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The challenges of playing hockey in a Canadian market are well documented: higher taxes, over abundant media coverage, lack of anonymity, an unrelenting and vicious winter, way too much Rush in rotation on FM radio. What makes Canada such a great place to be a hockey fan makes it a difficult environment to play in. Canada is indisputably the centre of the hockey universe, and at that universes core is Toronto. The Greater Toronto Hockey League is over a hundred years old and the largest minor hockey league in the world. Despite their futility, the Leafs could sell out Rogers Centre for home games charging $1000 and first-born children for upper deck seats. The Marlies are flourishing in the AHL. Next years World Junior Hockey Championships (co-hosted with Montreal) are sure to be the most successfully attended and celebrated ever. And yet, as a player, what would entice you to ply your trade in the Big Smoke?The crowds at the ACC for Leafs game are an embarrassment to hockeys most important market. The stories of the suits in the expensive seats, absent for starts of periods and reticent to loosen their ties even as Brian Burke undid his, are well known. The arena is eerily quiet compared to its contemporaries, a conservative and reserved audience in a sport and city renowned for its maniacal fandom. And this is not indicative of Toronto crowds, as we witnessed during the Raptors playoff appearance this year, rowdy afternoons at Jays games at Rogers Centre, and the masses that turned out this year and last in Maple Leaf/Raptors Square. But those involved fans (who make up the vast majority of Leafs Nation) enthusiasms are negatively tempered by the lower bowls reservations, reservations bred by alternately flawed and complacent approaches to building a competitive team and the absence of a winning presence. As a player who is passionate about his vocation, why would you want to commit to an environment that doesnt match that passion, especially when the home ice advantage can be such an important component of the game?Often in pieces that claim players like Thornton are interested in playing for the Leafs, the prospect of coming "home" is cited as a key factor. The very notion of "home" is a flawed premise in this lazy argument. Even if you call "home" somewhere in Southern Ontario, as a hockey player you probably havent lived there since you were 16. Thornton has lived in San Jose for nearly a decade, is a naturalized US citizen, has a wife, a mortgage, perhaps a few pets, maybe a café he really likes to go to, a favourite pizza place, a butcher who cuts his ribeyes to just the perfect thickness. But the Toronto Sun is going to tell him where his home is.For many players, one might suspect that playing at home in front of an overbearing hockey dad, mum and her new husband, and sycophantic high school acquaintances just a few blocks from where that girl broke your heart is the very definition of hell. And is working in your hometown really all that enticing? How many of you work in your hometowns? Hardly any. Youve all moved to Toronto.Thornton is from St. Thomas, Ontario, which would place his NHL "hometown" in Detroit or Buffalo as much as in Toronto, and yet those markets media dont seem to be making the "coming home" argument. Torontos hockey media is the most intense in all of professional sports. Maybe Montreals is equal, but half of the vitriol and conjecture there is in French, and only a fraction of NHLers understand it. (Reasonably, even those of us who are bilingual dont really understand it.) In Toronto, there is endless speculation, much of it even based in fact. Each flaw, each mistake (on and off the ice) is dissected and disseminated ad nauseum. Trade rumours are fabricated on a daily basis, the ubiquitous "NHL executive" noted as an unimpeachable source. The discussion of hockey in Toronto has become an insufferable wall of noise for an uninvested observer, so imagine if the discourse directly affected your family, your income, and your life.It seems a lot to ask of a player to endure such amplified attention, especially given the fact the Leafs have not been a competitive team since 2004. And that is final circle of the NHLs Hell: irrelevance. Toronto is still recovering from the John Ferguson Jr. era. They have some formidable pieces in Kessel, Morgan Reilly, and Jonathan Bernier; a young skilled forward, puck moving defenseman, and promising goaltender around which to build. They have a top-ten pick in the coming draft, some interesting if not spectacular prospects (Stuart Percy, Matt Finn), and some movable pieces (Nazem Kadri, Jake Gardiner). Brendan Shanahan emanates stability and hubris. But theyre still saddled with bad contracts (Dion Phaneuf, David Clarkson), a suspect coaching philosophy, and a lack of depth. And to watch the Kings, Blackhawks, and Rangers this spring is to know the Leafs are far removed from that level of hockey.So if you were an unrestricted free agent, or a player on the trading block with some say in his future, why would you come to Toronto? Consider Thornton: Youre in your mid-30s, never won a Cup, live in the perfection of Northern California, in a market that sustains you but doesnt invade you, and youd chose to move to Toronto, with its high taxes, magnified attention, and