Benjamin Sharma 🇨🇦 🇺🇸

Finally got my captain, I can stop buying the meals.

That said, I actually quite like the Hockey Hero Burger, wouldn’t mind it sticking around.

I would simply have bought my own pair that actually fit, and swore up and down that they were the ones from the boss?

Zero goals since the Olympics.

Auston Matthews, tank commander.

I think the Leafs would be better with him, obviously, but something more like scraping in with WC2 and a first round exit, clearly on a downward trajectory. Like the 1995 and 1996 Leafs teams.

I now tend to agree with the Nick Kypreos theory re Marner leaving — he saw the cliff-edge coming, as a local he knows how bad Toronto gets when it comes (driving Larry Murphy out of town in the ‘90s, the end of the Kessel-Phaneuf years in the mid 2010s), and so he got out of town just ahead of it.

“No, no. I mean…” (Pauses and thinks.) “No. No.”

Not bad work.

I had “must get a first round pick” in my victory conditions for this week.

A sad note: so this is what the Mitch Marner trade tree now has.

(Had we traded him in June 2023 as we should have, probably would’ve gotten a star in return or a blue chip prospect plus two firsts.)

It takes Ambassador Hoekstra to get Torontonians to side with Cathal Kelly.

But the subway lesson was driven home by the Finch LRT, which was the object of ridicule.

It’s not that LRTs *can’t* work in Toronto the way their backers wanted, it’s that Torontonians won’t make the choices necessary for them to — bans on parking on arteries, signal priority for trolleys, etc.

We absolutely do, yes

The Crosstown is (finally) good and Rob Ford was correct about subways.

I mean, it’s possible one might annoy her into double-faulting…

Did not have “the Hughes brothers are MAGA and Brad Marchand is woke” on my 2026 bingo card, but here we are.

A decade from now, these things will tempt me.

Till then, the hacked 3DS is good.

!

I disagree with takes like this, given that the Davos speech was also accompanied by smiling photo-ops with Chairman Xi.

It was always an assertion of realpolitik, just with a note that middle powers can try to build an alternative locus of power.

See too:

The Iranian regime didn’t stop being what it has been because Trump is who he is.

But unlike the other post-Cold War presidents, we can’t assume that this one is for regime change and liberal democracy.

I’ll hope that the current regime in Tehran is replaced by a liberal democratic one.

Well, definitely would prefer Claude to ChatGPT after this…

In fact, I hold a firm copyright. A phalanx of carnivorous attorneys has been mobilized.

I appreciate that he explicitly exonerates the fans and voices the critiques we have.

So Like, What's Wrong With The Toronto Maple Leafs? YouTube video by Into The Den

The Leafs have hit the point that rival fandoms are doing pity videos.

youtu.be/plYw1n9ERaE

And look if he can oppose Canadian annexation because it would take his tournaments away from him (he probably wouldn’t make a combined roster), I’ll take it.

Broadly, this.

I did actually think the “Close the Northern Border” attribution might be a bum rap.

Fun times.

Thrilled that we get another year of Mad Max.

It’s our duty as citizens to do at least the bare minimum.

Then we can be as annoying as we like to those we elect, to improve them.

It’s fine to refuse to vote in primaries because it’s not my party. I’m not shirking with those (in)actions.

If I were to let MAGA in via indifference, I would be shirking.

Republican-in-exile here like Nichols.

Been voting for Democrats on my US ballots from abroad since 2016, my duty to the republic.

You can do it, guys. A simple “it’s my duty as a citizen to vote this way in the general election”.

Sit out primaries b/c the Dems are not my party, not my biz.