When somebody who is employed as a regular contributor on Hockey Night in Canada is suddenly fired after writing a book entitled Why The Leafs Suck: And How They Can Be Fixed, you can't help but wonder what's going with respect to the CBC's journalistic integrity.

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General Manager Brian Burke uses his blackberry during a practice of the Toronto Maple Leafs at the MasterCard Centre for Hockey Excellence in Toronto Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009.

Photograph by : National Post

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This is what happened to Al Strachan, who regularly appears on HNIC's "After 40 Minutes" on Saturdays, a segment where the goal is to break news and discuss newsworthy topics about and around the NHL or the sport of hockey.

Curiously enough, Strachan was there because he usually breaks the most news and was almost always the most controversial contributor, largely because he's well-connected and the league doesn't have some sort of hold on his job as it does directly or indirectly on at least one of the other regulars.

But far too shortly after the release of his new book, Strachan found himself gonged from the show, CBC executive director Scott Moore telling him that he was gone because he was identified on the cover of his book as being from Hockey Night in Canada.

Strachan, of course, had no control over this inclusion in the book as the publishers HarperCollins printed the cover and had already come to an agreement with HNIC as to how this concern will be handled. Moore did not return a call Thursday.

But because HNIC went ahead and knocked Strachan off anyway, there has been a mountain of speculation that this technicality was used to get him and that Moore is bowing to pressure from the Toronto Maple Leafs, the league or both to make such a move. While the truth may never be known, it most certainly looks bad and when things look bad, they often are bad, free speech clearly under duress these days from all manner of affronts.

The contents of the book are so amusing, it's most certainly clear to see why any number of people in the Leafs hierarchy might be upset at some of the things that have been written.

And while they may not be able to do much about that, they certainly weren't going to pass on the opportunity to make sure they didn't have to listen to them on Saturdays.

Given there is a withering chapter on Brian Burke in the book -- one that people who don't like Burke's style shouldn't miss -- he is being blamed for perhaps being the thrust behind this, largely because he's tried to exert pressure on reporters and columnists before. Further, he's tried to exert pressure on HNIC in the past to have Strachan removed from "After 40 Minutes" because of an incident he didn't like while he was GM in Vancouver. So it's hardly surprising that people would be pointing fingers at his media-managing ways.

But that analysis may not be fair to Burke. After all, there are lots of others who receive shots in the book, not the least of which are the likes of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment president and CEO Richard Peddie and the company's second largest shareholder, Larry Tanenbaum, both of whom have been making most of the hockey-hiring decisions with the team recently.

Would they have picked up the phone? Could NHL commissioner Gary Bettman have taken the opportunity to pick up the phone? Doubtful, but the timing of this couldn't look worse.

We only need to look at what time Saturday's game at GM Place starts to see the extent to which the Leafs and HNIC work together and stroke each other's back. Not only will the early start time give HNIC a larger audience for the nationally televised game, it will give the Leafs a slight edge they might not have otherwise enjoyed by starting the game at 7 p.m. ET on their body clocks whereas otherwise it would have been 10 p.m. ET.

They call each other's tune and the impression one is left with until proven otherwise is that CBC has lost considerable integrity with this move.

As for the book, Strachan is a friend so there probably shouldn't be any comment. But the Montreal Gazette review was extremely flattering, and whether you love or hate the Leafs you should probably give it a look.

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