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| Toronto Sports Predictions For 2012 |
Leafs to raise hopes and then trip into the ticker tape at the finish line? Check.
Jays to be the good neighbours of MLB — decent, though not pushy enough to win anything? Got it.
Raptors to be terrible, but good enough to be up front about it? Yup.
We also thought Detroit would win the Stanley Cup, which proves we can be open-minded and stupid all at the same time.
All in all, we called for a year of measured improvement by Toronto sports teams. The measuring to be done with a thimble.
We took no risks nor did we venture far from received wisdom – call it the Rogers team payroll policy of predictions.
This year, we instructed the Star’s crystal ball (i.e. a bowling ball covered in glitter) to be bolder. It was a tough meeting. There was some shouting. We wondered aloud how many hundreds of crystal balls would kill for a job like his. With these benefits? Are you kidding us? It’s probably thousands of crystal balls. We’ve got the resumes stacked up like firewood in a corner office.
And don’t think you’re going to fool anyone by calling the Raptors near the bottom, the Leafs four-and-out in the playoffs and the Jays to finish third. Everybody’s got that figured.
Surprise us, we told him. And, trembling so hard all his glitter fell off, he did.
THE LEAFS
Have you been sitting around at home wondering, “When will Rob Ford finally become so insufferable I consider moving to Flin Flon?”
Almost certainly not (the crystal ball told us you’re partial to Wawa), but for the sake of this exercise, let’s ballpark that time around the second week in April when the Leafs squeeze into the playoffs.
Betcha he won’t have a long-standing family engagement at the cottage when they’re planning this parade.
After 139 years of snow golf instead of post-season play, all will be made right in the city by this small act of sporting nobility. And Ford, doubtless, will take all the credit. That’s what we’d do and we’re only half as cynical.
City’s broke? No problem, we’ve finally reached the top 53 per cent of the NHL.
Public transit will soon consist of a horde of creepy, volunteer piggy-backers? We’re better than Ottawa!
The civic ship of state has hit the rocks at Hanlan’s Point and is taking on water fast? Playoffs!
Toronto squeaks into eighth spot, goes four games with Boston and is sent home whimpering. We told the crystal ball to be bold, not delusional.
Meanwhile, this city turns into a slushy Rio de Janeiro for a week. Block parties, public lovemaking and a wave of frostbite-related injuries mark the return of the most ambitious hockey franchise northeast of Hamilton to the lowest rung of professional competence.
Shake and repeat for later in the year.
THE RAPTORS
While the Leafs are rewriting history (well, rewriting a brief note in the appendix about the Bruins’ march to a second Stanley Cup), the Raptors can quietly creep toward the bottom of the NBA. Again.
This much will happen.
Dwane Casey will cement his place as the most admired coach on the local sports scene, in the main because he’s personable and he actually says what he’s thinking. Admittedly, it’s a low bar, but Casey is clearing it by country miles.
After six years of sleepwalking through half his games, Andrea Bargnani finally looks down and notices that there are other, smaller people around him who appear to be talking to him in a foreign language. Not English. Defence.
DeMar DeRozan becomes a star, which means he’s already trying to figure out how to get back to L.A. Jonas Valanciunas arrives and is even skinnier than feared.
The team wins 21 of 66 games and picks Kentucky forward Anthony Davis third in the draft. They’ve always had good luck with guys named Davis.
By the start of the 2012-13 season, people would have started caring again. Except that the Leafs made the playoffs six months ago!
THE JAYS
Prince Fielder does not choose Toronto’s short offer and we are all spared the sight of him getting to the plate in 2021 using an electronic mobility device.
Toronto thickens the rotation by trading for Matt Garza (hedge, hedge) or someone Matt Garza-esque. The failure to add a big bat begins to sour the buoyant faithful on the grand Rogers plan to siphon all their money out of the Jays and into the Leafs — who just made the playoffs for the first time since the Counter-Reformation!
Jose Bautista is very good, but not quite as great. Nonetheless, his under-market-value contract begins becoming a problem once it’s clear the club isn’t going to make the playoffs. The crystal ball can see the exact moment this happens — during Bautista’s league-enforced one-hour sitdown with media ahead of the all-star game.
