The mystery surrounding Max Domi continues, hidden behind press release words and a touch of Maple Leafs paranoia. This much has been discovered about Domi: He was scheduled to have back surgery at the conclusion of last season. He had played through something most of the year, toughing it out to hit the 80-game mark with the troubled Leafs. He fought when he had to fight. He battled who he had to battle. Then came the surgery.
According to sources, Domi chose his own surgeon to perform the operation rather than the one the Maple Leafs had in mind. That is not uncommon with today's modern athlete and does not affect his insurance status as a Leafs player. What is uncommon is that something went terribly wrong with the surgery. For public consumption, no one is saying what. Almost every operation on a professional athlete is followed by a press release indicating that successful surgery has taken place. Whatever happened here was not deemed successful. Apparently, Domi could not walk in the days following surgery, which created significant alarm. His status remains in doubt for the coming season.
This is not like an injury to Auston Matthews or William Nylander, one of the Leafs' expensive talents who cannot be replaced. Domi is not an irreplaceable part. He is an irreplaceable spirit. And his situation remains difficult and challenging for a team seemingly specializing in difficult and challenging.
This and That
Before handing Mitch Marner the Conn Smythe Trophy, understand this: He scored seven playoff goals and 11 assists against Utah and Anaheim. Since then, he has no goals and three assists in the one-sided Western Conference final against Colorado. If you took the names off the back of the Carolina Hurricanes jerseys, you might not know one player from the other. They are almost like an assembly-line hockey team. They all do their jobs. They all take care of their widgets. They should all have the name Brind'Amour on the back of their jerseys. They are their coach's team.
That must have been so difficult for Freddie Andersen to play Friday night: The late Claude Lemieux was his agent. Andersen was Lemieux's first big-time client. The two were regular golf buddies and very close. Andersen is having an incredible playoffs heading to the Stanley Cup final. He is 12-1, leading the playoffs with a 1.41 goals-against average and a .931 save percentage. Those are Conn Smythe-like numbers as well.
I really thought the Montreal Canadiens were ready to challenge for the Cup. I thought wrong. They were blown out in the Eastern Conference final. After one big period in Game 1, the Habs were outscored by Carolina 17-7 and outshot 151-76. There was not a single moment in the final two games when they looked anything like a contender. When Bill Guerin left big scorer Cole Caufield off his Team USA Olympic roster, I thought it was a mistake. It was not.
Donny Waddell left some nice pieces behind when he resigned (or was forced out) as GM of the Hurricanes in 2024. Among them: goalie Andersen, stars up front in Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, Seth Jarvis, Jordan Staal, Jackson Blake, Martin Necas, and defenseman Jaccob Slavin, whom he inherited from Ron Francis. Waddell is currently the general manager in Columbus. Word is that new Leafs GM John Chayka wants to make a big splash with his eventual head coaching signing, which is why he is offering the moon, the sun, and the stars to Denver University coach David Carle. It is a tough sell, especially considering the state of the Leafs roster. They could have hired Scotty Bowman and Al Arbour to coach last season's team and the shortcomings still would have been apparent. Of more importance to Chayka and sidekick Mats Sundin is what the roster looks like next year. Right now, that matters more than whoever ends up coaching.
The International Ice Hockey Federation is waffling on what to do about Russia for future international events while the war in Ukraine continues. But really, it is simple: Just say no. Nobody from the Cup-heading teams touched the conference-winning trophy because it is supposedly bad luck. Which is rather dumb. Half the people who do not touch the trophy lose the Stanley Cup every year. Commissioner Gary Bettman thinks there is nothing wrong with the NHL playoff format. Apparently, he was not watching the rather uninteresting conference finals from either side.
Hear and There
The oldest Canadian Football League narrative can finally be put to rest in the wake of the half-billion-dollar TV deal the league announced on Thursday: The league is not going out of business. The league is not on death's doorstep. Survival is no longer a question when three major media companies are willing to increase CFL television revenue by 65% on an annual basis. This was an incredible deal signed by commissioner Stewart Johnston, who exceeded the financial expectations of his league governors with the money he is bringing in now. Sixty games will be shown on TSN, 21 games on the streaming service DAZN, and much content available on YouTube. Those screaming about the DAZN package are like most CFL screamers—a lot of noise without purpose. If you do not want to pay for DAZN, do not do it. I get Sportsnet on my television, which is the NHL rights-holder. It does not televise all the games. If I want all the games, I have to pay for it. Same with basketball, baseball, and the NFL.
Whatever power Johnston may have had after his first year on the job as commissioner, he has a lot more now with his second season about to begin. A lot of CFL-watchers shook their heads earlier in the week when the Ticats signed receiver Kenny Lawler to a three-year, $1-million contract, a number that is very un-CFL-like. Then came the announcement of the new money coming in, and suddenly that contract made sense. Small world, this sports business. I covered Deidra Dionne when she won an Olympic medal in 2002 for Canada, and now she heads up DAZN in this country. The former freestyle skier is suddenly a big-time CFL player. I can honestly see this being Bo Levi Mitchell's last CFL season and next year he will wind up on a panel on either TSN or DAZN.
