From slam.canoe.ca
Download source here

When the voting was completed for coach of the year, Sam Mitchell, suddenly a hot commodity, won in a romp, being named on 87% of the 128 ballots.

When the counting is over for coach of the year in the NHL, Paul Maurice may get a vote or three, no more, but no real or serious consideration.

When the NBA names its executive of the year, Bryan Colangelo is certain to be the choice. Colangelo, essentially, had two division winners this season, two playoff teams, one in Toronto, one in Phoenix.

When an NHL publication names its executive of the year, John Ferguson will not hear his name called. His team didn't make the playoffs this year or last year: His previous team, the St. Louis Blues, missed out in both those seasons also.

In a Hockey News ranking of NHL general managers, he was liberally listed at No. 22.

This is a tale of two franchises, one board of directors, one building yet two sets of rules: One team full of hope, one struggling. One operation set up for today and the future, one operation full of holes. One franchise considered a model, the other forever trying to avoid a crash.

Chris Bosh is the Raptors' signature player. He is 23 years old and already a candidate who will get serious mention on Most Valuable Player ballots in the NBA this season.

Mats Sundin is the Maple Leafs' signature player. He is 36 years old and coming off his lowest goal-scoring season in more than a decade, and will not garner a single vote for MVP in the NHL.

Andrea Bargnani, struggling since an appendectomy and a virus interrupted his season, is 21 years old and is all but certain to place top three in the rookie-of-the-year voting. He won't win the award but the betting here is three years down the road, he will be the best player from this class.

The only eligible rookie on the Leafs, Ian White, will not get any kind of Calder Trophy consideration in a year where Marc-Edouard Vlasic is the only defenceman to be standing alongside the Pittsburgh pair of Evgeny Malkin and Jordan Staal or Peter Statsny's kid, Paul.

Six of 12 Raptors are 25 years old or under: Seven if you include Uros Slokar, who hasn't been dressing for the playoffs.

Five of 20 Leafs are under 25: Kyle Wellwood has advanced the farthest of a group that includes White, Matt Stajan, Carlo Colaiacovo and Alex Steen.

Obviously, the Raptors had the advantage of bottoming out which the Maple Leafs haven't had, but the differences between the operations are so enormous it's impossible to comprehend how it is they actually work for the same company.

Colangelo answers only to the board of directors, and does not deal with CEO and president Richard Peddie in any meaningful way.

Ferguson answers directly to Peddie. In fact, as the Leafs season wound down, Peddie often sat next to Ferguson in the management box at Leafs games: One ostensibly covering the other's back.

Colangelo has Wayne Embry and Maurizio Gheradini as his closest advisers. Embry has been around the NBA only for the past 49 years as a player and Hall-of- Fame executive. Gherardini was considered the Colangelo of Europe before venturing to Toronto.

Who does Ferguson have to listen to? His director of hockey administration is Jeff Jackson, who is nearing his first anniversary as an NHL executive.

His assistant GM is Mike Penny, a hockey lifer of marginal success. The most experienced Leaf from a managerial perspective is professional scout Craig Button, who may not have Ferguson's ear.

In one season on the job, Colangelo signed Anthony Parker and Jorge Garbajosa out of Europe, traded Charlie Villanueva for T.J. Ford, acquired Rasho Nesterovic for Matt Bonner, remarkably found someone who would take Rafael Araujo off his hands for Kris Humphries and signed Fred Jones (when the John Salmons deal didn't work) and when Jones didn't mesh he sent him to Portland for Juan Dixon.

In one year, Colangelo turned over four of the five Raptors starters under healthy circumstances.

Of the 12 players dressing for the Raptors tonight, seven were Colangelo purchases.

In the same time frame, Ferguson signed free agents Pavel Kubina, Hall Gill, Michael Peca, Boyd Devereaux and traded for Andrew Raycroft and Yanic Perreault and missed the playoffs.

And you wonder, in the same company, how they manage to watch one team operate so smoothly while the other forever flounders.