Land of the Leaf

Here we go again, the Cold War is back on as Jim Balsillie submitted an offer to buy the Phoenix Coyotes with a condition allowing him to relocate the franchise to Ontario.  There’s no way in hell that Gary Bettman wants to pull the plug in sunny Phoenix for the frozen highways of Southern Ontario.  He won’t even pull the plug in Nashville, and don’t forget that Kansas City is prepared to house a team right now.

Ian White left the World Hockey Championship yesterday.  That’s the closest thing to Maple Leaf news I’ve got.

It looks like Roberto Alomar is off the hook with that wacky AIDS lawsuit.  Never mind that his ex-girlfriend Ilya Dall doesn’t even have AIDS, or that she’s just bat-shit crazy.  I’m still puzzled by her description of Alomar’s symptoms:

“Purple skin, too sick and weak to walk … foaming at the mouth, couldn’t swallow, and a spinal tap proved (Alomar) was indeed suffering with full-blown AIDS.”

Alomar’s current girlfriend seems like a much kinder girl:

(hat tip to Mopupduty)

The Toronto Argos have brought back a familiar face to serve as the team’s new president.  Bob Nicholson was president of the club from 1994-1999, and he’ll reprise for the upcoming season. When in doubt, just bring back the old boss.

Pierre McGuire is among the front runners for the vacant general manager position with the Minnesota Wild.  McGuire’s first moves if he is to get the job:  sign some monsters and bring Robert Petrovicky back to the NHL.

To put it bluntly, he’s lying through his teeth.  Burke vehemently denied rumors that the Maple Leafs had received an offer from the Boston Bruins for Tomas Kaberle by telling TSN:

“It’s not true, a total fabrication, I sat with (Boston GM) Peter Chiarelli for the first period of Saturday’s game in Boston and we never discussed Tomas Kaberle. We hadn’t spoken about Kaberle before that and we most certainly haven’t since then. There is no truth to it at all. None.”

Burke also reiterated his desire to keep Ian White in the fold for the Leafs:

“I don’t expect either defenceman to move,” Burke told the Star. “I’ve gotten offers for Ian White which we’ve turned down. We’re really happy with him, and unless we’re blown away we plan to keep him.”

You have to admit, this approach to selling the team’s assets is probably more effective than his recent public lambasting of Nik Antropov.  Burke can create the illusion that Tomas Kaberle and Ian White are so valuable that it would take a top-notch offer to pull them away.  The reality for this team is that they’re neither good enough to sneak into the playoffs down the stretch, nor bad enough to compete for the John Tavares Cup.  Brian Burke is a lot of things, but the jury is out on his fibbing skills.