Doug Gilmour

Christie Blatchford in The Globe and Mail:

Yesterday, at 40, an age when ambitious politicians are routinely pronounced far too green for the biggest jobs and corporate executives are still deemed to be bright young things, he packed it in. That marvelous, beaten-up body, he said with his dimpling grin, “is telling me that the time has come.” So was the new Toronto general manager, John Ferguson Jr., whose first decree when he was appointed late last month was to announce that the club had no plans to re-sign Mr. Gilmour.

Gilmour took us as close to the Cup as the Leafs have gone in recent memory. His time has come, but I’ll miss him. The new GM, John Ferguson Jr., could have shown him a little more grace by keeping his plans quiet and speaking to Gilmour in private. There goes a classy hockey player.