with as much of a chance of winning a Cup in the next five years as Quebec City? Toronto is a world-class city, cultured and cosmopolitan, a great place to live and make a life. The Joe Thorntons of the world should want to play home games at the ACC. The challenges of the market need to be offset by a tradition of winning and the only way for Toronto to do that is to build a stable and competitive franchise through hoarding draft picks and young controllable players, and eschewing the temptation of quick expensive fixes like Clarkson, or Thornton. The best thing for a successful NHL would be a dominant Toronto Maple Leafs team. Given the teams last decade, however, it seems like that wont happen until Hell freezes over. Fortunately for Toronto, most of it freezes over every January, so the wait may not be that long. Youth Thunder Jerseys . The Wild, playing their first game since leading scorer Mikko Koivu broke his ankle Saturday at Washington, have won three straight for the first time since Nov. 1-5. Koivu underwent surgery on Monday and is expected to miss at least four weeks. Gary Payton Jersey . Kelli Stack and Alex Carpenter also scored for the Americans, who avoided a repeat of Finlands upset at the Four Nations Cup in Lake Placid, N.Y., in November. Finnish goalie Noora Raty made 58 saves in that one, but the three-time Olympian could stop just 40 of 43 U. http://www.cheapthunderjerseyschina.com/ . - Connor McDavid scored twice and added two assists as the Erie Otters beat the Sarnia Sting 7-3 on Saturday night in Ontario Hockey League action. Terrance Ferguson Jersey .Leicester won 25-21 in a heated European Rugby Champions Cup group match on Sunday.Toulon said on its website on Wednesday that it decided to open an investigation after Leicester complained about the behaviour of prop Martin Castrogiovanni and fullback Delon Armitage. Wholesale Thunder Jerseys . Monta Ellis had 30 points and nine assists, Nowitzki was another of seven Dallas players in double figures with 11 points and the Mavericks beat the Los Angeles Lakers 123-104 Tuesday night.WASHINGTON -- Bradley Beal scored 26 points, and the Washington Wizards moved a step closer to claiming the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference on Saturday night with a 104-91 win over the Milwaukee Bucks, whose loss guaranteed they will finish with at least a tie for the worst record in the NBA. John Wall added 15 points and eight assists for the Wizards, who also clinched the franchises first winning record since 2008 -- which was also the last time they made the playoffs. Washington leads the seventh-place Charlotte Bobcats, who beat the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday, by one game with two to play. The Bobcats hold the tiebreaker if Washington and Charlotte finish tied. Both teams are hoping to finish higher than seventh in order to avoid a first-round series against Miami or Indiana. Khris Middleton and Ramon Sessions scored 20 points apiece to lead the Bucks, who trail the 76ers by two games with two to play at the bottom of the league. The Bucks also failed in their latest chance to have their first winning streak of the season. They had won Friday night after losing six in a row. Injuries and a suspension to Larry Sanders had already thinned Larry Drews bench, and on Saturday the Bucks coach was down to a rotation of eight players after Brandon Knight was a late scratch with a sore right hip. The Wizards, meanwhile, played without Nene, who was resting on a back half of a back-to-back, having recently returned from sprained left knee. His fill-in, Trevor Booker, had another solid game, scoring 11 points on 5-for-7 shooting. Beal has been streakky of late, both good and bad.dddddddddddd He was 12 for 22 from the field Saturday night, but just 2 for 7 from 3-point range. He has made only five of 28 3-pointers in his last five games. Trevor Ariza, whose shot has suffered while he battled the flu for more than a week, looked a bit more refreshed as he went 5 for 7 from the field and scored 13 points for Washington. Marcin Gortat added 13 points and 13 rebounds. The Bucks and Wizards had gone to overtime in two of their three previous meetings this season, and this one stayed tight into the third quarter. Milwaukee stayed close by taking advantage of the offensive boards, while Washington had all the space in the world to work the baseline and drive to the paint. The Wizards never trailed in the first half, but their lead never reached double digits. The Bucks took their only lead of the game on Zaza Pachulias layup early in the third quarter, but a three-point play from Booker, a dunk from Gortat and a 3-pointer from Martell Webster -- along with six Milwaukee turnovers in eight minutes -- help put Washington ahead 87-74 headed into the fourth. NOTES: The Bucks shot exactly 50 per cent (10 for 20, 8 for 16, 8 for 16) in each of the first three quarters. ... The Wizards made 8 of 22 3-pointers, a modest improvement after going just 6 for 50 from in their previous three games. ... The Wizards signed 10-year-old Amaris Jackson to a one-day contract in partnership with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Amaris, who is to have surgery to remove a tumour in her lungs, was introduced with the starting lineup. 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