Team Canada players were thrilled with Crosby\u2019s arrival in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
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Published May 17, 2026 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 Last updated 3\u00a0hours ago \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 10 minute read<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n You can save this article by registering for free here<\/a>. Or sign-in<\/a> if you have an account.<\/p>\n Jason Spezza got the unexpected call with two simple words from Sidney Crosby: \u201cI\u2019m in.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement 2<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.<\/p>\n SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.<\/p>\n REGISTER \/ SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.<\/p>\n THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authors<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n After a very long season \u2014 getting hurt at the Olympics, getting hurt after the Olympics, his Pittsburgh Penguins being knocked out after an intense first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs \u2014 Team Canada made the courtesy call to Crosby.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Not really expecting a positive response from the author of the 2010 Golden Goal.<\/p>\n \u201cI honestly didn\u2019t think it was going to happen,\u201d said Team Canada general manager Brad Treliving, working with Spezza on the management team at the world men\u2019s hockey championship currently going on in Switzerland.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought if anyone had a reason not to come it was Sid.\u201d<\/p>\n Treliving and staff had already named superb youngster Macklin Celebrini as captain of Team Canada before the annual tournament began and before Crosby agreed to join the team. Which meant they had an immediate issue they hadn\u2019t anticipated.<\/p>\n \u201cWe named Mack captain before Sid agreed to participate,\u201d said Treliving. \u201cWhen Sid came, he was adamant that Mack remain the captain. At the same time, Mack was adamant that Sid be the captain.<\/p>\n Your Midday Sun<\/p>\n Thanks for signing up!<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Advertisement 3<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cThis goes to show you what Sid is all about. It\u2019s not about him. Just watching him, you can see the respect he commands from the other players here. Sid took an issue and quickly made it a non-issue. He\u2019s that kind of special guy and, until you see it in person, and watch him around people, you don\u2019t know how special he is.\u201d<\/p>\n The remaining players on Team Canada, many of them NHL veterans such as long-time Leafs John Tavares and Morgan Rielly, were thrilled with Crosby\u2019s arrival in Switzerland.<\/p>\n \u201cThe players are all like little kids around him,\u201d said Treliving. \u201cThey\u2019ve been so excited to see him and play on the same team as him.\u201d<\/p>\n The tournament began<\/a> with Crosby and Celebrini on the same line, Celebrini at centre, Crosby on the wing. The future and the past together on Team Canada.<\/p>\n There is something wrong with this: The Vegas Golden Knights fired Bruce Cassidy as coach. Then they denied Edmonton \u2014 and possibly other teams \u2014 permission to talk to him. That process is unfair. If I fire you as coach, I shouldn\u2019t be able to control who you talk to or which team you work for after that. The NHL Coaches Association needs to get this changed \u2026 I don\u2019t believe for a second that Vegas will lose a second-round pick because coach John Tortorella didn\u2019t do his post-game interviews the other night and the Vegas dressing room was closed to the media. I believe the NHL will announce around draft time that Vegas will get its pick back. This is mostly Gary Bettman tough-guy theatre for now \u2026 Maple Leafs new GM John Chayka made the obvious move by firing coach Craig Berube<\/a>. He then proceeded to say the firing \u201cwas not a verdict on Craig\u2019s coaching.\u201d But isn\u2019t every firing a verdict on somebody\u2019s coaching? \u2026 The betting here is that Cassidy will still end up as coach of the Oilers. That\u2019s a team that needs the kind of structure that Cassidy is so well known for bringing \u2026 Kris Knoblauch was hired to coach the Oilers after they had bottomed out mid-season three years ago. He took them, in his first season, to within a goal of the Stanley Cup. In his second year, they went back to the Stanley Cup final. You can\u2019t do much better than that. Over the past two years, general manager Stan Bowman got snookered on a free-agency signing deal by the St. Louis Blues, failed to pick up a goaltender of consequence, signed some bad contracts, and lessened his roster exponentially. So, the coach who took them from nowhere to somewhere got shown the door and the GM who took them from somewhere to nowhere remains in charge \u2026 The Leafs could do worse than have Knoblauch as their next coach \u2026 Freddie Andersen just passed Jonathan Quick on the list of career playoff starts for a goaltender. Among the 24 goalies ahead of Andersen are Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek, Glenn Hall, Ken Dryden, Jacques Plante, Grant Fuhr, Curtis Joseph and Billy Smith. In other words, the best goalies ever. An unusual place to find Freddie\u2019s name. Andersen has started 93 playoff games, winning 54 of them.<\/p>\n Advertisement 4<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Brandon Pridham, whose front office work has been essential for the past 12 seasons in Toronto, especially through the COVID years, is leaving the Maple Leafs. The assistant GM and chief salary cap guru won\u2019t be easily replaced \u2026 That\u2019s Shane Doan, Pridham and coach Berube as the first changes made by Chayka and Mats Sundin, although it isn\u2019t known if Chayka is pushing Pridham out or if Pridham isn\u2019t just looking for a change after 27 years in Toronto (15 working for the NHL, 12 with the Leafs). There will be more changes coming \u2026 Pridham, meanwhile, is off to Kelowna to watch his son, Jack Pridham, play in the Memorial Cup for the Kitchener Rangers. The Rangers are managed by Mike McKenzie, son of Bob McKenzie, an apple that clearly didn\u2019t fall far from the tree. Bob was the ultimate hockey insider for most of his Hall of Fame career \u2026I saw this online headline on Friday: \u201cDoes Toronto owe Mitch Marner an apology?\u201d And my first thought was: For what? Marner is playing the best hockey of his life right now with the Golden Knights. He scored an all-time highlight-reel goal the other night. That was something special. He\u2019s scored seven times in the playoffs and leads the NHL with 18 points. That\u2019s terrific. But it doesn\u2019t erase his playoff misfortunes with the Leafs. He played 46 games against Boston, Tampa Bay and Florida in the post-season, scoring 11 goals in all. In the 13 games he played against Montreal and Ottawa in the post-season, he scored just once. Like the rest of his teammates in Toronto, he left fans, coaches and management wanting more. He had one great series as a Leaf, scoring 11 points in six games against Tampa Bay in 2023. Strangely, this season was Marner\u2019s lowest scoring regular season in years. Now he\u2019s doing what Leafs fans had hoped for before he left via a free agency-pushed trade \u2026 Should this drive Leafs fans batty? Fraser Minten playing for Treliving at the world championship \u2026 I\u2019m still trying to understand how the Leafs believe they can contend next season. The Eastern Conference has terrific teams such as Florida, Carolina, Montreal and Buffalo and you can pencil all four in for playoff spots next year. Then there\u2019s Tampa Bay with all that up-front talent, Ottawa in the playoffs the past two seasons, the Islanders \u2014 with Matthew Schaefer, Ilya Sorokin and coach Peter DeBoer \u2014 on the rise, the young Red Wings not far behind, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh coming off surprising playoff seasons and teams such as Washington, New Jersey and Columbus, all with a bevy of young talent. I left out Boston because I don\u2019t know what to make of the Bruins. Which leaves the Leafs where? Today, last in the Atlantic Division. By October, not knowing the coach or the roster, there is only one direction to go. More than anything, the Leafs need a Schaefer\/Quinn Hughes<\/a>\/Cale Makar\/Lane Hutson on defence, and those type of players are just not available.<\/p>\n Advertisement 5<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n I loved the idea of the FIFA World Cup<\/a> coming to Canada and all of the excitement it was supposed to bring. That is until I started pricing out tickets. If you want the worst ticket for the Canada-Bosnia match at what used to be BMO Field next month, you can still get one for about $1,422. You can, however, get a ticket for Senegal-Iraq in Toronto next month for just more than $400. It\u2019s not any better in Mexico, where single-game tickets are being sold for the home opener at $1,881 \u2026 The next coach of the Maple Leafs will be my 16th as a columnist. The best, in no particular order: Pat Burns, Pat Quinn and Mike Babcock. The best record belongs to Sheldon Keefe, who is still waiting to hear from the Devils to see if he\u2019s back next season. The best interview who hated doing interviews: Quinn. The best coach who did lousy in Toronto: Paul Maurice \u2026 Trey Yesavage has made four starts<\/a> for the Blue Jays and while he\u2019s being treated with kid gloves, all four have been impressive. This year\u2019s stats: 19.1 innings pitched, three earned runs given up, 21 strikeouts, eight walks. His career earned-run average through seven big league starts is 2.16 \u2026 Phillies\u2019 Kyle Schwarber is loving life with Don Mattingly as his new manager. He has nine home runs in his past eight games, 20 overall to lead the majors. Mattingly is 13-4 since taking over as skipper \u2026 Boy, that Shane Bieber sure loves Toronto and the Blue Jays narrative has taken a beating this season \u2026 Math that doesn\u2019t add up: There are 154 players in baseball with more home runs than Vladimir Guerrero Jr. There are three players being paid more than him \u2026 So, who figured on Logan Stankoven centring Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake (Jason\u2019s son) in Carolina being the most explosive line of the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs? \u2026 This is how you know the media is messed up in North America: When talents such as Arash Madani and John Matisz can lose their jobs and there aren\u2019t any networks, newspapers or websites crashing into each other to hire them \u2026 I don\u2019t understand the thrill of signing the one-day contract in order to retire with a certain team. I understand it even less when it\u2019s a rather ordinary backup quarterback, Matthew Shiltz<\/a>, doing it with the Tiger-Cats.