Come Here Boy! I Have A Treat For You. It's Just Out Behind This Barn

All those who had January 22nd in the JFJ death pool, please form an orderly line to the left in order to make the process of collecting as smooth as possible. Thank you.

Well, it's done. The wicked witch of Southern Ontario has finally been vanquished, Lake Ontario shall part, all will now be goodness and light, dogs and cats will now lay down together and the Leafs will now immediately vault into playoff contention, thus restoring order to the (centre of the) Universe. Right? Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Um, not so much:

"The key here is to initially start the process to move the club ahead to the next level so that it can compete with all the top teams in the league, which will eventually lead to the playoff success."

"The first step will be to meet with all the people involved in the hockey department here," Fletcher said. "I'm looking forward to their input on how they see the internal operation of the hockey team here and how they see the club moving forward."

Now, despite my service to Queen and Country, I'm not quite fluent in Corps-Speak as your new "interim" Septuagenarian General Manager, but that reads to me like: "Um...thanks for the job. I have to figure out exactly how many of the 87 MLSE corporate officers I actually report to. But in the meantime, I'll work hard to think about ways in which we might be able to put a working group together in order to recommend a course of action that may result in an actual plan. And I like pudding!"

Now, I have to go, because, you know, I'm watching a real hockey team play Florida right now. But I'd like to assure everybody that I will be fully mining today's press conference for all of its comedic goodness in the next few days (and at first glance, there are many many delicious layers). But in the meantime, on behalf of most, if not all Canadian hockey fans who don't bleed blue and white, I'd like to assure Leaf Nation of my complete sincerity when I say: "Finally!! Holy crap, can we move on now? Please?"