Leafs look for their own Drake to get fans excited again

Started from the top and now we're here? That could be a lyric about the Toronto Maple Leafs, a franchise once at the top of the NHL heap prior to expansion and then mired in years of futility that culminated in one of the team's worst seasons on record.

Do the Leafs need Drake to help them with PR and fan excitement as the team enters a rebuilding phase that management assures will not be rushed?

"We have talked about what high-profile stake-holders we can engage for the Maple Leafs to help us through this rough stretch of road here," Dave Hopkinson, chief commercial officer for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment told the Canadian Press. "And we're working on that plan now."

Hopkinson confessed that the hockey team's dismal season has staff worried about the ever-resilient Maple Leafs brand. "I'll tell you there's a bunch of us down here that are losing sleep about it," he said in summing up the state of affairs in Leafland.

You can't just find another Drake, of course. Perhaps someone like Wayne Gretzky could fulfill a role like this, but one doubts he'd be interested in such a figurehead position. Just, please, please, please, no one from Nickleback, ok?

What do you think? Would the Toronto Maple Leafs benefit from a celebrity ambassador?

Photo via the NHL

by Derek Flack via blogTO