In Greek mythology, the Hydra was a serpent-like beast with many heads that lived in a swamp near Lake Lema. When mighty Hercules did battle with this beast, he found that when he cut off one of the beast's heads, two more heads grew back in its place.

This seems like a fitting analogy for what is going on with the Toronto Maple Leafs right now. They fired General Manager John Ferguson Jr. in January and now they've relieved coach Paul Maurice of his duties. And yet, the Leafs remain a horrible, stinking beast of a team – albeit one without a coach or a permanent GM.

I always find it a little bit funny when both the coach and GM get fired within the same season. It seems to me that you can blame a team's poor performance on lack of talent – in which case you blame the GM – or on poor execution, which means that the coach isn't getting the most out of his players. The big foreheads at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) can't be bothered to figure out which is the case with this team – they've opted to blame both parties.

Regardless of what message you'll hear from MLSE President Richard Peddie regarding Maurice's ousting, the consensus among fans seems to be that he is a decent coach who was put in a bad situation. What's weird about the timing of this move is that I would have expected the Leafs to leave Maurice's future in the hands of their next full-time GM. It's not like Maurice was definitively horrible at his job or universally loathed by his players. So why not leave this decision up to the new guy?

Switching from Greek analogies to Roman metaphors, this is just another example of MLSE using bread and circuses to keep us distracted from the real problem with the Leafs. While fans and media debate who should be the new GM and coach and while diehard fans hope the new hires will make a difference, they renew their season's tickets as they forget that the team's roster is like Buck Nasty's suit at Dave Chappelle's "Player Hater's Ball" – it's bombed out and depleted.

It's a safe bet that the Leafs' marketing slogan for the 2008-09 season won't be "New coach, new GM, new attitude... same crappy players." But at least that would be honest. Last I checked, none of these moves addresses the team's lousy defence or the possibility that their best player, Mats Sundin, might retire this off-season.

Maurice is well-respected and is sure to land another coaching gig shortly. Whomever the Leafs bring in to replace him is unlikely to bring the team back to respectability anytime soon. So the real question isn't who should the Leafs hire as their new coach – it's who would want this thankless job, anyway?

I don't have a good answer to that question, but isn't that Doug Gilmour's number I see on Line One of the Peddie-phone? Hmmm...

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