Brian Burke is not the Messiah
But he does know how to hijack a byline
By Terrance Gavan
And Brian the Burke sayeth unto the multitude:
“Whose is this image and inscription?”
And the gathered throng of Pharisees and ink-stained wretches respondeth unto Burke the Large: “Caesar’s.”
Then Brian the Superfluous sayeth unto them, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”
When they had heard these words, they marveled, they scribbled, they Twittered and they shot great amounts of video footage placing treasured pearls of Brawny the Brian’s blather unto Youeth Tube.
Columnists swooned, the multitude was hushed and the babbling Pharisees then left Brian, Tweeting, texting, and eulogizing along the way.
News spread swift in Toronto, the chosen city, and Leaf Nation rose as one saying:
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty Burke, The everlasting, Brian the Brain, The Prince of Peace.”
Whoa!
Hold on here just a minute.
Prince of Peace?
Brian Burke?
Call St. Peter.
We need a rewrite!
All this verbal detritus is overkill.
He had us at “hello.”
The rest is just trash talk and hyperbole.
I hate to spoil the party.
And pardon me if I am not quite so enamored of the Leaf’s newest savior, Brian the Beloved, the little engine that could. “I think I can!”
Brian Burke is not the Messiah. “I think I am!”
Heck, Brian Burke is not even Punch Imlach, who like Burkey the Lame, was not without his detractors.
I know the Messiah.
He follows me on Twitter.
He too has his doubts about Brian of Blarney’s chances in T Dot.
I tweeted the Messiah just last week, after Burkey’s stellar and stunning (stunned?) season-ending press conference.
I Twittered, “Hey big G … what about this guy Burke, the Leafs new GM and President … People are saying he’s the real deal?”
Back came the big Guy’s Tweet: “Ye shall know me by my deeds. Terrance giveth thy noggin a knocketh. You bag of hammers. Thou shall have no other gods before me.”
Ah, behold, the beauty of Twitter. Succinct, terse, no nonsense.
Almost like Brian the Burke. He of Harvard Law, and Anaheim, with pit stop in Van City.
He wonneth nothing in Van City. He garnered Grail in Anaheim.
No one is convinced that he didn’t gain Grail from the fine auspices of that good Senator, Brian Murray, the Lisp that Roars.
Don’t ever mention this to Brian.
He will pick you up and shake you like a Terrier on a rat.
He did just that with a few of his front office staffers and many of the existing Leaf players at his season-ending rant.
The words literally flew from the Brian of Brawn’s motivational maw at that presser.
Concerned with the nonchalance of “certain people” in the Leaf’s front office, Burkey dropped the hammer on D-Day.
“That should be a day of infamy. ... That should be a day when everyone is pissed off.”
Burkey may always be just a juke and a jive from despondency, but he sure knows how to hijack a headline.
On a day when North America was girding for the playoffs and Leafs’ players were busy shopping for new Taylor Made drivers - and a patch of green in the Muskokas - Brian was busy writing the Gospel according to Burke.
“A player's here long enough, he starts thinking, ‘I’m special, because there’s 20 people who want to talk to me,’ ” said Burke, a face-wash with a stinky ReeBok glove aimed at some of the Leaf’s overindulgent underachievers.
“No. They're there to talk to whoever comes off the ice with a Maple Leafs uniform on. And I think players confuse their role on a team that's struggling with being a good hockey player. ‘Oh, I'm on the second power-play unit. I must be a good hockey player.’ No. We don't have a very good team, and so you get that ice time.”
They don’t teach this lovey-dovey rhetoric at Dr. Phil’s School of Piety and Good Karma.
They teach this stuff third year at Harvard Law, in Moot Court.
Moot in this case referring also to the Leaf underachievers, who better shut up and lie low, lest the axe fall on their apparently swelled melons.
More time on the bike and less time on the links for the Boys in Blue this summer.
“This group has to aspire to higher levels of achievement or we need different athletes,” said Burke. “That's how pro sports are supposed to work. That's why these guys make the big bucks. And yes, there's been a culture of entitlement here, and we're trying to change that, and we will change it.”
Yoicks!
Culture of entitlement?
A nice little rhetorical twist. “Don’t paaark yah caaar in Haavaaaarrd Yaaaard!”
And ironic coming from the man who for years has been the poster child for entitlement.
He’s used his bully pulpit in Anaheim to initiate a Jihad against Oiler GM Kevin Lowe, for presumed egregious poaching of Anaheim players.
And now he’s run a Panzer phalanx up to the front door of Islander GM Garth Snow, shocking many by offering hidden goodies for a shot at presumed number one pick John Tavares. (See an article on Matt Duchene in this issue for a surprising gander at Tavares’s sliding fortunes.)
“We’re going to talk to everyone between us and the first pick and see what the landscape is,” sayeth Burke. “We’re going to see what it costs, and we’re going to try and move up.”
There is a presumption here that John Tavares is the panacea; the cure; the solution.
Me. I’m waiting for the wedding feast, when Burke the Bland cranks that huge jug of Evian water into 17 large carafes of Beaujolais.
Until then, I’m sitting on the sidelines watching the show.
With my good friend, Doubting Thomas.
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