Not sure I understood the timing of Soccer Canada's announcement of extending the contract of World Cup coach Jesse Marsch. Why not wait until after the tournament is over to make a deal? John Herdman had a great reputation coaching the Canadian roster into Qatar four years ago and not such a great reputation by the time Canada was eliminated.
Scene and Heard
How does this make sense? As of Saturday afternoon, Jesus Sanchez and Andres Gimenez had twice as many home runs as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with the Blue Jays. The Jays, 10-4 in their past 14 games before Saturday, somehow have a lead in the race for the last wild-card playoff spot in the American League. That is while the team remains 11th in home runs, 14th in on-base percentage, last in walks, and 12th in OPS. The Jays are last in walks at a time when walks are on the increase. The challenging of balls and strikes has basically turned all kinds of likely strikeouts into walks.
The Jays do not make many big trades, but they have made rather fine small ones. They have brought in Louis Varland, Sanchez, Yohendrick Pinango, Braydon Fisher, and Brandon Valenzuela without parting with much in return. In simple terms, that means the Jays' pro scouting department is working rather well these days. You cannot teach young Pinango to hit—he does that rather naturally—but you can teach him to field, at least better than he currently does, which is rather dreadful right now. With decent outfield play, Trey Yesavage's earned run average through six starts should be 1.40 instead of 2.25. Is Janson Junk living up to his name pitching for the Miami Marlins?
Here is the difference between being a high-paid pro athlete and being just a regular guy like you or I. George Springer just sold his Toronto house for $6 million, which is about 20% of what he is paid for a season with the Blue Jays. One of my relatives, about the same age as Springer, is looking for a house in Toronto. It will probably cost him close to 10 times his salary to get the house he wants—nothing like the mansion that Springer just sold.
Scottie Barnes is paying the price for being a Raptor. He should have been an NBA all-star and he definitely should have been a first-team all-defensive player. He did not get the votes he deserved, which is on the voters, who treat the Raptors as if they play their games in a foreign country—which they do. Funny, Darko Rajakovic got one third-place vote for coach of the year in the NBA, while Mike Brown, who is taking the New York Knicks to the Finals, did not get any.
I was in Grade 8 when Willis Reed limped onto the court and played injured for the Knicks in their first championship season. All through high school, in gym classes, we did Willis Reed impressions, limping around while trying to shoot basketballs. Fifty-six years later, here are the Knicks in the NBA Finals, and that moment still resonates with people of a certain age. I was also at Madison Square Garden on a Friday night, my first NBA Finals assignment, the Knicks versus the Houston Rockets. It was the season before the Raptors' first year. The game did not seem to matter much that night. We were all too busy watching our televisions, taking in O.J. Simpson's famous drive of his Ford Bronco across Los Angeles highways. Three nights earlier, the New York Rangers won their only Stanley Cup of the past 86 years.
I cannot wait to see what Victor Wembanyama is going to be like when he grows into himself. He is still at the figuring-it-out stage of his career. You can start penciling in multiple championships for the San Antonio Spurs in the near future.
And Another Thing
Felix Auger-Aliassime played some terrific tennis in winning an Olympic medal on the red clay at Roland Garros in 2024. Now, suddenly, he is the second-highest men's seed left at the French Open. He is not exactly known as a clay-court specialist, but with 14-time winner Rafael Nadal now retired, Carlos Alcaraz injured, and Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic eliminated, there is a Grand Slam opening for the Canadian. He may never have another opportunity this rich again.
The story of Lemieux could not be properly told without mentioning his vicious playoff hit on Kris Draper in 1996. Some hockey people are still angry today about that hit from behind. Some also remain angry about the horrendous decision Brian Burke made to suspend Lemieux for the first two games of the Stanley Cup final. In today's world, Lemieux's season would have been over and then some. Mike Johnson, a rather ordinary NHL player, has grown into a rather extraordinary hockey broadcaster.
Came across this when researching Lemieux's playoff history: Mike Bossy scored 17 goals in three consecutive post-seasons during the heyday of the great New York Islanders teams. No one other than Bossy has ever scored 17 or more more than once. You cannot invent stats like this one: Lemieux is ninth all-time in playoff goal scoring. He is two goals behind Rocket Richard and one ahead of Jean Beliveau. Lemieux played in the sixth most playoff games in history, two behind Mark Messier. Craig Simpson, one of the voices of Hockey Night In Canada, scored 16 playoff goals in the most recent Cup-winning season of the Edmonton Oilers. That was 36 years ago.
The great goalie coach Sean Burke is back in the Stanley Cup for the third time in six years with three different starting goalies: Carter Hart, Adin Hill, and Carey Price. That reminds me a little of Joe Gibbs taking the Washington Redskins to the Super Bowl with three different starting quarterbacks: Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, and Mark Rypien. Gale Sayers, maybe the greatest highlight-film running back of all time, would have been 83 today. Happy birthday to Jim Craig (69), Scott Laughton (32), Erik Karlsson (36), Jake (The Snake) Roberts (71), Iga Swiatek (24), Manny Ramirez (54), Lydell Mitchell (71), Pierre Engvall (30), Gilles Villemure (86), and Clint Eastwood (96). And hey, whatever became of Nathan MacKinnon?
