45 years of Maple Leafs frustration: 2002-03

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On July 1, 2002 Curtis Joseph spurned a better offer from the Maple Leafs to sign with the Red Wings. The attraction of winning a Stanley Cup with Detroit combined with the Olympic snub from Pat Quinn was just too much to resist. Cujo was made to wear the Maple Leaf and neither he nor the Leafs would ever equal the succes the experienced together. The Leafs quickly signed free agent Ed Belfour who had lost his starting job with the Stars to Marty Turko.

The Maple Leafs would stumble out of the gate winning just two of their first nine games, as the team adjusted to their new goalie. During that period Belfour was heckled repeatedly by Leaf fans who were still angry over the Joseph fiasco. However the Leafs began to find their way in mid October and quickly rode up the standings in the Northeast Division. However, their struggles against the Ottawa Senators would prevent them from getting over the top as the Maple Leafs won just one of five fight-filled games with their Ontario rivals.

Hoping to improve the team at the trade deadline the Maple Leafs made several significant trades. As always they traded away their future at a long shot in the playoffs. Management always overestimated the talent on the roster. The Leafs acquired Owen Nolan from the San Jose Sharks, and reacquired Doug Gilmour from the Montreal Canadiens. However the dreams of a great comeback from Gilmour were squashed early as he suffered a knee injury in his first game with the Leafs, which ended his season and his career as Gilmour announced his retirement after the season. The Leafs also picked up Glen Wesley and Phil Housley at the trading deadline. In these deals the Leafs gave up Alyn McAuley, Brad Boyes, and 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th and 9th round picks.

The Leafs did go on to have a solid season finishing in second place with a record of 44-28-7-3. Alexander Mogilny was their leading scorer with 79 points and Mats Sundin led the team with 37 goals. It was the height of the dead puck era as only these two players scored over 20 goals. Belfour finished well with 2.26 GAA, .922 SAV% and 7 shutouts.

In the playoffs the Leafs were matched up against the Philadelphia Flyers. After splitting the first two games in Philadelphia the Leafs took a series lead with a dramatic 4-3 win in double overtime on a goal by Tomas Kaberle. However, the Flyers would bounce back to take Game 4 in triple overtime. After losing Game 5 in Philly the Leafs staved off elimination with a 2-1 win in double overtime on a goal by Travis Green. However, with Game 7 in Philadelphia the Leafs simply ran out of gas losing 6-1.

All that talent and only 3 playoff wins to show for it.

United Airlines loses a 10 year old girl

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Blogger, Bob Sutton writes about a horrible ordeal his friends Annie and Perry Klebahn had in late June and early July when United Airlines "lost" their 10 year-old daughter, who was traveling as an unaccompanied minor.

Here is the headline: United was flying Phoebe as an unaccompanied minor on June 30th, from San Francisco to Chicago, with a transfer to Grand Rapids. No one showed-up in Chicago to help her transfer, so although her plane made it, she missed the connection. Most crucially, United employees consistently refused to take action to help assist or comfort Phoebe or to help her parents locate her despite their cries for help to numerous United employees.

The emergency was finally solved, he says, when the parents reached a United employee who was also a mom, and agreed to help them not as a United employee, but a fellow parent who had empathy.

"When she came back she said should was going off her shift and could not help. My husband then asked her if she was a mother herself and she said “yes”—he then asked her if she was missing her child for 45 minutes what would she do? She kindly told him she understood and would do her best to help. 15 minutes later she found Phoebe in Chicago and found someone to let us talk to her and be sure she was okay."

Mistress of late Mercedes boss suing for breach of contract — her job was to sleep with the boss

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It has been two years since her lover’s death left her millions better off, but that has not stopped a mistress claiming thousands from her former employer.

The mistress of luxury auto dealer Ronald Pecunies, who died in May 2010, is suing his company to enforce a four-year employment contract she secured from him - for which it was alleged in a counter claim her main role was to allegedly sleep with her boss.

German-born brunette Emel Dilek was hired to work at Mercedes Benz of Greenwich, Connecticut, soon after she got together with married Pecunies, who was almost 50 years her senior.

Pecunies became smitten with Dilek when he met her on a 2004 business trip to Germany.

He is then believed to have flown her back to the U.S. where he got her a work visa and gave her a job at his company.

Though her job role allegedly required little more than being Pecunies' mistress, the judge has sided with the woman, now in her thirties, saying the agreement could be binding.

According to the New York Post, the German beauty was fired from her $120,000-a-year post as 'business development and marketing manager' after her lover died from pancreatic cancer.

Now technically when the old guy croaked there was no real work for her to do at the company. So isn't this the same as any factory worker who is laid off because of lack of work. If I'm working on an assembly line and it is shut down, I don't expect to be sitting at a motionless line getting paid my salary. This woman's specialty was sex and the company no longer needs her services. I understand that.

Toronto Police suggest to Mayor Rob Ford that he get a driver

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This message appeared today on the Toronto Police Services Facebook page publicly imploring the Mayor to stop reading behind the wheel.

It also points to the obsurdity of Ontario's distracted driver legislation which prohibits holding a cell phone or iPod while driving but does not cover applying make-up, reading a map, eating breakfast, or shaving. You can't legislate against stupidity.

Just to clarify the situation with the Mayor "allegedly" reading while driving on the Gardiner Expressway...under the same circumstances, we would not be in position to lay a charge for anyone. The distracted driving legislation does not cover reading paper documents and applies only to electronic devices.

Having said that, if there is evidence that the driving behaviour constituted a specific offence, the driver could be charged. A police officer would have to witness the offence or the person who witnessed the offence could initiate a charge, but only if there was evidence to support a charge.

Some would argue that drinking a coffee, changing the radio station or glancing at a child in the car would be just as distracting, but who amoung us can't be accused of doing that.

Finally, on behalf of all the citizens of Toronto that value road safety, Mr Mayor... please get a driver.
~TB

There's A New Spider In Town

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T.V. Carpio’s  first official performance as “Arachne” in SPIDER-MAN Turn Off The Dark is one she will likely remember for the rest of her life.  She emerged from the stage door a star, with a giant bouquet of roses in hand, to meet a crush of news crews and photographers.  Everyone wanted to know what it felt like to land the role and if she had any trepidation in taking it on.  The bouquet was from co-star Reeve Carney.  It turns out T.V. goes way back with Reeve and his super-guitarist brother Zane Carney.

Onstage her character uses her powers of illusion to wreak global havoc, but off stage she is humble and demure. Earlier in the day, she told George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America,” “I have a great want to step into some big shoes and do the best I can do to service this piece.”