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It turns out, Bradley’s family and Shapiro’s family are quite familiar with each other. Michael’s uncle, Jeff, used to be a baseball writer of some prominence and his uncle Scott played parts of nine seasons in the big leagues, splitting time between the Yankees, White Sox, Mariners and Reds. Scott is the current baseball coach at Princeton University. Bradley’s father, Bob, is the head coach of Los Angeles FC, who had the best record in MLS this season.

Shapiro would like some of that Bradley magic to rub off on his youngsters. He doesn’t know when this meeting will happen. He’s hoping soon and hoping his kids will actually pay attention.

THIS AND THAT

Mike Babcock keeps wondering about the Maple Leafs identity. But isn’t it his job, as coach, to establish what he wants this team to be? …Here’s a concern if you’re Babcock or the Leafs: Heading into Saturday night, the Leafs have had just six regulation-time wins in 17 games. Those six wins have come against the 31st, 30th, 29th, 28th, 26th and 24th best teams in the NHL. If they can open against one of those teams in the playoffs, they’ve got a shot … Gary Bettman gets roasted for being against NHL participation in the Olympics, as he should. But if you want to blame somebody for the NHL looking the other way, it’s Players’ Association boss, Donald Fehr. Clearly, the players want to play in China in 2022. Fehr hasn’t done much of anything to fight for them and hockey fans in this regard … We would be so cheated if we never get an Olympics with Connor McDavid playing for Canada alongside Nathan MacKinnon, with Auston Matthews and Jack Eichel playing for Team USA. Imagine a Mitch Marner and Morgan Rielly Canadian team against Matthews on the Americans, with Elias Pettersson, William Nylander and Victor Hedman playing for Sweden and Nikita Kucherov, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Vladimir Tarasenko lining up for the Russians. Yeah, nobody would want that … And of course, Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin, if they’re still young enough to get it done.