Takin' a T/O With BT: Thanks For Thinking Of Us Mike Babcock

As the Detroit Red Wings got off their plane which had just touched down in the Motor City, they were confronted with reporters—nothing out of the ordinary here.

As the Wings players entertained questions from the media and spoke about their upcoming series in the Stanley Cup Finals against the Pittsburgh Penguins, a few reporters caught up with Detroit's head coach Mike Babcock.

Sidenote: I will not be using the "March of the Penguins" in any way, shape, or form in any of my articles about the Stanley Cup finals. Morgan Freeman is a very nice man with a pleasing voice, but I don't need him making money off of me for the copyrights to that movie. I also think it's cliched and I've chosen not to fall into that trap.

Unless of course you read the piece about the Bleacher Report Stanley Cup contest. But that doesn't count after all...it's a contest.

As the reporters began asking Babcock questions about "How it felt to be going back to the finals?", and "How rare was your steak on the plane?" (The NHL doesn't have a Stanley Cup Media Day, so stupid questions have to come from somewhere right?), one reporter began asking Babcock about what it was like for the fans who had waited so long for this.

Immediately after those words had been spoken, the St. Louis Blues began twiddling their thumbs off under the mighty arch, while the Los Angeles Kings began to nod knowingly.

The Buffalo Sabres began to laugh maniacally, while fans in Chicago ran to their bedrooms to pull out faded black and white photos of Glenn Hall and Pierre Pilote as they assured themselves that with Jonathon Toews, Patrick Kane, and Duncan Keith, maybe the days of glory would return (or you know, the days where they became the team with the poorest record to win the Stanley Cup. At least 1938 was a good year for Alfie Moore.).

Down the coast, the Florida Panthers began to snicker, as no one seems to notice that they hardly ever make the playoffs anymore as it's become so commonplace for that franchise.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Maple Leafs were just left standing in their executive suites mumbling to each other that "We'd care if we didn't make so much money".

Babcock then turned to the reporter and chided him by saying, "Let's not kid ourselves here. You guys don't even know what long is, just look around the league."

As you can probably tell, I agree whole-heartedly with Babcock on this one—2002 wasn't that long ago, was it?

Actually, it was only about as long ago as the Maple Leafs' most recent shot at moving on to the Stanley Cup finals.

Now before I go on, I'd like to say that I know that Toronto isn't home to the longest Stanley Cup drought in the NHL. Because of the fact that we're wrapped up in ourselves as the "Center of the Hockey Universe", we start to forget that there are other teams in the NHL—other teams like the Chicago Blackhawks— who haven't had the privilege of hoisting Lord Stanley's mug since 1960-61.

The Blackhawks have also had the honor of being the Red Wings' whipping boys for the past few years, as their team became a mish-mash of over-payed, under-performing former superstars, with a touch of undeveloped talent that seemed to be going nowhere as the Hawks were mired in the basement of the NHL's Central division.

But as sorry as I feel for the Blackhawks, I'd still put them ahead of the Leafs in terms of who can end their Cup drought first.

Let's face it—the Chicago Blackhawks are a young team, but they are on the rise. They proved that this year with the emergence of Kane and Toews on their top line, while they improved their standing in the league by 17 points and three spots in the standings.

They also proved that their offense is that of a contender. I mean, this team went from outscoring one opponent in the Western Conference last season (Chicago scored 201 goals on the year to tie the Columbus Blue Jackets for second-last in the conference, ahead of Edmonton's 195 goals) to third in the conference this season with 239 goals (trailing only Detroit with 257 and Dallas with 242).

All the Leafs have done in that span is fire a coach, a GM, have a three day job interview with Dave Nonis without making any real progress, question Mats Sundin's leadership, sign Jason Blake only to then wonder if they should buy him out, and make a boatload of money.

Now the rivalry between Detroit and Toronto has cooled off some because the teams just don't play each other anymore (Thanks NHL Scheduling Committee). It's still heated when they meet up, but there's no trash talking, no eye-for-an-eye shenanigans. It's kind of like wrestling the wine bottle away from Uncle Ted on Christmas—it's a hard-fought struggle but it only comes around once a year.

If the Leafs want to improve to that vaunted level of competition though, then they may do well to take a note from their Original Six brethren over in MoTown.

Draft well, and mix your youth in with an accomplished group of feisty, yet still effective veterans. That's how the Wings won their back-to-back championships in 1997 and 1998, and that's how they won in 2002.

All of the sudden, winning doesn't seem entirely out of the picture.

Hell, maybe if we pretended that Mike Babcock was insulting us instead of that reporter's memory we'd even get motivated to win something.

But that'd make everything too easy then, wouldn't it?