The Cubs choke, the Leafs are ugly and the Argos are hapless.
One hundred years. And Leafs fans feel sorry for themselves.
The Chicago Cubs were the best team in the National League this season and choked. They led the N.L. in runs scored, yet in the six post-season games that Lou Piniella has managed over the past two Octobers - all losses - his Cubs have scored 13 runs for him.
Chicago has lost its last nine post-season games dating back to 2003, and Alfonso Soriano - who went 1-for-14 against the Dodgers this fall - had these words for Cubs fans.
"Be patient."
No kidding.
Martin Gerber as your No. 1 goalie?
Three words for Senators fans: Not good enough.
We always love it when players' unions talk about "looking after the best interests" of the players, the way the CFLPA is with the ongoing suspension issue in the Canadian Football League.
Somehow, looking out for the player who committed the offence [Edmonton's Agustin Barrenechea], always takes precedence over the rights of the victimized player [Kevin Glenn]. Whether or not Barrenechea intended to deliver that cheap shot last week, he delivered it. It was a cheap shot, and he shouldn't have played in the rematch won by Edmonton on Saturday.
How is that looking out for Glenn's - or any other CFL quarterback's - best interests?
It reminds of the Major League Baseball Players' Association, which protected the players' rights to do steroids for all those years. When liver failure sets in at age 50, we'll see how many ex-ball players - and their lawyers - re-define what the term "best interests" really means.
Uncle.
Detroit looks like it has a gem in undrafted, Finnish free agent Ville Leino.
Leino, who turns 25 next month, had three preseason goals. He's got Valteri Filppula and Johan Franzen written all over him, though at least super scout Hakan Andersson drafted that pair. Nobody noticed Leino except, of course, Andersson.
We've seen teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs before. Teams that are taking the necessary medicine today for a brighter tomorrow, and inevitably, will be good enough to lose by a goal most nights, and by more than that on others.
The biggest question we have is this: how often will Ron Wilson, who has spent the past 15 years coaching in American cities where the hockey press corps could hold its daily sessions inside Wilson's tiny coach's office, snap on the Toronto media?
There won't be many positive angles for the league's largest media group to explore on a daily basis this season. Which, of course, leaves the alternative - an inevitably negative line of questioning that Wilson is going to become awfully sick of awfully fast in Toronto.
He was already showing signs of impatience when he informed a scribe last week that "We're not going to win the Stanley Cup this season, probably." He is right, certainly, but when is the last time you heard a coach say that on-camera during preseason?
Just wait. Those exchanges will get a lot more testy before we hit Christmas.
The fact that Don Matthews' arrival in Toronto has had zero impact on the Argos fortunes thus far speaks well for the CFL. It equates to Winnipeg's Ryan Dinwiddie making his first CFL start in the Grey Cup game.
You shouldn't be able to win the championship game in your first CFL start at quarterback, and you shouldn't be able to retire to Oregon, admittedly not even watch the CFL game in your spare time, then catch a plane up to Toronto and beat other CFL coaches who make a living in the game.
It doesn't matter what your resume says. It's not that easy.
And Matthews? There aren't a lot of people across the league sending get well soon cards to The Don and his hapless club.
That 0-4 record? It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
The Oilers may never admit that letting Georges Laraque get away three summers ago was a mistake. But they don't have to.
They've been getting pushed around ever since - particulary by Robyn Regehr and the Calgary Flames - and for some time now have been searching for Laraque's replacement.
Enter Steve MacIntyre. Picked up off waivers from Florida, he speed-bagged Flame Jim Vandermeer on Friday, after Vandermeer had beat up a young skill player who does not fight, Marc Poulliot.
"You can't not be impressed by that fight," Shawn Horcoff told the Edmonton Journal. "He's a guy who can serve a role for our team that we haven't had in a while."
Youtube the MacIntyre-Vandermeer scrap. It's a classic case of a new enforcer informing the rival that there is a new sheriff in town.
The jury is still out on whether the 6-6, 265-pound winger can play, but that matters little. He made the Oilers in 40 seconds of work Friday.
"Mission accomplished," bubbled head coach Craig MacTavish. "We saw instant dividends on that acquisition."