Living in the Greater Toronto Area all my life, I have been known to bleed the colours of Toronto sports teams. It all started when I was a young lad watching the Maple Leafs with the likes of Clark, Gilmour and Potvin. Back in the early 90’s they made it to back to back conference finals against the kings, and the Canucks. While that was going on the Jays were winning Back to Back Championships with Joe Carter, Robbie Alomar and Juan Guzman, over the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies. Not to long after that the Toronto Raptors were introduced into the NBA as Canada’s first expansion team and landed Damon “Mighty Mouse” Stoudamire. It was an exciting time for the great city known as Toronto. Since than there has been its ups and downs. Mostly downs. The Leafs went threw some tough times missing the playoffs, the Blue Jays could never capture there swagger after the lock out and haven’t been to the playoffs since 93 and well the Raptors were an expansion team and didn’t find success until the late 90’s.
Looking at the Toronto sports market today things are starting to look rather grim. Here’s my break down team by team for what to look for in the future.
Toronto Blue Jays:
After so much promise at the beginning of last season the Blue Jays failed to live up to expectations and did not qualify for the playoffs for the 15th straight year. They have lost Shaun Marcum, a promising young stud, for all of next season, Dustin McGowan won’t be due back until May or June after a season ending shoulder injury and of course A.J. Burnett has opted out of his Contract and is testing the free agent market as we speak. A once promising pitching rotation, that was the best in the majors in 2008, looks rather slim for the 2009 season. It doesn’t help that the market is falling faster than a Roy Halladay curve ball and the jays don’t know which direction to go in. Cut salary and build within or raise payroll and compete for a World Series. With the 40 plus jobs that were lost at Rogers a day after Ted Rogers’ death it looks like the Jays are going to be on a downward spiral in the years to come.
Toronto Maple Leafs:
Heading into this season the Maple Leafs changed there Head Coach, lost there number one scorer from the season before in Mats Sundin and traded away the likes of Bryan McCabe, Darcy Tucker and Andrew Raycroft. All who were suppose to help get the Maple Leafs into the promise land. However since the start of the season it seems to be a smart move, the Leafs may not be the best team in the league but they are way more exciting than Leafs teams of the recent past. Pick-ups like Mikhail Grabovski, Niklas Hagman, Mike Van Ryn and Luke Schenn are proving to be smart moves by interm GM at the time Cliff Fletcher. And now that the Leafs have hired on Brian Burke as the full time GM and President of the Toronto Maple Leafs more moves are to come. Things may look bleak now and maybe next year but don’t worry Leaf fans were finally headed in the right direction.
Toronto Raptors
With the firing of Sam Mitchell, an 8-9 start to the season and a couple of bad loses to New Jersey, Boston and Denver, things don’t look to good for Canada only NBA franchise. After a 3-0 start, the Raptors are finding themselves sputtering to the basement of the NBA. They had a 15 point lead in Boston and lost by 7, they were beating the Nets by 7 going to the line only to have Vince drop 12 points in: 44 seconds force overtime and win it on an alley-oop and the Denver game, lost by 39 what more is there to say. As bad as that sounds its not all bad in raptor land. They still have early MVP candidate Chris Bosh playing at a high level and Jose Calderon is playing like a true NBA point guard. What the raptors need is Jermaine O’Neal to play like the JO we know and love and we need better perimeter offense and defense. It’s a long season so don’t push the panic button yet and as for down the road Colangelo is a genius and will figure out what to do.
Nelson “Demon Seed” Swan
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