NHL: MAPLE LEAFS
Toxic Stew Surrounds Team
DAVID SHOALTS
November 15, 2007
There was a time, way back in the distant 1990s, when covering a Toronto Maple Leafs practice meant wandering into the dressing room with the two other beat reporters, looking around for the players you wanted and sitting down beside them for a chat as much as an interview.
Later, you and the two other reporters would head to the corridor outside for what passed as a scrum with head coach Pat Burns. A couple of times a week, three or four broadcast reporters would show up.
That was then. Now, in the words of Leafs forward Darcy Tucker, life around the Leafs is "the Bermuda Triangle."
The media interest is so intense now that all of the strange events surrounding the Leafs this season take on a life of their own. They are dissected endlessly in print and on the airwaves rather than dying a natural death after a few hours.
Perhaps the low point was reached yesterday, when the Toronto Sun splashed an embarrassing picture of Leafs rookie Jiri Tlusty on its front page.
Inside was a column about how his youthful indiscretions with a cellphone camera fell victim to today's technology and wound up on the Internet. Elsewhere, one columnist thundered that Conn Smythe would never have put up with such shenanigans, overlooking the fact the Major had his share of skeletons in his closet. And there was the usual fulminating on the radio talk shows and on television.
All of this about a 19-year-old kid who did something silly, just like any teenager. This is the biggest glass house in the world, but it didn't stop commentators from acting like maiden aunts who came across their nephew's stash of girlie magazines.
Five years ago, some jerk took a few pictures of former Leafs goaltender Ed Belfour drinking a beer at a house party. Then, he posted them on the Internet and alerted most media outlets. No one touched it, rightly figuring even Belfour, no stranger to public escapades that involved law enforcement, deserved his privacy as long as he was doing no harm to his team.
The crush of media is such now that everyone's existence is irreparably altered, from the media themselves to the players, coaches, general managers and top executives at the Leafs' parent company, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.
The increased scrutiny, which seems at a historic high this year, does not mean improved coverage of the Leafs. It just means pack journalism at its worst, with the story du jour torn to pieces by everyone.
Interviews, one-on-one exchanges between player and journalist, are increasingly rare. Almost all contact between the Leafs' players and the media is in scrums, where a slow day will have about 15 print and broadcast reporters and camera people crowded around one player's stall in the dressing room. The player throws out a few clichés, then heads for the shower room.
There are now three sports-television networks that cover the Leafs regularly, plus an all-sport radio station and one that seems all-Leafs. There is also a large crowd from the regular networks, TV and radio stations. There is Leafs TV and any number of fan websites.
However, all of this is a reflection of the interest of the fans, which doesn't escape the team and its employees.
"There is so much interest in this hockey team because of the fans," Leafs head coach Paul Maurice said yesterday. "We've seen in other markets that if there isn't the interest from the fans, there isn't the interest from the media."
The proof is in the new technology that embarrassed Tlusty.
Clicking on a story on a newspaper website is an instant gauge. Leafs stories on globesports.com get far more readers than anything else.
But at the same time, the angst among fans who have gone 40 years without a Stanley Cup is growing. They are a lot quicker to boo their heroes this year.
Mix it all together and you have one toxic stew around the hockey team.
CKA Uber 
![[hockey]](./images/smilies/nhl_crach.gif "Hockey Body Check")
