People should stop asking Brian Burke for his opinion on things, cause you know what it will be

Can you guess which outspoken National Hockey League GM is up in arms over the results of the NHLPA player's poll that CBC rolled out this weekend at the All-Star Game?

If you guessed "Brian Burke", congratulations. You have a firm grasp on the obvious. Turns out Burkie took exception to a couple of the answers that the players ended up with.

Trivial things, like, "What NHL team would you least like to play on" or "Which coach would you least like to play for?" You know, trivial things that might affect how a free agent makes a decision on where to sign. Unfortunately, both answers cast the Toronto Maple Leafs in a bad light.

Toronto is tied with Montreal (of all teams) as the 5th least desirable team to play for, and 24% of players voted Ron Wilson as the coach that they'd least like to play for. Burke, of course, blew a gasket (I think) and took it out on some poor, lanky reporters:

“He’s got 600 wins [in the NHL] and a silver medal [at the Olympics], plus a World Cup,” Burke said of Wilson. “You think anybody in management cares about a poll like this?”

Apparently you do, Burkie. Unfortunately, 600 wins is a completely meaningless round number that has no ties to present success, and I'm sure glad Burke is proud that Wilson rode on Ryan Miller's coattails to an Olympic silver medal.

I can't think of two more hockey people who throw as many arbitrary temper tantrums in the press as Ron Wilson and Brian Burke. That may come with the territory of dealing with the Toronto media on a daily basis, but Burke, formerly an expert at deflecting criticism from himself and his team onto others (Sedin is not Swedish for "punch me") is playing the defensive card too much. When we have to justify and defend our own decisions instead of letting the results speak for themselves, it's usually an indication that we've, for lack of a better term, fucked up.

I think that Brian Burke is still a shrewd guy and while I disagree with how he puts hockey teams together, nobody can disagree that he isn't a couple of pieces away from the Leafs being competitive again, or that he won't be with the Leafs when they find their way back into the NHL playoffs. He really does need to step out of the spotlight. On one hand last week, he complained about concussions being a major issue because of the name player who is sidelined with one, but in the same interview, complained about the All-Star draft format because of the name player who was chosen last. You can't have your crow and eat it, too.

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There aren't any jokes in this post, so here's a video of a linesman slipping and crashing into a goalpost, stopping his fall strategically with his... well, just watch the video: