Land of the Leaf

Raptors Aiming For Fifth Straight

The road to five straight wins goes directly through Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic.  Cuzzy isn’t April Foolsing on you, an upset of ‘magical’ proportions could be in the works tonight.  Okay, that was little much.  [Cuzoogle]

Mills Craps The Bed In Last Chance To Impress

The fight for the fifth and final spot in the Jays’ rotation is becoming a contest of shittyness.  Brad Mills got lit up by the Phillies in his final start of the spring.  He’ll probably still pitch for the Jays in the near future according to Cito.  Scott Richmond will have to step on the mound and pull down his pants and piss to lose the final spot on this staff.

Leaf Fans Divided On Brad May

Brad May isn’t going to command big money this offseason, but he could be a valuable leader and roll-player somewhere.  It’s up to his father Brian Burke to decide whether or not that will be with Toronto or not.  The fans are split down the middle on him.  [Pension Plan Puppets]

Who’s More Stab-Worthy, TSN2 or Rogers?

We’re now in month number eight in the TSN2 and Rogers’ standoff.  TSN can suck-it because they put half of their Raptors’ games on a channel that 14 people have, and Rogers can suck-it for refusing to man-up and offer TSN2.  [Zelkovich]

Chicks Dig The Stick

Anna Kournikova, Willa Ford, Hillary Duff, the older Tanner sister from Full House:  they all chase puck.  [FanIQ]

Self-Promotion

I hate country music, especially Wal-Mart country.  I took a shot at Carey Price’s stupid Garth Brooks goalie mask over at Hockeyhead.

Blue Jays News and Notes
Jumping Jesus Murphy, the Blue Jays’ pitching rotation is starting to take shape.  Bastian reported earlier today that Ricky Romero has made the team by claiming the 4th spot in the rotation, slotting in after Jesse Litsch.  That leaves Canada’s first son Scott Richmond and another lefty in Brad Mills to battle for the 5th spot in the rotation.

Mopupduty hosted and posted an informative and rather excellent round table discussion of the upcoming Blue Jays season featuring a slew of Jays’ bloggers. They’re mostly optimistic, I’m optimistic, and maybe you’ll be too after checking it out.

Stoeten remains realistic about Dustin McGowan and the likelihood (there is none) that he’ll pitch for the Jays at some point this season.  Although, Shaun Marcum is actually ahead of schedule on his own rehab!

This is from yesterday, but it’s still got some awesomeness to it today: Bluebird Banter took a look at the Jays defensively heading into the season.  Also, if you need an awful reminder of just how convoluted things were in left field for Toronto last year, then they’ve got you covered.

Quickly On The Leafs
The annual ridiculously helpless and saddeningly hopeless shot at the playoffs: “11 points out of eighth with six games to go, the Leafs aren’t eliminated from the playoffs yet, weirdly enough. If Montreal, Buffalo and Florida lose out the season, and Ottawa loses a couple games (while beating Montreal in regulation in their head to head) Toronto only needs to go 6-0-0 against… Philly (2x), New Jersey, Buffalo, Montreal and Ottawa.” - [Pension Plan Puppets]

Burgundy from StayClassy is lobbing around names of teams that may be potential suitors for Ray Emery next season.  He drops Toronto as a possibility, I have to admit: I like it.