Toronto Sun Did A Take Down Of Phil Kessel Today And We Found Out He Eats A Hot Dog A Day As An Afternoon Snack

Full Story Here  The hot dog vendor who parks daily at Front and John Sts. just lost his most reliable customer. Almost every afternoon at 2:30 p.m., often wearing a toque, Phil Kessel would wander from his neighbourhood condominium to consume his daily snack.

And now he’s gone. Just like that. The Maple Leafs could no longer stomach having Kessel around, the first player to be both punished and rewarded for the saddest Leafs season in history. The Leafs held their breath, plugged their noses, and ostensibly gave Kessel to the Pittsburgh Penguins because they couldn’t stand having him around anymore.

Really, this was as much about illness and insomnia as anything else: The Leafs were sick and tired of Kessel.

Sick of his act. Tired of his lack of responsibility. Unwilling to begin any reset or rebuild with their highest-paid, most talented, least-dedicated player. He didn’t eat right, train right, play right. This had to happen for Brendan Shanahan to begin his rebuilding of the Leafs. Separation between the Leafs and Kessel became necessary when it grew more and more apparent with time that everything Shanahan values was upended by Kessel’s singular, laissez-faire, flippant, mostly uncoachable ways.

How can you not love Phil Kessel? Well if you’re a fan of the Maple Leafs I could probably understand how you could not love a guy that submarined your franchise and stole 8 million dollars a year, but how can everyone else not love him? A hot dog a day. A fat gross face. An unwillingness to work out even though he’s a professional athlete. Phil Kessel is the common man, he is me, he is you, he is all of us, except he’s really really good at hockey. Like I know we all want our athletes to train hard and be the best they can possibly be but come on, you have to admit a guy who makes 8 million dollars a year eating street hot dogs every day and sort of just hanging out is pretty fucking funny. Phil Kessel is just a fat lazy guy who made it big, gives us all hope to make something of our lives but probably not because we’re too busy chilling out, eating hot dogs.

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