Burke steps down, Leafs bring in new face
The Toronto Star
September 18, 2010
Just a few weeks after a quite successful off-season, Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke has stepped down from his role. Brian needed time off after the passing of his son, to help re-coop and support his family.
In the wake of such a sorrowful departure, the Leafs wished Burke the best of luck in his future endeavors, and hope he and his family can pull through a very rough time.
At the same token, the Leafs also know that there is a void position now at the GM spot. They held interviews and applications piled up, as aspiring GMs tried to land a gig in TO. One man struck the Leafs as exceptional, he is calm and collective, has a good background in business, and has a great track record in the hockey world.
This man is Greg Bomben, graduate of Ryerson for Business, and Manager of the Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL. The Quebec Remparts have boasted some great junior players over the years, and largely because of Bomben's keen eye and work ethic. NHL alumni of Quebec include Simon Gagne, Alex Radulov, Mike Ribeiro, Antoine Vermette, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic.
The hopes are that Bomben can translate his wealthy knowledge of business, and his background in managing hockey, to help propel the Leafs out of the cellar and back into a prestigious club. Bomben had this to say:
''Hello all, thanks for coming out today. Let me just say, what an honor it is to be the new GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs. There must have been a million other guys that were salivating at the thought of managing a storied franchise such as the Leafs, but I am the one lucky guy who has the chance to live out the dream.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are a special team to me, growing up in Mississauga, the Leafs were always my favorite team, never in a million years did I think I would one day be calling the shots for the club. I can't even put it into words. But I guess we should talk about our mission.
The mission is quite simple, of course, and that is to bring home the hardware, the prized jewel of professional hockey, the Stanley Cup. This is quite a lofty goal and not something that will happen over night. But I feel that we have a quality coaching crew, and a quality line-up, that with a bit of tweaking and maybe a few oil changes, we can run like a machine.
There are alot of different philosophies out there on to how to build a team, and while my way may not be the easiest, I believe it yields the best results. We are going to build a balanced team, with good goaltending, defense, and offense. We are going to need size and grit, as well as speed and agility. I find that if you restrict yourself to one playstyle, whether it be big-man dump and chase game, or the little-man nifty passing plays, you limit your team's success. You become one-dimensional and other teams can predict your every move.
By building a balanced, well-rounded team, we will be able to check, pass, shoot, hit, block shots, kill penalties, make highlight reel plays, and so forth. We will be a complete package and leave other teams guessing. The championship caliber teams are those that have limited weaknesses, not limited strengths, we want to be of that caliber, so we need to balance ourselves.
The Draft is something I feel strongly about, I think it is an integral part of building any team, and I hope to use it to my advantage to construct a championship squad. With two first round picks coming up, courtesy of Mr. Burke, I feel that we are in exceptional position in the coming draft, and to reboot our team.
This is not going to be an easy task, you may see some faces flying out of the door, but for the most part, I like who we have here, and with a few more core pieces, we will be on our way to winning a boat load of games.
It all starts tommorrow in our first pre season game, we need to evaluate what we have, and go from there. Thanks for your time, now I must be off to work!''
Bomben is a blue-collared, hard-working manager who appears to have a good outlook for the future. And perhaps the Maple Leafs are in better hands with Bomben than ever before. But the question still remains, will the Leafs ever win another Stanley Cup?
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