Brett Lawrie takes an expected sophomore step back. The team gives up on Travis Snider. Everyone looks up and realizes they’re actually going with Kelly Johnson at second and Eric Thames in left field.
One of the AL East’s big three stumbles again (why not Boston, just for fun), but that still leaves the Jays in third place. Again.
Next off-season we do it all over by talking about Josh Hamilton and Cole Hamels until we’re collectively blue in the face, but end up once again hoping this is the year Brandon Morrow figures it out.
Philadelphia over the L.A. Angels in the World Series, cementing Roy Halladay’s Hall of Fame credentials.
TORONTO FC
Who’s the hardest working back-office guy in Toronto sports? It’s FC’s communications boss, Mike Masaro.
Every season, like tilled earth, the team turns over most of the roster. For the first couple of weeks, you’re walking around the dressing room going, ‘Who’s that? And who’s that guy? And where the hell did he come from?’ After an hour-long interview, it’s Masaro who has to pull you aside and tell you that you were talking to a groundskeeper.
Expect another facelift this year, but finally with an end in sight, rather than juggling for juggling’s sake.
Like the Leafs, they make the playoffs. Unlike the Leafs, the city does not treat this depressingly average accomplishment like it’s the Charge of the Light Brigade.
NHL
Still considering whether science definitively proves that being elbowed in the head by a 230 lb. man on rails is bad for you. NHL also calling on science (whoever he is) to fill in the gaps on global warming, the moon landing and the flatness of the Earth.
THE ARGOS
Toronto finally gets its chance to catch up with real Canadians (the ones who only get six weeks of summer) when the 100th anniversary Grey Cup rolls into town. Fun.
Are the Argos in it? Aaaaah-ha-ha . . . oh, you’re serious. No, of course not.
We want to enjoy this thing don’t we? And we’re not going to do that if the dome is full of stuffed shirts who watch the game once a year. For the sake of national amity, let’s make it Edmonton versus Winnipeg.
THE SUPER BOWL: New England goes out in the second round again. Green Bay hits a wall against New Orleans in the NFC title game. Baltimore upsets the surprise Texans in the AFC championship. The Saints win the Super Bowl a year early — New Orleans is hosting in 2013.
THE NBA: The Heat win. Even Miami has trouble caring, but the Heat win.
Toronto begins treating NBA titles like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. We’re not terrible. We’re only one player and two years removed from the 2011 title!
THE OLYMPICS: All Canada’s athletes will be adorable from a homer point of view and grasping villains from everybody else’s. It’s time we embraced that.
The crystal ball is calling for 20 medals, which he got by taking our haul from Beijing and adding two. That seems like a modest, steady improvement.
The darling of the games will be Windsor boxer Mary Stewart, who’ll have that rare combo of a (theoretical) championship belt and a CoverGirl contract.
After the English gave us a lot of stick over the early problems in Vancouver, we (i.e. I) will be the ones gleefully pointing out any lapses in organization on London’s watch. God help them if there’s a hydraulic failure during the opening ceremony.
EURO2012: All your pals who only half pay attention to this thing until 48 hours before it starts June 8th will be decked out in Spanish red. If that’s just an excuse to meet women on College, then fine. If that’s a prediction, you’re wrong.
This is Germany’s year. So if you want to pick up chicks on the back of your good sporting sense, you’re going to have to drive to Kitchener every fourth day.
TENNIS: One of three guys wins everything. One of 200 women equally share all the titles on the other side.
Novak Djokovic wins the Rogers Cup in Toronto and spends most of his time here talking about his hopes for the Leafs, whom he will call the “Leaves,” which we will all agree is charming and terribly wrong.
BCS CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: LSU over Alabama in another titanically over-hyped contest. What really interests us is how the Leafs will use this great victory as motivation.
AUTO RACING: Slicked-up Euro hipster to win Formula One title; Well-scrubbed hillbilly to win NASCAR title; Approachable mid-Atlantic everyman to win CART title. Feel free to supply your own names. It fits all inputs.
So, in summation. Leafs to make playoffs, be stomped. Raptors to be awful. Jays to finish third.
We’re going to kill that crystal ball.
soure : http://www.thestar.com/sports/article/1108750--crystal-ball-gazing-home-team-outlook-full-of-surprises
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