Rumor: Mike Babcock may have screwed Patrick Marleau.

Controversy in Toronto?

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 6 years ago
Rumor: Mike Babcock may have screwed Patrick Marleau.
Keystone Press

There are rumors of some old bad blood between Toronto Maple Leads' head coach Mike Babcock and newly signed Leafs' forward Patrick Marleau.

In a recent report for The Athletic Jonas Siegel revealed that the biggest disappointment in Marleau's career as a professional hockey player came at the hands of Babcock. 

At the 1997 World Junior Championships Babcock opted to go with now highly-respected National Hockey League veteran Joe Thornton over Marleau, leaving Marleau off the team, something that Marleau now seems to believe wasn't Babcock's decision.

“He mentioned something to me a little while ago that it wasn’t his call or something like that,” said Marleau as per Siegel's report.

However despite what Babcock has said to Marleau, a well respected member of Hockey Canada's front office says that Babcock did in fact have the final say. From Siegel:

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Team Canada's head scout, Barry Trapp, disputes this claim.

The coaching staff always gets final say, he said.

Now both Babcock and Marleau are both true professionals so we fully expect they will be able to get along just fine in this regard. That being said however one has to wonder if things don't go the way either man expected them to if this old bad blood may boil up to the surface again.

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