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Admit it: A lot of us have a lot more spare time than we're due. To argue otherwise is to brazenly dismiss the sole explanation for such things as stuffed crust pizza, various incarnations of Vancouver Canucks uniforms and the continuing phenomenon that is Steven Seagal's acting career.

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But the idle mind's harvests rarely are less attractive than in its sports industry manifestations, most notably, the omnipresent deity also known as the rumor mill. And though teams and players have lived with the consequences of speculation for decades, they still haven't clued in on how best to battle it. Recent actions -- or, as we're about to suggest, "inactions" -- by the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs provide ideal examples.

To wit: When the Canadiens held their annual charity golf tournament Sept. 8, the scene was, to put it mildly, a media rodeo. And the majority of the herd could be found snorting and bucking in front of the slick ride owned by a man named Theodore.

That's "Theodore" as in Jose Theodore, 2001-02 Hart and Vezina Trophy winner. As in Jose Theodore, rewarded for a stunning rise to prominence with a three-year, $16.5-million contract by the Canadiens. As in Jose Theodore, whose life has become exceedingly uncomfortable since reports surfaced that his father and four half-brothers were arrested in June for their alleged participation in a loan-sharking ring and since the publication of photos showing the goalie in the social company of a motorcycle gang. If ever a player has gone from conquering hero to persona non grata in the relative blink of an eye, Theodore is he.

That's the inescapable conclusion arising from the bizarre decision to remove Theodore's name and image from pamphlets recruiting Canadiens season-ticket holders that were distributed at a booth operating in August during the Tennis Masters Canada men's tournament in Montreal. Granted, Theodore's performance following his hardware haul was considerably less impressive, but if you're a once-dominant Original Six franchise reduced to hawking admissions at a tennis game, don't you want all the promotional help you can get? Moreover, Theodore's fellow '01-02 Hart nominee Jarome Iginla also hit a patch of on-ice turbulence last season, and his name can still be mentioned above a whisper at Flames headquarters.

Not so for Theodore, who responded to the damaging accusations against his family with a brief written statement requesting the public "not to pass judgment until all the facts are revealed." And that's perfectly understandable; the natural inclination for any of us not named Angelina Joile or Jon Voight is to close ranks when dealing with personal hardship. But this is the sports industry, and people are bored easily. So the speculating begins, and builds, and festers, and refuels. Before you know it, every artery-clogged columnist, every talk radio personality and every glue-haired TV reporter is waiting and baiting, looking through the crosshairs for the first opportunity to get Theodore out of the shadows.

And so he was overwhelmed by the quote-capturing hordes at the team golf tournament, squeezing by cameramen as they smacked their equipment together in hopes of perfectly framing Theodore's first tersely spoken non-statement. As expected, he met the inquiries with little of substance -- even falling back on the training camp classic cliché about coming to camp "in the best shape of my career," -- and asking again that fans and media allow him to concentrate on playing.

That will happen right after the Mighty Ducks hire Paul Kariya as their director of marketing. And should the Canadiens stumble out of the gate, the controversy will grow and grow and grow some more, until it culminates in a ticket out of town for the 26-year-old. By no fault of Theodore's own, it will be a distraction to the team, something that may serve as a short-term rallying point, but will remain a long-run annoyance.

The shame of the situation is, its bud could have been nipped months ago.

Why didn't the team hold a press conference with Theodore when the story first came out? It's doubtful he said anything yesterday that he wouldn't have said three months ago, so what purpose does the delay serve other than to encourage more speculation?

Beats us. Maybe the idea is that time erodes the heat surrounding the story, which probably makes sense, but only if your team's home games take place in Kuala Lumpur. This is the Montreal Canadiens we're talking about, and by extension, the Montreal media, who won't be in an especially forgiving mood now that GM Bob Gainey has kicked reporters off the team charter. This story isn't going anywhere except the front page, and pretending -- a la "The Naked Gun" -- that "there's nothing to see here" doesn't make it so.

A brief press conference prior to training camp would have, at the very least, prepared Theodore for the heat of the spotlight he is bound to sweat under this season. As it stands now, the wolves are in full bay mode, the broken telephone is ringing off the hook, and Theodore will be forced to cope on the fly while still trying to focus on winning games.

A province away, the Maple Leafs were doing their best sphinx impersonation in the days leading up to the formal announcement of John Ferguson Jr.'s hiring as GM. The news leaked out nearly a full week before the press conference went down, leaving ample opportunity for columnists and drive-time radio hosts to carve him up something awful. The Toronto Sun's Mike Ulmer called Ferguson, who has had no previous GM experience "the right guy -- for a middle market." Local sports radio shows egged on callers who made clear, in no uncertain terms, their preference for a higher-profile candidate such as former Rangers GM Neil Smith.

Combined with the day-and-night, inter-office power grab that's been a staple of Maple Leafs management strategy for decades, it was a notably tense press conference that heralded Ferguson's hiring. Each member of the three-headed hydra that picked Ferguson for the post -- team president Richard Peddie, coach (and former GM) Pat Quinn and former president Ken Dryden -- earned their paycheck by showering Ferguson with compliments.

But when it came time for questions, things got ugly. Most of the questions were based on the assumption that Ferguson wouldn't have the same duties as any other GM, the implication being Quinn would remain the club's ultimate shot-caller, and Ferguson his marionette. You could see the blood rise up in Quinn's face, and you couldn't blame him at all. Here he was, in effect forced to admit his performance as GM wasn't good enough, and he was still on the defensive. It also was a slap in the face for Ferguson, whose glowing appraisals from previous employers weren't enough to convince media members to assume he wouldn't be a patsy.

Just as in Theodore's case, it would be nearly impossible to altogether avoid the questions, but again, it could have been a lot easier. If, as the team said, the delay was because the entire GM search committee couldn't be in one room for the conference, then put together a conference call. Whatever keeps reporters reporting, whatever keeps writers from thinking too much -- a goal that certain Screen Shots readers have "thanked" us for achieving -- is the best route to take.

In one respect, the Timex Social Club was right: Look at all these rumors. They're surrounding us everyday. But the '80s one-hit wonders suggested countering rumors by getting away from them, the identical approach a lot of sports organizations take.

There, they're wrong. Dealing with rumors in pro sports is more duck-and-jab, more twist-and-unravel, than it is about cheeks rotating in the opposite direction. Proactive beats reactive here.

For Jose Theodore and John Ferguson, it's a lesson learned, albeit a shade too late.

E-mail Adam Proteau at aproteau@thehockeynews.com.

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