The challenges of playing hockey in a Canadian market are well documented: higher taxes, over abundant media coverage, lack of anonymity, an unrelenting and vicious winter, way too much Rush in rotation on FM radio. Discount LeBron Shoes . What makes Canada such a great place to be a hockey fan makes it a difficult environment to play in. Canada is indisputably the centre of the hockey universe, and at that universes core is Toronto. The Greater Toronto Hockey League is over a hundred years old and the largest minor hockey league in the world. Despite their futility, the Leafs could sell out Rogers Centre for home games charging $1000 and first-born children for upper deck seats. The Marlies are flourishing in the AHL. Next years World Junior Hockey Championships (co-hosted with Montreal) are sure to be the most successfully attended and celebrated ever. And yet, as a player, what would entice you to ply your trade in the Big Smoke?The crowds at the ACC for Leafs game are an embarrassment to hockeys most important market. The stories of the suits in the expensive seats, absent for starts of periods and reticent to loosen their ties even as Brian Burke undid his, are well known. The arena is eerily quiet compared to its contemporaries, a conservative and reserved audience in a sport and city renowned for its maniacal fandom. And this is not indicative of Toronto crowds, as we witnessed during the Raptors playoff appearance this year, rowdy afternoons at Jays games at Rogers Centre, and the masses that turned out this year and last in Maple Leaf/Raptors Square. But those involved fans (who make up the vast majority of Leafs Nation) enthusiasms are negatively tempered by the lower bowls reservations, reservations bred by alternately flawed and complacent approaches to building a competitive team and the absence of a winning presence. As a player who is passionate about his vocation, why would you want to commit to an environment that doesnt match that passion, especially when the home ice advantage can be such an important component of the game?Often in pieces that claim players like Thornton are interested in playing for the Leafs, the prospect of coming "home" is cited as a key factor. The very notion of "home" is a flawed premise in this lazy argument. Even if you call "home" somewhere in Southern Ontario, as a hockey player you probably havent lived there since you were 16. Thornton has lived in San Jose for nearly a decade, is a naturalized US citizen, has a wife, a mortgage, perhaps a few pets, maybe a café he really likes to go to, a favourite pizza place, a butcher who cuts his ribeyes to just the perfect thickness. But the Toronto Sun is going to tell him where his home is.For many players, one might suspect that playing at home in front of an overbearing hockey dad, mum and her new husband, and sycophantic high school acquaintances just a few blocks from where that girl broke your heart is the very definition of hell. And is working in your hometown really all that enticing? How many of you work in your hometowns? Hardly any. Youve all moved to Toronto.Thornton is from St. Thomas, Ontario, which would place his NHL "hometown" in Detroit or Buffalo as much as in Toronto, and yet those markets media dont seem to be making the "coming home" argument. Torontos hockey media is the most intense in all of professional sports. Maybe Montreals is equal, but half of the vitriol and conjecture there is in French, and only a fraction of NHLers understand it. (Reasonably, even those of us who are bilingual dont really understand it.) In Toronto, there is endless speculation, much of it even based in fact. Each flaw, each mistake (on and off the ice) is dissected and disseminated ad nauseum. Trade rumours are fabricated on a daily basis, the ubiquitous "NHL executive" noted as an unimpeachable source. The discussion of hockey in Toronto has become an insufferable wall of noise for an uninvested observer, so imagine if the discourse directly affected your family, your income, and your life.It seems a lot to ask of a player to endure such amplified attention, especially given the fact the Leafs have not been a competitive team since 2004. And that is final circle of the NHLs Hell: irrelevance. Toronto is still recovering from the John Ferguson Jr. era. They have some formidable pieces in Kessel, Morgan Reilly, and Jonathan Bernier; a young skilled forward, puck moving defenseman, and promising goaltender around which to build. They have a top-ten pick in the coming draft, some interesting if not spectacular prospects (Stuart Percy, Matt Finn), and some movable pieces (Nazem Kadri, Jake Gardiner). Brendan Shanahan emanates stability and hubris. But theyre still saddled with bad contracts (Dion Phaneuf, David Clarkson), a suspect coaching philosophy, and a lack of depth. And to watch the Kings, Blackhawks, and Rangers this spring is to know the Leafs are far removed from that level of hockey.So if you were an unrestricted free agent, or a player on the trading block with some say in his future, why would you come to Toronto? Consider Thornton: Youre in your mid-30s, never won a Cup, live in the perfection of Northern California, in a market that sustains you but doesnt invade you, and youd chose to move to Toronto, with its high taxes, magnified attention, and with as much of a chance of winning a Cup in the next five years as Quebec City? Toronto is a world-class city, cultured and cosmopolitan, a great place to