ScottyBowman
Registered User
Gotta love the example this sets for Canadian-born stars when it comes UFA time. Too often it seems like they feel obliged to re-sign with their current team in a bad hockey market out of a sense of loyalty. They can learn from Babcock's approach that they can take your life and career into their own hands and not have to feel bad about it. There's nothing dishonorable about giving everything you got for seven years and then moving on to the next chapter in your career and trying a different opportunity.
For many of the Ontario boys in particular, who grew up as Leafs fans, whose family is still there, playing at home is something special, and if they don't get the chance they'll always wonder after they retire what it would have been like. Now that the franchise has been restored to respectability, there's less reason to shy away from it. I'm looking at Stamkos, at Tavares, at McDavid. Maybe having seen this they'll follow in Babs's footsteps one day and come home to hockey's Mecca.
LOL. The reason they don't want to play at home has nothing to do with loyalty, and a lot to do with being harassed and treated like crap by the fans and the media. Why play in Toronto on a loser team and then have the fans boo you and the media write crap about you when you could make the same amount of money in LA, the fans will leave you alone, and you get to actually win the cup. The franchise hasn't been restored to anything yet. Its still a raging dumpster fire that is picking #4 in the draft next month.