from Ken Campbell of The Hockey News,

Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brendan Shanahan spoke for only 21 minutes Monday afternoon, one day after he took a pressure washer to the team’s front office, but kicked every crutch out from underneath his organization and dispelled almost every myth under which it has operated for years.

It’s great when you have the support of the board of directors to do and say what Shanahan has done and said over the past couple of days, but it was refreshing nonetheless. Shanahan made it absolutely clear, with no grounds for any reasonable doubt, that the rebuild is on in Toronto. Nobody has ever had that kind of latitude before and Shanahan plans to use it.

“Sometimes people here try to suggest that the reason why this can’t be done is that the fans of Toronto don’t have the stomach to endure what truly needs to be done,” Shanahan said. “I don’t believe that. I think they’re dying for it to be done. Some people blame (the media). I think that’s a cop-out as well. I think it’s on us to have the determination to stick with the plan and do this the right way.”

So there you have it. Can we now put to bed, hopefully for eternity, that there are unique challenges to playing and performing “in this market”? (I swear if I never hear those words again it won’t be long enough.) Truth is, there are no more unique challenges to playing hockey in Toronto than there are to playing sports in a lot of other major cities in North America and the world. Good on Shanahan for finally being the one to put that notion out to pasture.

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