Burke, Kessel, Matthews and now Wayne Simmonds; Some clips of all of the players with whom Steve Simmons crossed a line

In case you have not yet heard, Toronto Sun reporter Steve Simmons has come under fire from an NHLer once again, but this time, he may have driven the final nail into his own career coffin. On Sunday, Simmons released an article where he diminished the plight that Akim Aliu had faced, comparing him to Wayne Simmonds in terms of how their careers had panned out.

Naturally, both Aliu and Simmonds issued response statements to Simmons' inappropriate and irresponsible comparison, with Aliu even going so far as calling for Simmons' job.

Who can blame Aliu and Simmonds? After all, this isn't the first time Simmons has rubbed a player the wrong way and crossed an ethical boundary. It's certainly the worst of any preceding incident, but it's not the first. Perhaps you'll remember when, a couple of seasons back, Auston Matthews publicly put Simmons on blast during a post-game press conference for sharing private medical information that was never supposed to be released to the public.




And then, of course, there was this exchange between Simmons and former GM Brian Burke, during the first media scrum following Burke's dismissal in Toronto back in January of 2013.


Simmons was also the reporter who started the rumour that Phil Kessel had an obsession with hot dogs, when in fact, Kessel's own sister, Team USA's Amanda Kessel, confirmed that her brother didn't care much for hot dogs at all.


Perhaps Simmons felt the need to slander Phil following this heated exchange in January of 2015, during which Kessel called Simmons an idiot after the Toronto Sun writer made a presumptuous comment about Kessel's "coachability".


After Kessel won his second Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2017, he took a photo eating hot dogs out of the Cup on a golf course - something that Simmons felt was a petty shot at him after their spat a couple of seasons earlier.

Typically, when one person repeatedly gets into it with others, you have to take a look at the common denominator. In this case, Simmons appears to have worn out his welcome in the Leafs' locker room and at Leafs media sessions a long time ago. His latest commentary on Aliu and Simmonds is proof that it's time to revoke his press pass.