Why. [url=http://www.airmaxireland.com/]Wholesale Air Max[/url] . Cant. We. Be. Great? Those were the words of Maple Leaf Sports

Why. Wholesale Air Max . Cant. We. Be. Great? Those were the words of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment President Tim Leiweke back in January when Toronto FC unveiled the double signing of Jermain Defoe and Michael Bradley. Leiweke was riding in on his white horse to save a club that had been mired in failure for seven years. His approach was to throw money at TFCs problems; the club had never before had players of the calibre of Defoe and Bradley, and Leiweke felt that all that was needed to turn things around was to sign better players, regardless of their inflated cost. Leiweke is the man credited with bringing David Beckham to Major League Soccer, so fans jumped on board to support the President; TFC finally had a man in charge who had experience and who knew what it takes to succeed in MLS. Despite all the hype and fanfare, though, Leiweke failed to address the fatal flaw that has plagued the Toronto FC organization since its inaugural year back in 2007: internal disarray. When Leiweke fired Kevin Payne - the GM that Leiweke inherited when he joined MLSE in late April 2013 - many people close to the club viewed this as proof that Leiweke knew what he was doing. Payne had made a series of bizarre decisions during his time in charge, including the hiring of Ryan Nelsen as the clubs head coach. When Nelsen was hired, he was still a player for QPR in the English Premier League and had no coaching experience. Leiweke replaced Payne with Tim Bezbatchenko - the Senior Director of Player Relations and Competition at the MLS head office - as the club’s GM. On the hiring, Leiweke said, Tim brings an analytical mind to the job along with the best understanding that I’ve seen of the salary cap and how to manage it. He knows how to build a team that will win long-term and he believes, like we do, that his vision will have an immediate and positive impact on this team. Bezbatchenko was essentially brought in to be TFCs capologist - the person in charge of negotiating contracts and getting TFCs notoriously poor cap management under control. But rather than cleaning house, hitting the reset button and starting with a clean slate, Leiweke instead chose to perpetuate TFC’s problems; he shackled his new GM to a coach he didn’t hire. Rather than empowering Bezbatchenko to search high and low for his own coach, someone he knew he could work with, Leiweke instead forced his GM to work with Nelsen. Leiweke did this for a very simple reason: he wanted to use Nelsens extensive list of contacts to attract better players to the club. The strategy worked - to an extent. The signings of Defoe and Brazilian goalkeeper Julio Cesar happened because of Nelsen, as did the addition of English striker Luke Moore. These were players that Nelsen knew well, and they joined the club primarily because of Nelsen. Many of the other players who were signed by the club during Nelsen’s tenure - the likes of Collen Warner, Domenic Oduro and Warren Creavalle - were also Nelsen signings” that Bezbatchenko allegedly opposed. Say what you will about Nelsens coaching and game management - he was a rookie coach who was learning his trade on the job under a massive spotlight, and was always going to make mistakes - but he is no fool. He has extensive experience in the game and is an intelligent man who saw very clearly the problems with which he was faced. Nelsen did some good things for the club, including getting them out from under a horrible cap situation, but he was set up to fail as soon as Bezbatchenko replaced Payne. In the North American sporting landscape, the GM doesnt work for the coach - it is the other way around. The GM has the power to hire and fire the coach as he sees fit, and despite the pretense under which Bezbatchenko was hired - that he would remain behind the scenes and manage the cap, leaving Nelsen and his staff to get on with coaching the team – he, too, would have known that. For Bezbatchenko, it was all about biding his time. Nelsen was always going to be the fall guy if TFC failed to deliver on Leiwekes promise that the club would make the playoffs for the first time in club history. And Nelsen knew it. To make matters worse, when Bezbatchenko hired Greg Vanney to be TFCs new Academy Director back in December, Nelsen had to look over his shoulder every day at the man he knew was lined up for his job. It’s hardly a working environment that is conducive to success, is it? If there has been a running theme at Toronto FC for the last eight years, it can be summed up with one word: dysfunction. It isn’t as difficult to build a successful club as Toronto FC has made it appear to be. It starts with hiring good leadership, who in turn hire competent coaches and staff to execute their roles in achieving the ultimate goal of winning a championship. When Bezbatchenko fired Nelsen, TFC were sitting in third place in the Eastern Conference with just 10 games to play. Bezbatchenko took a massive gamble, banking on Vanney being able to pick up enough points to see the team over the finish line. That gamble backfired and Toronto FC is now headed into the final weekend of the season with absolutely nothing to play for; their playoff dream is in tatters once again. Firing Ryan Nelsen was Bezbatchenko’s one ‘get out of jail free’ card. If he had left Nelsen in charge until the end of the season and TFC failed to make the playoffs, Bezbatchenko could have fired Nelsen then and fans would have thought nothing of it. By bringing Vanney on board with 10 games to play and then failing to deliver a playoff place, Bezbatchenko turned the firing squad towards himself and Vanney instead. Bezbatchenko and Vanney may very well be the right men to take Toronto FC into the playoffs next season. They might be exactly what the club has needed all these years, and this may be the start of a new era at club. But TFC fans don’t want to hear that. They don’t want to hear that a rookie GM - who hired a rookie head coach – needs time to turn the ship in the right direction. They’ve heard it all before, and they recognize the sound of a broken record better than most. Make no mistake about it: Bezbatchenko and Vanney are now firmly on the clock, and anything short of a strong start to next season will see fans calling for them, too, to be replaced. Why can’t we be great? Toronto FC proved this year that it has mastered one thing over the last eight seasons: over-promising and under-delivering. Air Max Outlet Ireland . 