Bullfrog said:
Keon is an individual who excelled in a team sport that has a long history or other individuals who've excelled. You can't bend to the wishes of each of these individuals; it has to apply equally to all. In that case, they have to stick to their current policy for now.
Why? As mentioned before you can have separate honours for separate players. You could ask each player if they'd prefer if their number was retired or if they'd like to see it passed on(as, again, Bailey did with Ron Ellis). Even if it was a good policy there's no reason to blindly devote the team to it.
Bullfrog said:
While I understand the history with Keon, and I understand the argument of whether the Leafs should change the policy (and I wouldn't really care if they did), the fact is he's been offered their highest honour. To me, that's why it feels as though he's being ungrateful.
I'm sorry, but that's just not true. It's not a fact. It's, at best, your opinion that "honouring" a number is the equal of retiring one and it's an opinion that stands in contradiction to the industry standard. In addition despite your particular arguments that the Maple Leafs only reserve what actually is their highest honour for players in the particularly unique situations of Bailey and Barilko, even that isn't true because they agreed to retire 99 as well. So this policy, that you think they need to slavishly hold fast to in the case of Dave Keon, they didn't for someone who never even played for the team.
And, let's get something straight here, Dave Keon hasn't "complained" about anything. He's got a fractured relationship with the team. He's been asked what could repair it. The Leafs have refused. That's it. He doesn't lobby for what he thinks they should do or campaign for it. He's perfectly content to not have anything to do with the Maple Leafs.
Do other players share his opinion? They might. Most are probably happy for any honour bestowed on them. But let's be real, saying as you do to understand Keon's history with the team, most of these other greats don't have Keon's relationship with the team. They don't have the history of bitterness and bad feelings. Keon's situation, heck, you could even call it unique.