<\/p>\n Advertisement 6<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Not sure I understand the comparisons between Marner as a Leaf and Phil Kessel as a Leaf that I\u2019ve heard in recent days. Marner played on 100-point teams and underperformed in the playoffs. Kessel played on teams that didn\u2019t make the playoffs \u2014 except for one year, where he was Toronto\u2019s best player in a seven-game series against Boston. Kessel went on to win three Stanley Cups, two in Pittsburgh where he was a huge contributor, and one in Vegas, where he healthy scratched his way to a ring \u2026 The NBA names its MVP on Sunday night<\/a> and all indications are that the Canadian, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, will win the award for a second consecutive season. There may not be a third for SGA. The way Victor Wembanyama gets better every day, he could go on an MVP run after this year \u2026 I used to privately cheer for the Dallas Mavericks when Steve Nash played there. Now, I can privately cheer for them again because Masai Ujiri is running the team \u2026 Also quietly, I\u2019m cheering for the Montreal Victoire to win the PWHL title, for one reason only: Shouldn\u2019t the legendary Marie-Philip Poulin have a pro championship before she runs out of time? \u2026 Does anybody in Toronto remember that before there were Blue Jays, the triple-A Toronto Maple Leafs were the International League farm team of the Boston Red Sox? \u2026 The reach of the Toronto Tempo\u2019s first WNBA game came in as one million viewers on the many Bell television networks. What wasn\u2019t announced by anyone, though, was that the actual viewing audience, was around the 283,000 mark. That\u2019s an exceptional audience for the first-year team. But to put that into context, that\u2019s little more than half of what a regular-season CFL game does on TSN and RDS \u2026 If David Popkins was getting all kinds of credit throughout baseball last summer for turning the Blue Jays offence around, what\u2019s being said about the team\u2019s hitting coach now? Jays were second in runs last season, they\u2019re 13th in the AL this season \u2026 Why do books about baseball seem better than books about other sports? My favourite baseball books: Ball Four by Jim Bouton; Summer Of \u201949 by David Halberstam; Five Seasons by Roger Angell; Why Time Begins on Opening Day by Thomas Boswell; and The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn \u2026 A more modern-day runner-up: The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst \u2026 Not enough was said about how much a very good Minnesota Wild team was missing centre Joel Eriksson Ek in its series against Colorado \u2026A childhood memory: I once saw wrestler Haystacks Calhoun eating at Switzer\u2019s on Spadina, and eating more than anyone I\u2019ve ever seen eat \u2026 Andre The Giant would have been 80 this week \u2026 Happy birthday to Thurman Thomas (60), Sugar Ray Leonard (70), Tessa Virtue (37), Corey Perry (41), Floyd Smith (91), John Salley (72), Earl Hebner (77), Jean-Sebastien Giguere (49), Keon Coleman (23) and Gabriela Sabatini (56) \u2026 And hey, whatever became of John Starks?<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n SIMMONS SAYS: Mitch Marner never faced Utah, Anaheim in a Leafs playoff series<\/p>\n![\"Canada](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0517crosbysmall-e1778976586746.jpg\")
Canada forward Sidney Crosby looks on during the Group B match between Canada and Sweden at the IIHF Ice Hockey Men’s World Championship at BFC Arena, in Fribourg, Switzerland, on May 15, 2026. Photo by Fabrice Coffrini \/Getty ImagesArticle content<\/p>\n![\"Toronto](\"https:\/\/dcs-static.gprod.postmedia.digital\/21.2.1\/websites\/images\/identity\/logo-identity-tsun.svg\"){kind=logo}
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Former Vegas Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy. Photo by Ethan Miller \/Getty ImagesTHIS AND THAT<\/p>\n![\"Toronto](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0507chaykaernestsmaller-e1778111629740.jpg\")
Toronto Maple Leafs general manager John Chayka. Photo by Ernest Doroszuk \/Toronto SunHEAR AND THERE<\/p>\n![\"Raheem](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SptsT02_SouthStandssmall-e1778366441332.jpg\")
Raheem Edwards of Toronto FC shoots during the MLS match between Toronto FC and Inter Miami CF at BMO Field on May 9, 2026 in Toronto. The temporary second deck of south stands constructed for the FIFA World Cup are in the background. Photo by Vaughn Ridley \/Getty ImagesSCENE AND HEARD<\/p>\n![\"Shai](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0522-shai-gilgeous-alexander-okc-thunder.jpg\")
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder reacts after scoring during a 2025 playoff series against the Denver Nuggets. Getty ImagesAND ANOTHER THING<\/p>\n![\"Vegas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SptsT06_MarnerGoalsmall-e1778382702413.jpg\")
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