Why the Leafs stink - Maclean's

    You think it's easy building a perennial disappointment? A portrait of
    the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the reasons behind 41 years of failure.
    Also featured in this week's issue: Are we helping Haiti? And, coverage
    of Maclean's recent debate on the meaning of Canada, featuring Malcolm
    Gladwell and Adam Gopnik. For further information on these and other
    stories, turn to www.macleans.ca.

    TORONTO, April 3 /CNW/ - God hates the blue and white - at least, that's
what the citizens of Leafs Nation would like to believe. After 41 years of
failure, supernatural explanations start to seem pretty attractive, especially
when hard facts are just too painful to face. The list of disappointments
could fill volumes, and now this: For the first time in Leaf's history,
they've been eliminated from the playoffs for a third consecutive season. It'd
be tempting to say the team has hit rock bottom, but it's not clear they're
done digging.
    It's not bad luck. It's not a curse. The Toronto Maple Leafs' mediocrity
is all about economics. This week, Maclean's deputy managing editor Steve
Maich provides a point-by-point deconstruction of the Leafs' legacy of
failure: how 40 years of constant internal disarray, short-term thinking and
cultural decay has yielded massive profits and little else worth celebrating.
In this portrait of a team that's built to fail, Maich reveals why building a
chronic loser is harder than you think.

    Are we helping Haiti?

    Canada's aid to Haiti soared following the 2006 election of President
René Préval. It pledged $555 million over five years, making Haiti Canada's
largest foreign aid recipient after Afghanistan. A hospital is up and running,
with the help of $500,000 from the Canadian International Development Agency,
and gangs now have less control. Success, however, is precarious. Haitians are
still destitute and are getting angrier about it. Their continued poverty
could easily destabilize the country. Preventing this from happening requires
the security necessary for economic investment, and this in turn will mean the
involvement of countries like Canada in Haiti for years to come.
    Turn to this week's issue for a special, in-depth look at Canada's
efforts to heal the Haitian poverty crisis, wherein Maclean's asks, "has
Canada's aid made a difference?"

    About Maclean's:

    Maclean's is Canada's only national weekly current affairs magazine.
Maclean's enlightens, engages and entertains 2.8 million readers with strong
investigative reporting and exclusive stories from leading journalists in the
fields of international affairs, social issues, national politics, business
and culture. Visit www.macleans.ca.

    /NOTE TO PHOTO EDITORS: A photo accompanying this release is available on
    the CNW Photo Network and archived at http://photos.newswire.ca.
    Additional archived images are also available on the CNW Photo Archive
    website at http://photos.newswire.ca. Images are free to accredited
    members of the media/

For further information: Jacqueline Segal, [phone],
[e-mail]