players' perspective now. First up Evgeni Malkin. I can'

I just managed to catch a couple of minutes of the opening ceremonies but wow, can communist countries ever put on a show. And that 9 year old hero from the earthquake that Yao Ming was carrying could be the cutest kid on the planet. But it's ironic

The latest in a long line of bloggers v. Howard Berger missives took me a long time so read it again (or finish it, I know it was long). Here are some links to get you through the morning. Toss any others in the comments * Mike Ulmer has Six Things

By now I would imagine that everyone has read the ultimate Howard Berger takedown penned by CoxBloc commenter Varry Galk. While it is certainly difficult to follow up perfection people did not stop playing hockey after Wendel retired so why should bloggers stop calling attention to Howard's horrible

Well since there is so little hockey news I am going to unload on a couple of things that have been bothering me for a while. As you read this, don't worry, I am not armed and am not going to be hunting dumbasses. I couldn't

The Puck Daddy is having various media people help fill his posting gap during the summer with five ideas on how they would improve the NHL if they were the commissioner. Pretty slick trick. Will Leitch, the godfather of the blogosphere, was up yesterday and...well it betrays his need

I was originally going to write this just as a FanPost on Mile High Hockey but I figured that you would all want to enjoy in the hilarity of Andrew Raycroft being seen as an NHL-calibre goalie. It also inspired me to put down as an idea a series of

Whew. What does not kill you will only make you stronger. In fact, my liver will now be competing in the Beijing Olympics in the weightlifting competition because it did quite a bit of heavy lifting this weekend. Still no word from Mats and, I wish this wasn't

Today ends months of speculation and countless loss hours as Mats Sundin has decided to (retire to a life of luxury/return to the NHL). After spending hours fishing in his native Sweden the Leafs (captain/former captain) decided that he (had had enough herring for a summer/wanted to

Edit: So much for that hypothetical. I knew I shouldn't have believed anything this guy wrote. I know it's Don Brennan but the situation between Vermette and ottawa is a pretty interesting one to say the least. He seems to think that the mercurial forward could

We all know that one of the favourite hobby horses of the mittenstringer crowd is to blame the fans for the failure of the Leafs to win a Cup in 41 years (and counting). CoxBloc and Torontosportsmedia (blogwar!) for pointing out that sometimes a certain Working Class Howard has mastered

You know that there is not much news in the hockey world when the New York Times devotes an entire article to Howard Berger (do the FHF know that the NYT calls their first post of the day The Morning Skate?). They manage to make the usual mistake that draws

Lots of good responses on the topic du jour that was kicked off by this great fanpost by "Dave Schultz". Koopa Kid noted that apparently not everyone takes sports that seriously. While the topic arose because of the replies of some of Puck Daddy's readers (poor

First off, thanks for all of the birthday wishes yesterday. I did survive my birthday weekend (barely) and have 364 days to recover before the next one. On to business, "Dave Schultz" wrote a pretty thought-provoking fanpost in response to a post on Puck Daddy's site.

Do you know what this calls for? Consider this an open thread to discuss anything Leaf related and help bump up my total number of Birthday Wishes received.

As I mentioned this morning (or last night depending on how you read it) last night I attended the MLS All Star game. The game was an absolutely wonderful event but if you read Cathal Kelly's coverage in The Star you would think that it had been a

Wow. The MLS All-Star Game last night was awesome. I'll have a longer post up with some video and pictures of Canadian celebs and a clarification on what I assume will be a huge talking point (I am writing this at 10:30pm and scheduling it to post

Today is the kind of day that makes you long for a Saturday night in December (but not the 13th or 27th) so that you could curl up on the couch with the Leafs and a couple of adult beverages. Sure, the MLS All-Star game is a pretty good substitute

I cannot even begin to tell you how disappointing last night's TFC game was...actually, look at who I am talking to...if anyone understands it's you guys (and girls!). Against Montreal, of all teams, they just had to win to become Canadian Champions. They went

The announcement of the honouring of Wendel and Dougie's numbers got me searching through the archives for a post that I wrote September 6, 2006 when my site was just a couple of months old. Some of the following is new, some recycled, and it's all

The Leafs have announced through their MySpace page that they will be honouring two legends of Leafdom: Wendel Clark and Doug Gilmour. I would guess that for anyone in the 23-33 age range these two represent two thirds of the triumvirate of great captains that we have been lucky enough