15 in Hamburg. The fight was originally slated for Sept. 6 but had to be postponed after Klitschko tore a bicep in sparring and was forced to miss four weeks of training. Air Max Ireland Sale . Off-Season Game Plan looks at a Wild team that has a nice mix of proven veterans along with young, inexpensive talent on the rise. When the Wild signed Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, making a big splash in the summer of 2012, it set the franchise on a path to being more competitive, but a big reason that they have been so competitive is the contributions of young players who still have more to give. http://www.airmaxireland.com/ . The 27-year-old hit .209 in 86 at-bats last year after missing the 2010 season following surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder.SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The San Jose Sharks spent seven games struggling to get the puck past Jonathan Quick in a playoff loss a year ago. Quick struggled to stop anything in the opener of the rematch. Tomas Hertl and Raffi Torres both scored in their first game together as teammates and the Sharks jumped on top of Quick and the rival Los Angeles Kings with a 6-3 victory in their playoff opener Thursday night. "We got fortunate with a couple of those goals," captain Joe Thornton said. "Just a weird night." Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Marc-Edouard Vlasic also scored for the Sharks, who were stymied by Quick in losing a seven-game series to Los Angeles in the second round last year. Antti Niemi made 31 saves. Quick allowed three goals in the first period for the first time in his playoff career, including two in the final minute as the Kings fell behind 5-0 after two periods. Quick was replaced by Martin Jones in the third period and only watched as the Kings showed life with goals from Jake Muzzin, Slava Voynov and Trevor Lewis. But Brent Burns sealed it with an empty-net goal as the home team won for the 17th time in the past 18 meetings between these teams. "We just werent ready to play from the get-go," Kings captain Dustin Brown said. "We played into their hands and thats what the score should be." Game 2 is Sunday in San Jose. The Sharks were the healthiest they have been all season with Torres back after missing all but five games in the regular season and Hertl playing for just the third time since Brown injured him with an illegal knee-on-knee hit on Dec. 19 in a play that still riles the Sharks. They got payback in the best way possible with a dominating opening two periods that showed off their much-improved depth when they are healthy. They got goals from all four lines and their defence to beat the Kings by more than one goal for the first time since Nov. 7, 2011. "We didnt give up very much, we got on the attack and had everybody involved," coach Todd McLellan said. "I thought our goaltender made some real good saves in those two periods to keep us ahead." The game had even added meaning for Hertl and Torres. Heertl talked before the series of his dislike for the Kings and said this series would be personal because of the injury. Cheap Air Max Ireland. Torres was suspended for the final six games of last years series for a hit to the head of Jarret Stoll in a punishment the Sharks and Torres felt was unjust. "Im not really worried about who I play, I just want to be able to play and contribute and all that stuff," Torres said. The Sharks had nothing to complain about after this game as they jumped out to a 5-0 lead and held on for the victory. The third playoff series in four years between these heated California rivals got off to an odd start as there was a power outage at SAP Center just minutes before the start of pregame warmups. The lights came back on about five minutes later and the players warmed up without the usual blaring music. But by the time the puck dropped, the towel-waving crowd was at its usual fever pitch chanting "Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!" right from the start. The cheers only got louder during a dominant first period that featured a combined 55 hits from the two teams, three goals from the Sharks and a scrum after Mike Brown pushed Voynov into Quick after the whistle. "Thats playoff hockey," Brown said. "We have to get to the net and get pucks to the net. Thats what I did." Thorntons deflection of Joe Pavelskis shot from the slot on a chance created by Burns hustle to negate an icing gave San Jose the early lead. San Jose broke things open with two goals in the final minute off broken plays. James Sheppard miss-hit a one-timer that slid right to Hertl, who tapped it in to make it 2-0 with 51.7 seconds to play. Marleau then made it 3-0 with 3.2 seconds to play to cap a 2-on-1 with Matt Nieto, who failed to get off a one-timer but instead slid the puck back to Marleau for his 58th career playoff goal. "When you come into a building like this you have to be prepared to face an onslaught at the beginning of the game," Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. "We didnt do a good job of preparing for that." NOTES: Brown played a night after his wife, Kati, gave birth to their second son, Zane Michael. ... Jones made four saves in his first career playoff game. China NFL Jerseys Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys NFL Jerseys Cheap Wholesale NFL Jerseys Cheap Basketball Jerseys Online Stitched Hockey Jerseys Wholesale Baseball Jerseys Football Jerseys Outlet College Jerseys For Sale Cheap MLB Jerseys Wholesale Soccer Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys For Sale Wholesale NFL Jerseys ' ' '