> I grew up in Southern California in the 1960's. Not xactly what you'd
> call "hockey falls". Really got hooked when Roy won the Cup with the Habs -
> and, coincidentally, that's the year I became an avid Leafs fan - should have
> been the Habs and the Leafs, not the Kings and the Habs that year.

How does a Californian become a Leaf fan? Especially at the time when the hockey they were playing was boring. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was great that they were *FINALLY* winning but the actual hockey was like watching paint dry. As for that matchup, don't get me started on what should have been... :-)

> And what absolutely kills me is the credit that idiot coach of theirs gets.
> Jesus Christ! You give me, ME access to that much money to buy the best and
> I'll kiss your ass if I don't win the Cup 3 years out of 4.

We've all seem teams ladden with talent and yet fail to win anything. The Baltimore Orioles, New York Rangers, Atlanta Braves (recently) and the LA Lakers (prior to the last two seasons and do you honestly think the team would be doing as well as it has if Phil Jackson wasn't there keeping Shaq and Kobe playing nicely together?)

An excellent coach can make an okay team better, a good team excellent and an excellent team unstoppable. It would be very rare that you'd be able to stick a stiff of a coach on a team and have them perform well. Athletes have far too many different agendas and playing styles for that.

As for betting, I take cash from men. Any kissing I leave for women. :-)

Yeah but the Habs cheated. They had special draft rules that allowed them first dibs on French Canadian players. I suspect they wouldn't have had all those Cups if that wasn't the case. You can certainly see their record after that was abolished. I like to bring that up when Habs fans get upitty and put down the Leafs.