At this point, I think it’s fairly obvious that the fatted cats who run Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment spend much of their time devising ways to piss people off. Raising ticket prices for losing teams has long been their best trick, but once in a while they really get creative …

The Ontario government is investigating whether players on the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors jumped the queue for increasingly scarce H1N1 flu shots, says Health Minister Deb Matthews.

A visibly unhappy Matthews told reporters Thursday she was flabbergasted the millionaire athletes managed to get their vaccine while at-risk people, such as young children and pregnant women, are still waiting to be immunized.

“I don’t care who you are, how rich you are, how famous you are. If you’re not in the priority group, get out of the line and let the people who are in the priority groups get their vaccination,” she said.

I like this partial excuse for the queue-jump:

Most Leaf players continued to say little regarding the H1NI vaccine, but centre John Mitchell said he believes pro athletes are at a higher risk than the rest of the general public for contracting bugs.

“I would say so,” said Mitchell. “We go from city to city and rink to rink. There’s people that might be an avid fan who doesn’t want to miss game even though he’s feeling a little sick. They come to the rink. You never know what will happen from there. We have every bit of a chance of catching it as everybody else, maybe a little bit more.”

Yes, if there’s one thing that defines modern hockey games, it’s how the fans are constantly coughing and sneezing all over the players, who must line up with the fans at the concession stand and use the same urinals and everything.

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the last-place Leafs started clubbing baby seals on the ice before every game.

(Image of diseased leaves showing Phyllosticta minima by Claude Moffet, Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service.)