An Open Letter to The New Owners of MLSE....

 Rogers, Bell and Larry Tennenbaum....the new owners of MLSE

To Bell and Rogers,

First off, Congratulations on your recent purchase of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment (possibly the first and only time you will ever agree to buy or DO anything together as it is). Your two businesses have been at war with each other for years in the business world with your mobile, Cable TV, Internet and home phone divisions as well as your sports networks (Bell with TSN and Rogers Sportsnet franchise) so this agreement to jointly buy MLSE took everyone by surprise.


Your recent purchase gives you control of the Maple Leafs, the Raptors (and the ACC where they both play), TFC (and BMO Field where they play), the AHL Toronto Marlies (And Ricoh Colieseum where they play as well), not to mention several condo developments and office towers in and around your facilities in Downtown Toronto. I just wanted to take the time to give you a little primer as to what is is you got yourself into exactly with a mini state of each team you just bought, to help you as you complete your purchase over the next few months.

Jerryd Bayless is part of a promising future for the Raptors

The Raptors seem to be on the right track as they are a young team with some key parts either learning on the job (DeRozen, Bayliss), already in place (Calderon and Bargnani), or on the way (another top 7 pick this year and Valinciunious, their top pick from last season). Bryan Colangelo miscalculated when he kept Chris Bosh (we were all lied to by him and his intentions were never made clear), but he has been able to piece together a young, defensively aggressive team and hired a good coach in Dwayne Casey, who is coming off of helping the Dallas Mavericks to their first NBA Title last season. The Raptors, you can leave alone for another year.

Danny Koevermans, Aron Winter and Torsten Frings are all part of a TFC side on the rise....

The same can be said for TFC. Their home opening defeat aside, this team looks like they finally have a solid core and a plan in place to turn the team into a power in the MLS. It only took 6 years (4 years too long), 5 coaches and severe fan dissatisfaction with the way the team was being managed to finally put into place Paul Mariner as director of player development and Aron Winter, a Dutch born and trained player turned head coach, to put this team along a positive path, including a semi-final birth in the CONCACAF Champions League (the first leg to be played tomorrow night at BMO Field). Again, leave this team alone as they are on the right track as well.

 Alex Anthopolous has the Jays going in the right direction, and possibly a Playoff spot this year

With that being said, you have bought control over just about every single sports franchise in the city of Toronto (except the Argos but nobody cares about them and Rogers already owns the Blue
Jays, possibly the best Toronto based team over the last few years) which means you will have exactly zero time to saver the moment and have to get right to work correcting issues with the biggest problem at MLSE: The Leafs.

This Douche bag was given 7 years as the GM of the Jays, and did nothing with them....

Instead of distracting us with blustery blow-hards in charge of our most cherished local team (Re: Brian Burke and JP Riccardi before him with the Jays), we need to have competent people in charge who not only have a connection to the city and understanding of what it means to be a fan in this region, but are not so insanely rigid in their ideology that they have to complain about the conditions in which they work (whether its salary constraints, the media, the fans booing their hand picked players, the state of the game they manage changing too much for them, etc.) and instead they can focus on the job at hand: Turning the Leafs into a Powerhouse again.



It makes no sense to continue to attempt to distract us with these types of major hiring decisions (while you reach around to grab the cash out of the sports fans' wallet). Leaf fans DEMAND that you begin to change with the times and make some drastic changes to this crumbling Leafs team. Clearly a major overhaul is needed.

The Captain of the Maple Leafs should not be losing fights to guys like Nathan Horton and Nick Foligno...

If you fail to make the playoffs, offer your season ticket base a rebate (because clearly you failed in your 1st duty to the fans in having a good product on the field of play or the ice). Put a freeze on ticket prices until you are a playoff team again (that would have meant an 8 year freeze for the Leafs but when you can still sell out the place, night after night, despite being a crap team, it really shouldn't matter). If you give someone 5 years to turn around a team (which is a fair amount of time), and they fail, fire them. They failed, they should be out. Period.

Yes Ron, that's the way to the exit....I just hope it hits you hard on the way out!

Hire the best possible candidates for the roles in their field. You currently have 6 men in the brain trust of the Maple Leafs who either have been or could be General Managers of teams in the league (Brian Burke, Dave Nonis, Claude Loiselle, Rick Dudley, Cliff Fletcher, and Dave Poulin) on which you are spending about $6.2 million a season. All of this for a team that was a playoff team (barely) up until February 1st, and has utterly collapsed in the time since then into one of the 5 worst teams in the league. You had a coach in place in Ron Wilson, who has never won anything in the NHL. Yes, he (Barely) won the 1996 World Cup of Hockey for the USA, but he was clearly out of his element as coach of the Leafs as he was ill prepared for the media crush that came with the job.

Even if a new GM comes in, Carlyle is a good choice for this young team....

At least now with Randy Carlyle in charge they have a coach who can teach young players to reach their FULL potential as he did in Anaheim with Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf, helping them mature from raw rookies into Stanley Cup winners when he was there. Leaving Carlyle in place is a good idea but replacing the man in charge (Burke) is the first step that both Rogers and Bell need to do to correct the mess that has been the Maple Leafs for over 8 years. They are the only team to not have made the Playoffs since the 2004 Lockout which cost the league and entire season!  Attendance may not drop but your beer sales, parking revenue and merchandise sales will wane significantly if this continues to be the norm for this team year after year.

 He is a winner, let's see him (finally) as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs!

The fans turned on Wilson and he was gone only a few days later. Now they have started to turn on Burke.We can only hope the people at Bell and Rogers are listening. The best way to change the culture of this franchise is to bring in someone who has a history of winning and has built a winner in the past. There is one man currently out of hockey that has done that and has always wanted to have an association with the Maple Leafs. His name? Wayne Gretzky.

English Royalty side by side with Canadian Hockey Royalty......The Leafs need Wayne!!!

He can handle the media better then anyone else. He helped build Team Canada in 2002 and helped turn the tide of that tournament for the team when he deflected all the attention of the media from the teams' slow start onto himself with his tirade after a close game against the Germans. Sure, his coaching record was mediocre at best (with the amount of financial stresses on his back in Phoenix at the time, It's not that surprising really....he is STILL owed about $25 million from that team) but this is one of the flagship franchises in the NHL and it needs someone at the top that has the ability to handle the media and build a franchise at the same time. Steve Yzerman is doing a hell of a job in Tampa, Gretzky should be given that chance in Toronto.

 I would rather have a Canadian in charge of the Leafs on ice product then an American....Plus he knows the PM!

One other way to look at this from a marketing stand point for both Rogers and Bell: How could it possibly hurt to have the greatest player to ever play the game as your front man for one of the oldest and most revered teams in the league? You could use his name in conjunction with the Maple Leaf Brand to earn even more revenue then MLSE already makes in a given year. You know, a good way to try and start to recoup some of the $1.5 Billion you spent on buying into MLSE in the first place.

So in conclusion, once again congrats on your recent purchase. You really only have one fire to put out with regards to MLSE as the Raptors and TFC are in good hands and its' the Leafs who have stumbled badly for nearly a decade. Your job now is to get to work and earn the respect of Leaf fans everywhere by firing Brian Burke, and his know-it-all proclamations, and hire Hockey Royalty in his stead as his replacement, in Wayne Gretzky.

Regards....

Toronto Sports Fans