PAST PLAYER PROFILE

Gary Roberts

Number: 7

Height: 6’ 2”

Weight: 215lbs

Shoots: Left

Born: May 23rd, 1966

Birthplace: North York, ON, Canada

Toronto Maple Leafs Stats: Goals (83) Assists (74) Points (157)

*  In 2011, the Gary Roberts High Performance Centre opened in the Fitness Institute (North York, ON) where he continues to train junior and professional athletes including many current and future NHL players (such as Steve Stamkos).

James Mirtle talks about the unlikely relationship that could spawn if Luongo came to Toronto.

Who would want to see a solid goaltender like Luongo join our team, and what do you think we’d have to trade to get him?

S- I’m thinking a mid-round pick + an NHL-ready player or 2 

One of my best shots…..ever

hipster19:

New feature coming soon!

I will be highlighting a former Toronto Maple Leaf player at least once every week.

Along with a picture, I will show his Toronto statistics and his tenure in Toronto.

Does anyone want to suggest who should be displayed first?  

-Seb 

Maple Leafs Action Tonight

TOR (32-34-8) vs. NJD (42-27-5)

7pm Est.

Leafs TV will be hosting it tonight, will post stream when/if available. 

Predictions for score?  

Your thoughts on…

Finishing the season with as many wins as the Leafs can

vs.

Tanking and going down the “Fail for Nail” road (even though we can’t beat Columbus for him) and getting a high draft pick

I’m curious to see if the Leafs losing on purpose is okay with people.

- Seb 

Starting this week, 14-year-old Lexi Peters will be stick handling past men twice her size as she plays in the starting lineup for the Buffalo Sabres. Or the Vancouver Canucks. Or any NHL team the 90-pound left-winger chooses.

Because when video game publisher Electronic Arts releases the latest edition of its popular NHL series on Tuesday, Lexi will be the first female in its virtual hockey roster.

Hockey is attracting more female players, but when young skaters like Lexi turned to the leading NHL video game, the custom player characters they could build in the game came with many different looks – so long as they were male.

“I asked my dad, ‘Why aren’t there girls in the NHL video game?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know, write a letter.’ So, I did,” Lexi told the Globe and Mail from her home in Buffalo, N.Y.

She sent a typewritten letter to the executives of one the largest video game makers in the world, asking them to add women players.

She wrote: “It is unfair to women and girl hockey players around the world, many of them who play and enjoy your game. I have created a character of myself, except I have to be represented by a male and that’s not fun.”

For those who have never tried the game, players can choose everything from their team and players to who controls the puck. They can also create characters of their own, picking hair and eye colours and other details. Those characters were all men.

“My younger brother got to create a character that looked just like him. I had never been able to experience that,” says Lexi.

The 4 foot 11 teen has played hockey for four years. She and a teammate spent hours creating a whole custom hockey team, modeling the players after their own all-girls team, the Purple Eagles. The best they could do was give the characters long “hockey” hair.

“We looked like men,” she says.

The first response she got back from Electronic Arts was disappointing. But she figured at least she’d tried.

“I heard back a few weeks later and they told me it couldn’t happen because it has to go through the NHL.”

What she didn’t know was that the president of EA Sports had forwarded her letter to David Littman, the lead producer of the company’s NHL game. His reaction was different.

“Lexi’s letter was a wake-up call,” Mr. Littman told the Globe and Mail. “Here’s a growing audience playing our NHL game and we hadn’t done anything to capture them.”

Mr. Littman then did some stick handling of his own: finding the budget to build her into the game, as well as getting permission from the NHL and EA’s legal department.

Then EA Sports gave Lexi the news. Not only were they adding a female character option, but they wanted Lexi to play the part of the “default” female player that gamers would then be able to customize.

“I was so excited,” says Lexi. “My dad called my grandpa immediately, who called my Uncle Chris, like a chain reaction.”

Users can tailor the female character by changing hair, eye colour and the name on the jersey if they want, just as with male players.

It is a sensible business move in a competitive video-game market that’s worth an estimated $20-billion worldwide. But it also marks the progress of female hockey players.

“It’s a big change and it’s exciting to see, because so many girls pay hockey now,” said Manon Rhéaume, the only woman to ever play in the real-world NHL.

Ms. Rhéaume was signed to the Tampa Bay Lightning as a goalie in 1992 and played in two exhibition games. She now runs a foundation that offers scholarships to young women in sports and promotes girls’ hockey.

“I think we’re at a place where women in hockey are more accepted. People are putting more money into girls’ hockey and the growth we’re seeing in the sport is mainly from girls, not boys.”

Hockey Canada, the national organization that oversees administration and development of the sport, has numbers that back that up. In 1990, there were about 5,000 women and girls playing the sport. Today, there are more than 100,000.

“The two gold medals in the past Olympics has been a huge factor,” says Francis Dupont, communications officer with Hockey Canada. “There’s been a lot more attention on women’s hockey media-wise in the past five to 10 years and more coaches and programs to grow the sport.”

Of course, NHL purists can still play the video game as men. But Lexi is hoping they give the women a chance. And that the boys at her school who don’t take girls’ hockey seriously change their minds.

The big question now: how will she choose who to play as? Herself, or her favourite NHL star, Alex Ovechkin?

“I’ll put us on the same team.”

asymetric:

It’s safe to say that the Allstate All-Canadians Mentorship Program has already left a long lasting impression on the young players, their families, the organizers, and the Hockey Pros. We are very happy for the opportunity to tell the stories of these young players and the AllState All-Canadians Mentorship program.

NHLPA exercises option to raise salary cap

The NHL Players’ Association has decided to trigger the growth factor in the salary cap for next season, pushing the upper limit to roughly $64 million US.

A source told The Canadian Press that the union’s executive board voted via conference call Monday to have five per cent added to the calculation of next year’s salary cap — a decision it gets to make each spring to account for inflation. The NHLPA has chosen to have the five per cent added every year but one since it was brought into existence.

The official number for next year’s salary cap is expected to be announced this week.

The cap has risen steadily since it was created coming out of the 2004-05 lockout. It was originally set at $39 million, but had grown to $59.4 million by last season and will rise by another $5 million for 2011-12 — the final year of the current collective bargaining agreement.

The limit on what teams can spend is based on a percentage of overall revenue brought in by the league the previous season, in addition to the five per cent growth factor held by the NHLPA.

A continually rising salary cap has brought some challenges for the lower-income teams in the league. With next year’s limit on payroll to be set at $64 million, the salary floor will fall around $48 million — more money than some owners would like to spend.

in other nhl news, Colin Campbell is stepping down from his role as head of nhl discipline.

(via tsn alerts)