You might wonder about how I do my job.

Well, the Maple Leafs pretty much dictate when I work and when I don’t, based on news around the team as well as their times for practices, morning skates, and game times.

As a helpful hint for the beat writers and assignment editors, the Leafs provide a media phone number with the time and location of their schedule. Phone it the night before, and you know what you’re doing the next day. Or phone it in the morning, and find out if you’re late.

Or days like today. Don’t phone it and assume – since it’s a game day – that there’s a morning skate, or an optional morning skate, followed by some sort of media availabilty. Because there’s always something like that (the one exception, the second game of back-to-backs).

Not today. Didn’t phone. Showed up. Nothing. No one. I wasn’t the only media member fooled by routine/tradition, whatever you want to call it. (Like me, the Sun and TSN hope Jets coach Paul Maurice has something to say.)

No morning skate. No morning availability. No easy set-up story for the game. (Now a handful did skate, mostly the injured and those destined for healthy-scratch-dom, but they’re not available for interviews. Part of the nuances/minutae of team availabilities.)

As Homer Simpson might say: D'oh.



The Maple Leafs morning skate – whose origins date back decades – could soon be a thing of the past. Better to save energy for the game, goes the prevailing logic with higher minds. Keefe is of that mind.

The morning skate, according to the late Jim Gregory, started because the Leafs one time showed up for a road game in Chicago with ruined and missing equipment following the train ride. The morning skate became a ritual to make sure the all the equipment was in order.

What he told me: “At one game in the ’40s, the Leaf players were really having trouble with their skates. They had a meeting and they decided from now on, on the day of the game, they were going to test them. And if there was a problem they would get them fixed before the game started.”

Coaches soon started using the morning skate as a tool to get the players to shake out the cobwebs the morning after the night before in time for the game. There are very few players skating hungover any more.

The morning skate then became ritual. An institution. Its days may be numbered. Its death has long been predicted (I probably write about it once a year). But it strikes me one more team – the Leafs – could soon discard it.

The lesson for me? Phone that number next time. And write this morning blog from the comfort of my home.

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Live and learn.

GOT A QUESTION? Email me at askkevinmcgran@gmail.com and I’ll answer it in Friday’s Mailbag.