# Why are the Maple Leafs so bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 30, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-maple-leafs-so-bad/494808 "2009-04-30T02:45:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-maple-leafs-so-bad/494808/21 "2009-05-13T16:00:58Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Why single out the Maple Leafs? Their last Stanley Cup win was 1967. The Chicago Blackhawks haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1961. Looks like the Blackhawks are working on it… Thanks for the replies everyone - very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-maple-leafs-so-bad/494808/22 "2009-05-13T16:39:34Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > [QUOTE=Northern Piper] > > so, forty years of bad management? that seems excessive… I didn’t say that at all! 20 years of miserly ruling under Ballard. He refused to pay good money for players, and as soon as their contracts needed renewing he would rather trade them. The turn-about after Ballard’s death was almost instantaneous in the 90s. Cliff Fletcher did a great job turning the team into a smi-finalist three times in that decade. What’s so bad about making to the final 4, three times in I believe eight years? Since they had money to keep throwing at free-agency they did that rather than build the team from the bottom up. Due to the new CBA they cannot do that any longer and are in fact re-building from the bottom up. [/QUOTE] Sorry if I misinterpreted you, **Leaffan** , but that’s what I took from your first post. Interestingly, Sports Illustrated has reviewed the ownership of all of the major sports leagues, ranking them from best to worst. For the NHL, they rank the Leafs’ current management as the [worst in the league](http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/hockey/nhl/05/08/nhl.owners/index.html): > [@](#): > > How can the $1.75 billion owners of the most valuable franchise in hockey continue to so mismanage one of the NHL’s most storied teams? The Leafs still haven’t won a Stanley Cup in 42 years, and the deep pockets of its parent organization have done little to reverse that trend. But it’s not some fat-cat collective running the team from its penthouse suite – since 1994, MLSE’s primary investor has been the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Unfortunately, the dysfunctional relationship between the two principals – Richard Peddie and Larry Tannenbaum – continues to trickle down to the on-ice product, as MLSE is too busy running too many sports properties and breaking ground on too many real estate projects to pay enough attention to the Leafs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-maple-leafs-so-bad/494808.md?page=1)