I've said it before, and I'll say it again, 小蓝视频 a Toronto Maple Leafs fan isn't easy.
Being a Maple Leafs fan means countless nights of disappointment, hours wondering what is wrong with the roster or general manager or coach and the odd celebration when they win a big game like the one against Buffalo Saturday.
As bad as the struggles are for Maple Leaf fans over the past four and half decades (fortunately for me it has been just over two decades) and millions of other sport fans around the world, their hardships are trivial in comparison to those people dealing with the disasters in Japan last week.
Not only was the earthquake one of the worst recorded, but the flood basically washed cities off the face of the earth.
Scary stuff, and I guess living in central Canada and in the middle of nowhere has it benefits for now.
Before I continue with the sports portion of this column, I hope everyone can count their blessing and be thankful we live in a free, peaceful and safe country. As bad as things can get here we need to realize there is always a place in the world that is worse.
With that said, the MLB season is just around the corner and the NHL playoff hunt is heating up, so a lot of excitement building in the professional ranks. The excitement is coming just in time too, as the local sports have all but died out with high school basketball the main feature for the next couple weeks.
The races in both the Western and Eastern Conferences are exciting to follow. In the West a team can go from eighth to fourth in one night while the East has a handful of teams refusing to give up on a playoff berth.
Let's see what else is making news in the NHL - concussion, Winnipeg getting a team and the Sedin twins as the best duo in the NHL. Nothing has changed in the last three seasons. Imagine that, it all appears to be status quo.
Not exactly. For some reason hockey is the only sport where the discussion to possibly change the game is brought up way too often.
Baseball had a strike, but once the money issues were resolved the game was more or less the same as it was before, with the exception of steroid use and the creation of more home runs hit in a season than the Yankees' team salary.
The NFL is on the fritz, but that again is mostly about money. But the NHL has looked at changing rules as old as the game itself nearly every off-season.
Why has the bigger, faster, stronger theory had such a large impact on hockey where players' safety is greatly in danger each game. Yet football, hasn't made changes and is as popular as ever, the MLB is thriving and the other major sport - basketball - hasn't changed much since moving the rim years ago.
One suggestion is that with the bigger, stronger, faster players they should go back to the smaller, light equipment. By no means would Chara's hit on Montreal's Max Pacioretty been avoided if he was wearing equipment from the '40s, but there are some cases where players would have to think twice before delivering a knockout blow.
The talk is to improve helmets to strive to make them concussion free. I don't think Gretzky's helmet was concussion free by any means. The world best doctors don't know exactly how to treat concussions, so knowing how to prevent them will not happen overnight, if it ever does. But smaller shoulder pads, no plastic shell on elbow pads and more give in the glass and boards are all suggestions I would make if I were at the general managers' meetings this week.
Monday some news came out that they were looking at equipment changes, but perhaps the best is idea of day one of the meetings was players won't be sitting on the bench waiting to hear their name called after a potential head injury.
Injured players will go to a quiet room and be evaluated by a doctor instead of on the bench by a trainer and wait for the coach to tell them to suck it up.
The best solutions might simply come from more knowledge of concussions. They appear to be a scary injury and something no one is quite certain how to deal with.
There isn't a lack of respect in the league, but perhaps the added pressure from coaches, fans, teammates and hockey in general makes for a no holds barred, anything goes game that could be the cause of some of the head injuries.
Keep your head up through the middle and stay safe.
