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Toronto Life - The Wire

The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com

All stories by John Rieti

The Informer

The Sporting Life
July 8, 2010 | 2:51 pm

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@chrisbosh is out. Let the #dinosaur jokes begin

“Before anything else. Thank you Toronto. I wouldn’t be here without you all and I will miss you. Your support and love kept me going.”

That’s what Chris Bosh tweeted earlier this week after the news broke of his departure from the Raptors. In the interest of accuracy, however, we feel it necessary to point out that it really wasn’t before everything else. Bosh did, after all, tweet “MIAMI HEAT!!!!!!!!!” 13 minutes earlier. Oh, and there’s that little matter of going on ESPN with his new BFF Dwyane Wade to announce the breakup.

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The Informer

The Sporting Life
June 10, 2010 | 3:43 pm

1 Comment

The biggest losers: Maple Leafs can finally boast about winning a title at the end of the playoffs

Maple Leafs rag: a T-shirt celebrates Toronto's losing streak (Image: Danielle Scott)

For the first time in 43 years, the Toronto Maple Leafs can walk away from the Stanley Cup playoffs with a unique distinction. Sure, the Blackhawks took the actual cup last night, but the Leafs now get the dubious title of “NHL team with the longest Stanley Cup drought.”

If nothing else, the end of the season means that Toronto’s sportswriters can go back to doing what they do best: being manic with the Maple Leafs. Bash them one second, search for a shred of hope the next. Over at the Star, hockey writer Damien Cox hosted a liveblog that had devolved into “how can the woeful Leafs ever win?” by its second question: “The Hawks won with offence, and the Leafs are trying to establish an attacking style… So maybe Chicago’s triumph suggests the Leafs are on the right track.”

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The Informer

The Sporting Life
May 31, 2010 | 3:47 pm

1 Comment

Jays pitcher in hospital after too many drugs

Dirk Hayhurst in a healthier moment (Image: SD Dirk)

Blue Jays pitcher Dirk Hayhurst got a little Amy Winehouse last week, winding up in hospital after the anti-inflammatory medication prescribed for his surgically repaired arm got the better of his stomach. His Twitter followers—he goes by the handle @TheGarfoose, a fictional beast of his own creation—got both the bad news and a dose of Hayhurst’s humour:

So here is how my last 3 days went. Unexplained chest pain (Ninjas?) = Endoscopy, CT scan, Iodine Injection, MRI, psych Exam, ninja repellent.

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The Hype

Shelf Life
May 21, 2010 | 4:10 pm

2 Comments

Finally, Ron MacLean will work in a medium where Don Cherry cannot interrupt him

Oh, the secrets they share (Image: Dave O)

The long-time CBC broadcaster and Coach’s Corner good cop announced Thursday he’ll be publishing his memoir, and it’s clear from Ron MacLean’s first comments about the book that it won’t be completely divorced from his suited sidekick.

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The Informer

The Sporting Life
May 14, 2010 | 11:24 am

8 Comments

Can Toronto bring itself to cheer for the Habs?

To Hab and Hab not: are rivalries bred in the bone? (Image: Toronto Mike from torontomike.com)

“No born-and-bred Torontonian and Maple Leafs fan can cheer for the Canadiens,” a friend told us on Wednesday night as we walked with her to watch the Pittsburgh-Montreal game at an Annex bar. And yet, once we got there, we didn’t see a single Penguins—or even Sidney Crosby—jersey. When the Canadiens captured the series, we even heard “Olé! Olé! Olé!” bounce off the framed Leafs jerseys on the wall. Our pal sat glumly as everyone else celebrated.

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The Informer

The Sporting Life
April 30, 2010 | 12:00 pm

1 Comment

LeBron James pours a little salt into the Raptors’ wounds

James and the giant speech (Image: Keith Allison)

On Tuesday night, LeBron James took a break from being the best basketball human on the planet give an absolutely enraging press conference during which he: a) claimed it’s easy to swish half-court buzzer-beating three pointers (like this), and b) took a few shots at the now-vacationing Toronto Raptors. “When you see the game between Chicago and Toronto in Toronto, you can tell they didn’t really want to make the playoffs,” he announced after his Cavaliers won the opening best-of-seven series with the Bulls 4-1. “Honestly… we wanted to play Chicago more than Toronto in this first round because we knew we were going to get pushed a little bit more.”

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The Informer

The Sporting Life
April 15, 2010 | 4:05 pm

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A great night for Toronto sports fan masochism

The crowd goes wild at last night's Blue Jays game (Image: Josh McConnell)

Last night was catastrophically bad for Toronto sports teams. Let’s start with basketball. The Raptors won, which was fabulous news until minutes after the game, when the Chicago Bulls also won, eliminating the Raps from the playoffs. But the sadness doesn’t end there. Fans likely got their last look at the team’s star player, Chris Bosh, who is now fully expected to skip town.

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The Informer

The Sporting Life
April 13, 2010 | 4:49 pm

1 Comment

Was the Jays’ home opener a metaphor for the season to come? Let’s hope not

The (almost) full house at the Rogers Centre (Image: John Rieti)

As every statistic-loving forecaster or rational journalist will tell you, the 2010 Blue Jays are not likely to make the playoffs. “Rebuilding” is the term most commonly used, short for “watch early in the season, because the Jays will likely be getting whipped in August.” If that’s true, then last night’s home opener was nothing less than a microcosm of the season to come. Strong out of the gate, the Jays blew their lead late in the game and then went down one-two-three in the 10th. The sellout crowd of 46,000 had been thinning out since the eighth inning—the prospect of a car-free Gardiner was obviously more interesting than some “free” extra baseball. Once boisterous (though not out of control like at last season’s home opener), the crowd slowly wound down. All that was left was a sense of dread. That usually doesn’t kick in until June.

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The Informer

The Sporting Life
April 8, 2010 | 10:58 am

1 Comment

With six injuries, it’s no wonder the Raptors are going extinct

Hunter S. Thompson once wrote in his ESPN column that whichever team suffers the fewest injuries in the next 20 games will win the NBA championship. That team is not the Toronto Raptors. With five—count ’em, five—wounded players, the team has been getting more medical attention than Dick Cheney at a cardiologist convention. Here, the injury list that’s left the team hobbled.

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