live and make a life. The Joe Thorntons of the world should want to play home games at the ACC. The challenges of the market need to be offset by a tradition of winning and the only way for Toronto to do that is to build a stable and competitive franchise through hoarding draft picks and young controllable players, and eschewing the temptation of quick expensive fixes like Clarkson, or Thornton. The best thing for a successful NHL would be a dominant Toronto Maple Leafs team. Given the teams last decade, however, it seems like that wont happen until Hell freezes over. Fortunately for Toronto, most of it freezes over every January, so the wait may not be that long. Wholesale LeBron Shoes . Hamilton signed offensive linemen Mike Filer, Joel Reinders, Landon Rice and Carson Rockhill. Lebron Basketball Cheap . For the Athletics, hes extremely important at the top of the order, especially with Coco Crisp hurting. Jaso drove in three runs Sunday night, helping Scott Kazmir and Oakland beat the Texas Rangers 9-3. http://www.lebroncheap.com/ . -- Having already fallen behind because of the NFL lockout, Blaine Gabbert couldnt afford a lengthy holdout.SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. - Fans have lined the grassy hills beyond the playing field at the Little World Series to see Mone Davis. The concession stands have sold out of the powder-blue T-shirts of her Mid-Atlantic team.With her long braids dangling over her shoulders on every pitch, the Philadelphia star is a captivating presence and has been in a league of her own on the baseball diamond — the first female to win a game, let alone a two-hit shutout, in series history.Former Negro League star, 78-year-old Mamie Peanut Johnson, called the 13-year-old Davis the best thing since food.And yet, in spite of her 70 mph fastball, baseball isnt Davis best game.Her basketball coach said she is even better on the hardwood.Coaching boys and girls in this age group for two decades, Mone is just a special talent, said Debra Brady, Daviss basketball coach at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia. Shes a phenomenal pitcher, but I think her best sport is basketball. In a year or so, she will be doing the same unbelievable things in basketball. The first couple of games I coached her, she was head and shoulders above any kid Ive ever coached at that age level.Steve Bandura, who works for the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, will never forget the first time he saw Davis. It was six years ago and she was tossing a football — spiral after spiral after spiral — after a fall-league baseball game.She was throwing the ball, tackling the boys, Bandura said.He introduced Davis to the Marian Anderson Recreation Center, which has an after-school program for young kids that includes both homework assistance and sports. Theyve been virtually inseparable since.Bandura has coached nearly every one of Daviss games with the Anderson Monarchs basketball club, and No. 11 rarely disappoints.Shes Steve Nash, said Bandura, whose son is the catcher for the Philadelphia Little League team Davis plays on. She sees the floor and analyzes better than all the high school kids. Shes amazing. She manipulates the defence to open passing lanes. She plays chess when everybody else is playing checkers.No surprise, then, that two years ago she was being recruited to play point guard on a boys team of 14-year-olds, her 90 per cent free-throw accuracy an added bonus to go with a deadly crossover dribble that has sent defenders sprawling backward onto the floor trying to guard her. Clearance Nike LeBron Shoes. Her schools basketball team finished 11-3 last season, the three losses coincidentally coming in the three games she missed.Despite her skills, Bandura said Davis is very humble.She came in after one game and I asked, Howd you do? Bandura said. She said, We won 41-37.How many points did you score?I dont know.I get a text later. She had 35, Bandura said. In another game she scored 10 points in the first two minutes and finished the game with 10 points. All she did was get her teammates the ball. She didnt need to score more. But if it takes 35 points to win, shell do that. She embraces the team concept.Bandura said Davis is not the greatest athlete, shes a good athlete but, Her analytical skills are off the chart. Shes always the same on the outside, but inside she burns to compete.Bandura said hell hold Davis out of AAU basketball as long as he can because she still wants to play baseball, basketball, and another sport she excels in — soccer. That is, when shes not making the nearly hour and half bus ride to school.Davis, who is expected to pitch Wednesday night against Las Vegas, has not shied from using her riveting success in a positive way. She sacrificed time with teammates to do a national television interview late Sunday night, and this week shes on the cover of Sports Illustrated.While Davis and her teammates have been inundated by the media, their next opponent has toiled in virtual anonymity. Las Vegas, the first Nevada team to make the Little League World Series, kind of likes it that way.It allows us to play our game, said manager Ashton Cave, whose team has scored 25 runs in winning its first two games against Rapid City, South Dakota, and the all-black Jackie Robinson West team from Chicago. We like to be the underdog.And facing a girl wont be something new because theres an all-star female pitcher in their league back home. ' ' '