Leafs apologize to fans for disappointing season
Posted Apr 10, 2012 11:13:34 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO, Ont. – The Toronto Maple Leafs are apologizing for yet another disappointing season in both a letter to fans posted on the Leafs’ website, which asks forgiveness after the team missed the playoffs for the seventh straight year, and a press conference from head coach Randy Carlyle, explaining what will happen going forward.
“I think the team hasn’t played to a consistent level that’s required,” said Carlyle at the press conference Tuesday morning, saying the number one issue among members of the team was lack of confidence. “There’s parts of this team that have played consistent hockey for us, and there’s other parts that haven’t.”
“We’ve got to create a better environment for them to have success in,” he told reporters, saying the levels of work ethic, accountability and conditioning need to go up, they need to do a better job of defending the net, and “become more of a hockey club that plays a tighter brand of hockey.”
Carlyle, who is still in the process of moving his family to Toronto after a late-season coaching replacement, admitted the team is “not very happy,” and that “this is an assessment that takes place through the next little while.”
He explained the trust factor between himself and GM Brian Burke as if it is a marriage, and he believes Burke trusting is quite capable of getting done what needs to get done. While there are no changes expected to be made in the near future, he said team rosters generally make some dramatic changes over the summer months – anywhere in the range from four to five players, and any changes made to the Leafs’ team will be a challenge, and an up and down cycle. He added that players generally want to go where they will be paid the most money and put the chance of success second, but in Toronto, there is opportunity for success both on the ice and off.
The apology letter – which Carlyle was only informed of just before the press conference – has also appeared in the sports section of several newspapers, Tuesday. He said chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Larry Tanenbaum obviously felt the ad was necessary, and he supports any moves made in that regard.
“The Toronto Maple Leafs are a public trust with the greatest fans in the world,” reads the letter, signed by Tanenbaum.
“We have fallen short of everyone’s expectations, and for that we are sorry. We take full responsibility for how this team performs on the ice, and we make no excuses.”
“The way this year ended was unacceptable. Results are the only measure of success in sports and the results speak for themselves.”
However, some members of Leafs Nation are not in a forgiving mood.
“I don’t accept their apology; I want to see them get rid of Burke and get some management that knows what they’re doing,” one man said.
“How about a plan to make it all better,” another dismal fan said.
However, another man said, “either way, they make the playoffs or they don’t, they’ll always be my favourite, so it’s irrelevant to me.”
The Leafs were in sixth place in the Eastern Conference in February, but went on to win just two of their next 17 games in a collapse they couldn’t recover from.
Toronto general manager Burke replaced head coach Ron Wilson with Carlyle in March, but the damage was done and the Leafs finished 13th in the East.
“There’s been a lot of turmoil,” Carlyle said of this year, but “you have to adapt to the changes that are taking place.”
The letter, meanwhile, makes no mention of Burke’s future, only saying that “ownership believes in the plan for the Maple Leafs.”
“[The Leafs are a] worldwide brand, but it’s no more bigger display than in the city of Toronto, and there’s a lot of responsibility that goes with that,” said Carlyle, adding that the guys “play the game for one reason – you play it to win.”
