Brian Burke will be in the headlines for the foreseeable future, so get used to it.
Hello, my name is Mark, and I'll be your root canal surgeon today.
Put your feet up, and don't worry. This should only take a couple of weeks. Maybe a month.
Anaesthesia? You wish.
Okay, it's not a root canal that Canadian hockey fans will be subjected to over the next two weeks or so. But the grafting of former Anaheim general manager Brian Burke on to the Toronto Maple Leafs franchise is going to feel like one by the time the hockey media gets done with you.
TV talking heads like you've never seen. Forests will fall in the name of the newsprint to chronicle the marriage. And talk radio?
We might need a new channel here, because it'll be all Burkie, all the time.
These despite the fact the two are a perfect match. The Leafs shouldn't even have to post the job and Burke shouldn't be asked to send in a resume.
Experienced, bombastic GM meets a team in need of rebuilding. Spotlight seeker meets Centre of Universe club that affords its GM the brightest spotlight in the game. We can only hope it happens quickly, before the first cases of Death by TV Panel start to roll in from around the country.
Burke tells us he'll be a member of the Ducks in an advisory role for at least a week. That ought to leave enough time for Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment to put a formal offer together that should make Burke the highest paid general manager in the league.
And why wouldn't he be?
For one, the Maple Leafs are far and away the wealthiest team in the National Hockey League, with both the highest franchise value and the highest revenues. And second, it is clearly the most difficult job in the NHL.
All you have to do is look at what happened when the Leafs hired John Ferguson Jr. An inexperienced GM who did not know how to handle the media was eaten alive in that post, a mistake even MLSE has admitted it won't make again.
Burke wouldn't even talk about the Leafs job Wednesday after he announced he was stepping down. But he did say he is coming east, where four of his kids live in Boston.
"First chance I get to get back into the same time zone, I'm going to take it," he said.
"We've got a good team [in Anaheim], I've been treated marvellously. But I've got children … and I don't see any of them enough," he said.
He played coy on Wednesday: "I'm not sure what the job market is in November, for a GM."
But everyone knows where this dance is heading. So let's hope they crank up the ol' two-step, and spare us the extra episodes of Dancing with the Stars here.
The man fits the job. The job fits the man.
Somehow though, I sense we'll have to chew on this hire for a couple of weeks before the two sides finally shake hands.