From the left: Tim Leiweke, Larry Tanenbaum, Brendan Shanahan, and Dave Nonis at the Air Canada Centre on April 14 2014.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Ten years ago, Brendan Shanahan was introduced as the new Toronto Maple Leafs president. He was the first person connected to the Leafs in a long time who had the glow of success. People were excited.
It was not a such a good day for the man seated to his left on the podium – Toronto GM and dead-man-professionally-walking, Dave Nonis.
Shanahan was the honouree at that show, but then Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment president Tim Leiweke was the star. He didn’t actually walk across the stage and repeatedly stab Nonis in the neck, but he might as well have.
Ruminating on the concept of culture, Leiweke said, “I’m not sure the Leafs have it … I definitely sense we lack identity, and right now, we’re a team that lacks direction.”
Shanahan sat there trying not to get any blood spattered on him.
Later, the trio took a picture together. Leiweke put one hand proprietorially around Shanahan’s neck. The two of them held a Leafs Shanahan jersey between them.
Nonis lingered to the side, wondering about who you call to get your furniture put in storage. He lasted another year, but after that day, he never mattered again.
It was an instructive display of how power works at the peak of professional sports. It isn’t just what they say. It’s who shows up, and how they look, and where everyone is sitting and when they make eye contact.
It’s been ages since MLSE gathered the whole king’s court in public for one of these brutal shows. It is about to do another.
Initially, the Leafs were going to do things the way they usually do them after another season off the brink. The players would talk one day, and management another. That’s how the club put it in a release – “management.”
The first twist – head coach Sheldon Keefe was lumped in with the players. As Nonis once had, he made his case to stay. He also said he was told he could choose to do exit interviews with his players, or not bother. He didn’t bother.
It’s never good when they hate you. But it’s when they stop caring at all that you really need to worry.
Management was set for Thursday. That was changed to Friday – and now MLSE CEO Keith Pelley would join Shanahan and GM Brad Treliving on the podium.
Until recently, overseeing the Leafs was a bumpless road for Shanahan. Leiweke’s protection extended until long after the CEO job had been inherited by a paper man. Shanahan could walk around 50 Bay St. like a Borgia cardinal – his power literally residing in his rings.
The Leafs were coming up, the Raptors and Toronto FC were winning, and the various stadia were full. MLSE didn’t require sports oversight.
The sports are wobbling in unison, but oversight remains invisible. When Shanahan (or Raptors president Masai Ujiri) speak, you wouldn’t know they reported to anyone. They talk like owners.
That’s about to change.
The only thing Pelley likes better than a cat is identifying some pigeons to release it among. Before he showed up, very little news came out of MLSE. Since he’s entered the picture, it’s leaking like a colander.
This week, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that MLSE was considering compacting the layers – the Leafs president job would be eliminated, and the GM would report directly to Pelley.
That idea was allowed to hang in the air for a few hours before Friedman softened it. Now the idea had been discussed, but there was no “unanimity” on it among ownership.
Because Bell and Rogers operate in concert when it comes to running MLSE, a lack of unanimity around any proposal means it is dead on its feet.
But the idea is out there. It’s being discussed. Why do the Leafs need a president? Or the Raptors, while we’re on the subject? Is overstaffing the reason Toronto’s teams are beset by decision paralysis?
If you’d just gone and done it, people would call it a panic move. But now you’ve put it out there to marinate for a year or two. When and if it happens, it will seem like standard operating procedure.
Pelley is good enough at this game to be Iago and Othello at the same time – whispering in ears and unsettling old alliances, while also consolidating his own power at the top. Do the housecats who had free run at MLSE before he arrived possess the nimbleness and/or ruthlessness to combat him?
We will get our first sense of that on Friday. It seems obvious that Shanahan is coming back to fulfill the final year of his contract. Why else invite him? There wouldn’t be much point in letting Treliving go after just one year. Sheldon Keefe may or may not be Leafs coach much longer, but now that the drama has been elevated to the C-suites, he’s become a supporting actor.
Friday’s news conference comes down to one question – which man on this podium is the Dave Nonis?
If the Leafs had beaten the Bruins and then Florida, this struggle could have been put off for a bit. But when David Pastrnak scored in overtime in Game 7, he started MLSE’s Game of Thrones.
The last time around, it was a total bloodletting.
Leiweke arrived in 2013. Weeks later, he hired Ujiri, who nudged out his predecessor, Bryan Colangelo. Months after that, he hired Shanahan, who lit the Leafs on fire from top to bottom. Just over a year after he arrived, Leiweke announced his plan to leave, warring with ownership as he did so.
In the end, everything changed, and for the better. Eventually, inertia set in, then lassitude, and now apathy.
MLSE is tired and out of ideas. Its teams reflect that lack of purpose. Even now, most of its energy is taken up trying to avoid making hard decisions.
It’s obvious what people want from MLSE – change. They want a return to the giddy feeling of possibility when Leiweke first arrived. They want sport rather than excuses.
If they can’t get it on the ice or the court, they’ll take it in the boardroom. That season starts Friday.