Good morning Toronto Maple Leafs fans!

Well, losing Joe Woll to injury, and after a disappointing loss to the Canadiens, Dennis Hildeby made his NHL debut on night two of a back to back road trip.

But he stood strong and the Maple Leafs finally scored some goals this season and defeated the Devils 4-2!

Leafs Hilde-beat the Devils
I’m not even a little sorry for that headline.
PPP LeafsCathy Squires

The big news though is the NCAA and CHL are getting closer and closer to having a deal worked out that would give the CHL players NCAA eligibility!

There's a longer post in here, but it would benefit CHL players to use their education packages are a wider variety of schools, the NCAA would be able to take advantage of another top tier development league to get better players, and the NHL teams would have other options to work with drafted players.

The downside is some players will lose out on NCAA opportunities, being pushed aside by CHLers, Canadian Universities would lose out on former CHLers, and NHL teams could have to wait a few more years to get players out of the NCAA.

But, I think for the players in the CHL the good outweighs the bad. They could attend CHL camps without losing eligibility, they could jump in as emergency players if needed, and again, get top schooling for free.

We'll see how this goes....

In other news..

Former Maple Leaf Jeff O'Niell had a little incident during Overdrive on TSN last night.

Going back to the junior hockey discussions of a couple hundred words ago, the Brantford Bulldogs are ready to settle down permanently in their new home with a new junior hockey sized arena being approved by city council.

Brantford Bulldogs look to long-term as city approves $140M arena
When the Bulldogs OHL franchise re-located to Brantford in, the plan was to have the team stay in the city for at least three seasons.
LogoNews Staff

Beloved Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston is returning to Toronto, but not to join the Blue Jays. He's becoming a Maple Leaf!

Cito Gaston is returning to Toronto baseball — but not with the Blue Jays
Gaston is joining the Intercounty Baseball League’s Maple Leafs as a special adviser and attending a handful of games next season.
Toronto StarMark Colley

The baseball ones, though.

Enjoy your day everyone!

From The Branches