Welcome to the Friday edition of Pension Plan Puppets. PPP is on day 112 of his vacation and rather than coming up with recycled content for my bitter leaf blog, I'm doing guest hosting duties over here.

The good news is: not only is it casual day here at the puppet theatre, we're also moving to summer hours. That's right, less time in mum's basement more time in our friends' basements.

The biggest (non) story of the week...

...has to be Frogren's contract situation.

On Thursday night I was chatting with a sports reporter who said the NHL is stalling on approving the Frogren deal while they try to negotiate a new transfer agreement. Apparently, the League isn't too happy that the Leafs have done their own thing, possibly seting a precedent for player transfer payments that are higher than the NHL would like. FWIW, he also said Frogren will be a Leaf by September and this has more to do with a slow news day than any legitimate legal concerns.

In the interim, the world waits for Glen Healy to "bring out the heavy artillery" to make sure that the League "does not destroy Frogren's career." (And I wait for Healy to come down with a chronic case of laryngitis).

In the rest of the week that was

Today's new lemon fresh content from the blogosphere

  • If anyone questions the Finger contract, Leafs Nation can just point to the horizon, yell "Hey is that Federov over there?!?" and then make a break for it.
  • Could this be a secret Tampa Bay scouting report on Brandon Bochenski?
  • Psuedonym does some math on the Leafs roster - are they Leafs really getting younger?
  • There's a new-ish Leaf blog called the Ballad of Wendel Clark (or at least it's new to me). Go check it out...and if folks are aware of other Leaf blogs that we're not adequately posting/ checking/ plagirizing/ mocking please hit us up in the comments section.
  • JFJ and Mike Gillis would both give this guy a huge contract with an NMC and wouldn't be troubled by his rather odd chest hair.
  • Sean at Down Goes Brown points out a Bruce Garrioch pun about Emery's decision to play in Russia.
  • Interesting thought about geographic divisional alignments (e.g. NHL) vs. a more dispersed approach (e.g. NFL) over at the Sports Economist. I've always loved the idea of the Leafs being in an Original Six division, but maybe that's because I'm old.
  • Chemmy read Brunt's book on Bobby Orr. I read it too and the only thing I remember is that in Orr's heyday peelers *ahem* groomed themselves to mimic how Orr taped his stick (come to think of it, taping my stick is a really great euphimism for another, uh, solo activity).
  • Speaking of Brunt, Toronto Sports Media Blog takes a well placed shot at some of Brunt's recent ramblings.
  • No hockey content, but a great correction in Newsday (hat tip to Deadspin)
  • Late yesterday, I put up a post over at my Bitter Leaf blog about the sorry state of music at Leaf home games. Down Goes Brown responded with a great comment about how games used to be at MLG. Other than icing a competent team and slashing beer prices, I'd love to know how  Leaf fans would change the in-game experience down at the ACC.
  • **update** Greener at He Score, He Shoot! has posted his thoughts on Emery signing in Russia/

And now for the comments...