The Maple Leafs fired GM Brian Burke on Thursday, and today he had a press conference at the Air Canada Center.

Some quotes from the presser:

“We didn’t win,” said Burke, who was fired by the club on Wednesday after four years in Toronto. “Obviously, your job as the GM is to bring in players that win. We didn’t win.

“I can stand here and say ‘oh, they didn’t like my personality,’ but those all become pretexts and excuses later. If you win enough games you can be as obnoxious as you want to be.”

“There’s sometimes when you get fired and you see the vultures circling and you understand it’s coming,” said Burke. “You’re not sure when you’re going to drop dead in the desert, but it’s coming and you can see the vultures.

“This one here was like a two-by-four upside the head to me.”

Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun asked Burke about managing Team USA for 2014 Winter Olympics and Burke fired back …

“The best part of today is that I don’t have to talk to you again Steve.”

Shortly after Simmons took to twitter.

If you do your job the way I try to do it, telling the truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable, you’re going to upset people.

— steve simmons (@simmonssteve) January 12, 2013

For the record, I don’t think that was a cheap shot from Brian Burke. We used to get alone. We don’t anymore.

— steve simmons (@simmonssteve) January 12, 2013

Here is the press conference broken down into 10 parts.

Opening Statement:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

Part 8:

Part 9: