Results tagged “darcytucker”

Toronto police chief Bill Blair yesterday said that the police assigned to Toronto schools would be uniformed and armed, contradicting earlier comments by school board chair John Campbell. The officers will remain on campus only until Robocop testing is completed.

If you're reading this and it's between the hours of 7-9:30pm EST, do yourself a favour and tune into Hockey Night in Canada. You might be witnessing the end of an era in Toronto sports.

One month into the new NHL season, and this much is obvious: the Toronto Maple Leafs are a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, dressed in the league’s silly new jerseys. The Leafs are scoring more often than your younger sister, but they’re also leaking goals at a potentially historic rate. They’ve lost two games by 7–1 final scores, but they’ve also got an 8–1 win and consecutive 4–1 road victories against consensus preseason favourites (Pittsburgh and the New York Rangers). The result is that the Maple Leafs are one of the most entertaining teams in the league, even if they’re seemingly hell-bent on driving their doggedly loyal fans to drink.

With their 4-1 loss to the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes Tuesday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs slipped back to a .500 record (19-19-6) yet again, and now sit tied for ninth place in the Eastern Conference, fighting for their playoff lives after having played more than half of their games this season. They're missing a hospital ward full of regular players due to injury (Mike Peca, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Ian White, Kyle Wellwood, Darcy Tucker, etc.). They continue to struggle with goaltending that, while decent at times, is far from superior, with neither Andrew Raycroft nor Jean-Sebastien Aubin stealing a single game for them this year. So what has general manager John Ferguson, Jr. done to shore up his team with the all-star break and stretch run looming? Well, yesterday he claimed former Leaf third/fourth-liner Travis Green (two points in seven games this year with Anaheim, 22 points in 82 games with Boston last season) off of waivers. While a noted faceoff and penalty kill specialist, Green is hardly a replacement for the likes of Tucker (19-12-31 in 39 games), Ponikarovsky (11-13-24 in 35 games) or Wellwood (9-22-31 in 35 games) on a team that even when fully healthy is still lacking offensively.

Following the success of gay cowboy epic Brokeback Mountain, it was inevitable that there would be more films about other traditionally uber-hetero occupations considered from a queer POV, and Hollywood desks must have been groaning under stacks of scripts about gay race car drivers, Navy SEALs, and oil patch roughnecks.

With all the personnel changes the Maple Leafs made this offseason, it appears little has infact changed on the ice. With the team opening their 2006-07 pre-season against the Buffalo Sabres at the ACC Monday night, it was the same old story for Mats Sundin's team. Excessive penalties, an inability to score, a bleeding Darcy Tucker, average goaltending and Bryan McCabe's goatee each contributed to a performance that was all too familiar to post-lockout Leaf fans. Even with their unsightly new uniforms, the Sabres had no problem picking up where they left off last season. After dominating the Leafs head-to-head in 05-06, the Sabres scored all of their goals on the powerplay, while Martin Biron turned aside twenty-three Toronto shots in the 4-0 victory. Three of those Sabre goals came during a stretch of the second period in which the Leafs committed six consecutive penalties. All-in-all, it was a dissappointing start to what fans had hoped would be a more satisfying season. The team now travels to Ottawa to play the Senators tomorrow night.

With Torontoist's past two "sports" entries being titled "Toronto Bike Posts Both Strong and Vulnerable" and "We've Got a Thing 'bout The Post-and-Ring" (the first installment of the two-part series on our city's bike posts), the Adorable Sports Writer feels like it's time to re-capture the floor.

From where Torontoist is sitting it looks quite lovely outside but don't be fooled. It's cold outside and we just want to remind you to please bundle up, maybe even wearing a jester cap, before going out to do whatever it is you'll be doing this Friday evening. The Weather Office has the windchill at around -25 tonight and sadly it'll stay like this for most of the weekend.

Victoria BC native Steve Nash has been awarded the Lou Marsh Award as Canadian Athlete of the Year for 2005. The Toronto Star and the elected voting panel awarded Nash the distinction in a unanimous decision announced Thursday in Toronto. The Phoenix Suns point guard was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player last season after leading his team to the Western Conference Championship. He finished the 2004-05 season with just under 200 assists more than the next closest challenger, and in doing so, turned a non-playoff team into the highest scoring group in the league.

For those of you still in mourning over the lost hockey season, Torontoist says “Get a Life Loser”. Both this Friday and next will offer Toronto sports fans something they have been waiting for since the Argo’s Grey Cup win… Excitement! The abysmal basketball season will be pushed aside tonight as baseball returns to the newly revamped Rogers Centre, with the Blue Jays taking the field against the World Champion Boston Red Sox. The 2-1 Jays currently hold a one-game lead over the Red Sox in the tight American League East Division. Twenty-five year old David Bush will take the mound for Toronto. The team expects big things out of Bush this season. The Sox will respond with second-year starter, Bronson Arroyo. If this isn’t enough to make you forget about Darcy Tucker and Aki Berg, just wait…