Farewell to Tony Esposito, The Leafs on Prime, Team Canada’s Coach and more
This week’s edition of the Thursday Links, News and Notes
- Another hockey legend has left this earth. After a battle with pancreatic cancer, Tony Esposito has passed away at the age of 78 years old. He is the all-time career leader for the Blackhawks with 418 wins and 74 shutouts, and ranks 10th in league history for wins with his overall record of 423-306-151.
- If you wanted to re-live the famous 5-1 comeback game against the Leafs or the amazing 3-1 series reverse sweep between the Leafs and the Habs, Amazon Prime has you covered. The detailed behind-the-scenes documentary will showcase the Leafs’ incredibly successful season that ultimately ended with another embarrassing playoff exit. Stay tuned as the show premiers on October 1st for our viewing pleasure.
- Co-ed hockey gives an opportunity for girls and boys to play together as a group of teammates and friends without the focus on gender or the traditional segregation of boys vs girls leagues. That is until you get to the dressing room situation. Hockey Canada states that co-ed teams need to separate the girls and boys as they change in and out of their gear. However, most rinks aren’t equipped to accommodate two separate changing rooms and recently Berkeley Trayhorne from Dalmeny, Saskatchewan, found herself getting changed in supply closets and even in the hallway with no privacy at all. The issue took a further turn during COVID-19 and now Trayhorne finds herself banned from playing with her friends and the issue has escalated to the court of law. Maybe co-ed hockey isn’t the idyllic solution we’ve all been looking for.
- With the conclusion of the summer Olympics, and buoyed by Canada’s stellar performance, we all now turn our excitement towards the Winter Olympics in 2022. When it comes to the Winter version, nothing is as exciting as the hockey tournament (and the snowboarding action) and Team Canada is getting into full preparation mode as they named the back to back Cup champion, Jon Cooper as the head coach. Canada will be in search of the first goal since 2014 — the last time NHL players were all in attendance.
- The Toronto Maple Leafs give us many reasons to mock them but on an ethical side, they’ve generally proven themselves to be a decent organization. Goaltending coach Dusty Imoo was hired on Sunday to help the development of the Marlies team and, shortly after, his concerning social media profile came to light before he deactivated his account. The Leafs quickly terminated his employment and released a statement apologizing for not following their own protocol. The tweets are there, it took a good 10 minutes for fans to bring them up and question the hiring, why couldn’t the Leafs have done the same in the hiring process? Was it that the organization, that professes to stand for progressive values that inform their hiring decisions, couldn’t be bothered to do even a modicum of background checking to make sure their newest employee met that standard?/
