Thursday Links, News and Notes: Toronto Maple Leafs Face Fines, World Juniors Update and More

The holiday break is over, and the NHL is back in full force alongside the annual World Juniors championship. This week has had its share of interesting news to share in our Thursday edition of Links, News and Notes.

• Whether you agree with a rule or not, if it is never enforced then there is no point to the rule. The Toronto Maple Leafs broke a rule this past week as they travelled to St Louis a few hours earlier than the CBA allows them to. While the Maple Leafs could have travelled at 12am on the eve of the 27th, they decided to take a 10pm flight on Dec 26th breaking the clause in the agreement. The punishment? A hefty $100,000 fine which they will surely not make much of a dent on them in the grand scheme of things. The rules exist for a reason: to give players the right to a holiday. We’ll see whether any other teams will flaunt the rule in the future.
• While they did beat the Blues in overtime, the Leafs’ victory was costly. Alongside the team fine they had received, coach Sheldon Keefe was fined $25,000 for “demeaning conduct” towards a ref during the game.
• The World Juniors are proving to be more entertaining than recent years’ past. After being upset by the Czechs, Team Canada bounced back against Germany with an 11-2 win. The highlight of the win was the performance of Connor Bedard who tied a single-game Canadian record with his 7 points.
• Elsewhere, the Swiss upset Finland in their first game with a 3-2 win in overtime and Slovakia stunned the US with a 6-3 win in their second game of the tournament.
• A blast from the past; this week marks the 70-year anniversary of Marguerite Ann Norris becoming the first woman to be an executive for an NHL team. The daughter of Red Wings’ legend, James Norris, Marguerite was embedded into the hockey world from a young age. She was the first woman to become the chief executive of an NHL team and the first woman to have her name engraved on the Stanley Cup./