Sports Fandom is a Breeding Ground for Irrational Thought

I've been meaning to write about hockey in general, and the Canucks specifically for about two months now. Obviously it hasn't happened yet until today.

It has been a crazy few years to be a Canucks fan and its kind of hard at the moment to not think that this past weekend had to be the turning point one way or the other - and its kind of hard to imagine the good version, but I'm going to try.

I'll be the first to admit that my view of my team is perpetually rosy, and that by many measures it is hard to see an argument that justifies that position.  But I also try to be level headed and rational - which is something that if you read much fan commentary is a very spare commodity.

Pulling just a few comments that I've read just this morning:

 - "Luongo is a terrible goalie and has nothing to show for it."
Dubious grammar aside.  This one is just flat out wrong.  Hockey-reference.com as of this writing has Luongo ranked as #25 of all-time. His GAA is in the top third of active goalies. He is #2 of all active goaltenders in shut-outs (of course Brodeur is #1 and has nearly twice the number of SOs.) which isn't so much a measure of current quality, but you don't reach that point without a heap of talent. He is also second in wins (again Brodeur - arguably the greatest goaltender to ever live - is first.) His save percentage - third.
I'm sorry - no, I take that back... "Luongo is a terrible goalie" is such an asinine statement that I have nothing to be sorry for when I say that anyone who says that is egregiously wrong.
As to the second half - "has nothing to show for it."  Again, this is wrong.  If the commenter wants to amend that to "has no Stanley Cup to show for it" - which does seem to be the subtext of most comments along this line - then they are correct.  But that is not what they wrote.  Luongo has a Jennings trophy.  The Canucks won two President's Trophies with him in the pipes as well as winning the Western Conference finals once and topping their division every year since 2009.
And of course at the 2010 Oly...
The commenter continues: "You can't count the gold medal."
Uh.... why not?  Because it is the biggest single piece of evidence disproving your claim that he has nothing to show for it?  I suspect that yes, that is the reason for the commenter's cherry-picking of facts.  But the reasons they present are that 1) "its not the NHL"; and 2) "he let in a clunky goal at the end of the third requiring the Canadian team to win in OT."  My short hand argument to both assertions is "so fucking what?" But in the interest of rational discourse I shall elaborate.  1) The discussion is whether Luongo is a terrible goalie or not. Under which umbrella he is a good (or great) goal-tender has nothing to do with the overall question.  Eliminating the data of the olympics is like ignoring the results of one scientific study over another - simply because you don't agree with the results of the one you are discounting.  2) I don't recall anywhere in any hockey rule-book there being a rule about how almost losing is the same as losing.  I've said it a million times it seems, but the goalie's job is to stop one more puck than his competitor at the opposite end of the rink.  If he does better than that, great.  Other than that it doesn't matter when, where or how.
As to "clunky?" There is a heap of traffic in front of that net, including two US players behind the Canadian defense.

The entire argument also wilfully ignores the game-saving stops Luongo did make in the contest - including a doozy in the extra period.

None of this means that I don't think Luongo has his issues. He has shown a propensity for emotional fragility. He has blown more high-pressure games than he has won (but the reality is that in any given year 29 of the teams in the league do so). He did stink up one too many games in the 2011 Stanley Cup final. But he was also brilliant in that series too.  Only two goaltenders have ever posted two shutouts in a Cup final series.  Luongo and Tim Thomas - both in the same series.  Overall, he did fail the "stop one more goal than your rival" test in the final.  But he got us to that final, and the other side of the coin, in order to "stop one more goal than your rival" your team has to score - and that was something that the skaters largely failed at in the games the Canucks lost in that series (game six is the only game that really could have been saved by better goal-tending if you really want to be honest about it.)  For that matter, if you look at the four games of the 2013 first round sweep of the Canucks by the Sharks, Luongo was the better goalie in the playoffs, and in the games he played was actually the best player on the ice for the Canucks.  Yes, it was a sweep.  But most of those games were a lot closer than the series outcome implies.  I'm not going to break it down, but no less than two of those games were lost to either a bad play by Canucks skaters or unbelievably bad calls by the officials.  No reason to make the goalies the scapegoats - or worse yet, make one goalie a scapegoat for circumstances outside of their control, but not do the same for the other.

 - "The Canucks will never win the Cup because they've never won the Cup."
Where do you start with this one?  There is no causal relationship here.  Yet, this statement and similar sentiments are remarkably common.  "The Canucks suck because they have never won the Cup."  Uh... what?  I would love for the Canucks to win the Stanley Cup - and I have total faith that they will some day - but "they suck because they have never won the Cup" can only be one of two things.  Trolling, or a pretty astounding lack of appreciation for the actual game.  A lot of great teams have failed to win the cup in any given year.  There is ALWAYS more than one worthy team in the playoffs, but only one ever hoists the hardware.  The Canucks have been a pretty great team for most of the last dozen years, and it really sucks that they haven't managed to go all the way in that time (or ever), but that doesn't actually make them a bad team. (Not to beat a dead-horse, but if it DID mean they were a bad team, then conversely there would only ever be one good team int he league in any given season.)  Statistically speaking they are behind the curve.  42 years in a league with 14-30 teams, they ought to have won the Cup by now.  But you can say the same for Buffalo who entered the league the same year and have only made it to the final once. Worse yet, you can say the same of St. Louis who had an extra three years, made it to the Cup finals each of their first three years (due to the NHL equivalent of affirmative action - where the playoffs set the expansion teams against the O6 teams, so one expansion team was destined to play in the final) and have not come closer than the conference finals (twice) in the 42 years since.

- "The Devils become an instant contender with Schneider."
Wow.  This HAS to be a poe.  HAS TO BE.
You almost have to know absolutely nothing about hockey to say something this dumb. In fact, if you've bothered to read this far, I probably don't even have to explain how barking this is.  But in a sentence... Martin Brodeur (arguably the best goalie of all-time - see above) has been between the pipes for NJ forever, winning two Cups and taking the team to the final two other times - INCLUDING LAST YEAR.
Schneider will be good for the Devils' future, 'cause Marty is going to wake up one day in the next 24 months and very suddenly have become a mortal being. Quality tends to turn over fast for goalies.  Schneider will be there to catch the team when Brodeur hangs up his jersey, but he isn't making them a contender.

And so it seems I have inadvertently transitioned into the Schneider trade...

I was as shocked as anyone.

Disappointed even.

But upon sober reflection, I don't think there was another way.
I (obviously) am a Luongo proponent, but when Cory took over in the 2012 LA/Van series I "knew" it was over, and thought that for the good of all, that it should be. Luongo would be better off being moved, the team would have a change that could be mentally circled around for a morale boost, and the PR nightmare would be done once and for all.
Fast forward to the 2013 entry draft.... oh, boy....
After a year of not being able to move Luongo, and all the kudos that went to both net-minders for handling the situation well, who gets moved? Schneider.  And though there are folks like me who still love Luongo for being the best goaltender the Canucks have ever had (go ahead, make an argument against that - the statistics say you are wrong) I knew that if I felt, at best, mixed, that the majority of Canucks fans - who are largely Canucks fans, not hockey fans, if you get the distinction - would be anywhere from alienated to outraged.  I find it agonizing that in this market that public opinion has as much sway on hockey decisions as it does.  It has to.  I understand that.  I'm also relieved that Canucks brass has the cajones to stand against it as much as they do - but it is a balancing act.  And this Jenga tower has tumbled.

But here's the thing... there was no other way.  That sucks.  But that's the way it is.

It comes down to Luongo's contract.  That record-breaking, rule-bending, precedent-setting contract.  There was some genius in it when it was signed. The way it creatively accounted its way around salary-cap issues... fucking brilliant.  And that is why it was the template for a schwack of contracts around the league that followed it.  But it bit back.  It made Luongo un-tradeable.  That is self-evident now.  If Luongo could have been traded, he would have been traded by the deadline last year, and if there was any doubt about that then, it is abundantly clear now.
So what options did we have with goalie-gate?
Not many.
1) Compliance buy-out on Luongo and send him on his way for nothing.  Less than nothing. It would cost them 13.5 million dollars just to say goodbye.
2) Keep both. Ha ha. Right.One short season of that worked better than it should have, but the cap-hit alone simply won't stand.
3) Renegotiate Luongo's contract downwards. Not actually an option. The NHLPA would set fire to Rogers Arena.
4) Trade Schneider.

Realistically there are only two options there. #1 and #4. Both were going to be PR nightmares.
Of course we ALL know better than Mike Gillis - just read the comments online, its apparent that anyone who has been watching 2 games a week plus playoffs for 25 years knows more about hockey than a guy who has spent his life in the business and lives and breathes the behind the scenes details of his team that we will never see. Just ask any of them. They all think Gillis is an idiot.
I do think Gillis is on shaky ground. He has one season, I figure, to do something to change the state of the team - and more power to him, he is giving it all he's got.
I'm not confident that trading the younger, still improving, cheaper goalie was the better choice, but I don't think the other option was clearly a better option.  At least this way the team got something back.  A lot of the grumbling seems to stem from a fiction that there was another option - trading Luongo. And that, as I've already pointed out, was clearly not in the cards.
The next tier of dissent among fans is that assuming Schneider had to go, that we didn't get enough in return.  On the surface it certainly feels that way, doesn't it?  Schneider is exactly what New Jersey needs for their future and they got him for a first round draft-pick who may never wear an NHL jersey.  But the question is not "what is Schneider worth in trade?" The question is "what could we get for him when the moment Gillis mentions him in a trade discussion it confirms what every GM in the league ought to already know - that they have Gillis over a barrel?"  He was doomed to get screwed. It would have been nice to get a roster player in the trade, and I think that in most other circumstances that would have been warranted.
Bo Horvat, the player we got with our pick looks promising. Hes an OHL MVP and as close to a lock for the NHL as the average first rounder gets. The beauty of being 9th is that you aren't first. There is all kinds of room for disappointment in those first picks.  The focus on the top three or so picks is usually unrealistically high, setting up a failure to meet expectations. Drop down a few rungs and there is room to exceed.  The jury is out and will be for at least the season or two it takes for Horvat to get into the league, but he has the all the boxes ticked for a player who could be the future of a team.  With all the talk about how our present is slipping away, this isn't a hollow move for the organization.

Speaking of the future...
What is Luongo's future?
He has few options right now. He can take the path of least resistance (at least professionally, I'm of the understanding that his wife has never supported Vancouver, and for all practical purposes has never lived here... gee thanks, Honey. Perhaps we shouldn't be vilifying Roberto for his emotional fragility and looking at his support network.) and commit to Vancouver with all that he's got. That is what management expects.  Or he could retire. Heh.  Or he could refuse to report to training camp.  Its not out of the realm of possibility.  At this point if he feels fucked over, that is his deserved right.  But at the same time, he did make this bed himself by agreeing to the contract that has caused the issue.  If Luongo doesn't play in Vancouver - either by retiring (simply not going to happen yet) or by refusing to report - then we are hooped.  That is a reality that the fans need to embrace and accept.  And that means getting behind Luongo, making him feel welcome and appreciated.  We need to encourage him to be the goalie of his resume, not the goalie of his reputation.
At 34 he is getting close, if not past, the point where goal-tenders start to decline, but the good news is that it is very common for the tail of an elite goalie's career to be quite long.  Take Brodeur as an example for the umpteenth time in this post.  Luongo could easily have another 5 or 6 years as one of the best goal-tenders in the league, and it is not out of the question that he could still make an argument for being the best active goalie in the next few seasons.  His contract was built with exactly that possibility in mind. He will still be being paid more than his actual cap-hit for another five years - that is a plus of sorts, albeit one that wouldn't be relevant with a different contract.  Luongo could still be the player he is expected to be.  Many a player has been less than their perceived legend until they've won a Cup (Yzerman springs to mind.) and many many great and beloved players have never won cups at all.  We have no choice now but to hope he is the former, not the latter.  Accept it and get with the program, 'cause he will be a better player with our support than without it.

Think of all the money that will be saved now that this doesn't have to be removed from the arena.

I can hardly believe I've made it this far without mentioning the name John Tortorella.
Two days ago it was a subject that would have been the bulk of this post.

My short-form opinion is that I am not pleased with the match.  I just don't think that he's the right guy for this team. I will be very happy to be proven wrong.  I will be curious to see how his feisty presence works here, both with the team and with the media, but the guy was fired from Madison Square Gardens because his team didn't score enough.  Is that really what we need here?  Granted that may be exactly the kind of style that Luongo flourishes under, but I'm not so eager to watch that kind of hockey.
Vigneault had to go.  I liked him, but it was clear that a change had to be made, and I'm sure that if AV hadn't been shown the door that Gillis would have been (and as I indicated earlier I don't think Gillis has much room left to work with without results.)  With that in mind I had hoped that we might bring Patrick Roy back to the NHL behind our bench.  But the Canucks were a day late firing Vigneault for that to even be a possibility.  And as the job was available in Colorado, I don't think it ever really had been an option for us.
So I guess I hope that Tortorella coaches the team he has and makes all the pieces function at their peak and doesn't try to shoe-horn it all into a system that isn't in the DNA of the team.  I hope the players recognize that, whatever the changes are from AV to Fonzie, that the status quo wasn't working and that a reasonable shift in the system could be fruitful if everyone buys in.  (Oh gawd... usually when a team "buys in" to a system, isn't the unspoken part of that; "to an un-entertaining, if effective system"?)
There is a temptation to compare Tortorella to Keenan, but I don't think that can fairly be done beyond the temper.  Tortorella was not brought in as the buddy of a hired-gun superstar, like Kennan was with Messier. (Who I loved, but his Canucks years were the among the worst for him and the team.) The team is not actually skidding the way the Canucks were in 1997 and though the teams' system needs an upgrade, there is no indication that the country-club atmosphere of the late 90s is an issue now.  Lastly, Keenan had trading power. Tortorella doesn't, and I don't think there is any chance that that kind of mistake will ever be made again on Abbott St.

Hopefully the team can pick up an interesting UFA (Lecavalier* has experience in the Tortorella system - doubt that we can fit him into our payroll though.) and give the fans something to think positively about before the first puck drops.  After that, all bets are off.  Things are extremely in question right now - volatile, even - but once the heat of this past weekend (literal and figurative) has passed there is actually plenty of reason to continue to expect the Canucks to be a contender.

A bit of a tangent as I wrap up...

Regarding the notion that there is a conspiracy to keep the Canucks from ever winning a Cup:

First off.... Why?  What purpose does that serve?

I will grant there does seem to be some favouritism in the league.  In the past 20 Cups (21 years, due to the lock-out season) an O6 team has won 9 times. (Montreal - 1993, Rangers - 1994, Detroit - 98, 98, 02 & 08, Chicago 10 & 13, Boston 11). So perhaps - maybe even probably - there is some favouritism that creeps in via the officiating and trickling down through the media. Its hard to come up with an argument other than "an unlikely confluence of events" that explains how those specific teams should have a disproportionate number of wins amongst them.  But there is a LONG way between "subtle refereeing bias" and "conspiracy."  Furthermore it doesn't explain why only five of the O6 teams are represented in that list - in fact the team with the biggest market in the entire league, the Maple Leafs isn't on that list at all (and haven't won since before the Canucks were in the league (against St. Louis in those affirmative action years of early expansion.)
That said, there have been rules, circumstances and traditions in the past that favoured the O6 teams.  Note that for those first three years of expansion mentioned above that the Blues did not win a single game.  Also did you know (obscure fact time) that the Canadiens have the right to veto the pick of any team selecting a French Canadian player in the entry draft in order to select that player as their next pick.  (This rule was only exercised once and has since been changed so that all other GMs in the league must agree to said veto - which isn't going to happen - but the rule technically still stands.)
There is also a similar conspiracy theory - that the league doesn't want Canadian teams to win (and it has been since 1993 when the Habs last won). The basic standard explanation being that they need to keep the interest up in the States by continuing to bring the Cup there.  Really?  If it was a question of keeping interest high in struggling markets Wayne Gretzky would have his name on the Cup as the coach of the Coyotes.
On top of that, all standard arguments about how logistically difficult it is to maintain a conspiracy apply (in a nutshell, the number of people necessarily involved in this case would be too big for there not to be a leak) not to mention the un-equal danger of negative fall-out should such a conspiracy ever come to light.  The NHL would have its own Erik Snowden by now, if there was such a conspiracy.
So, conspiracy - no, bias - possibly.

This has been long.  I've said most of what I can imagine to say.

Go Canucks!


*EDIT: I wrote this several hours ago. About 1 minute ago I got an alert that the Flyers have signed Lecavalier.  So nix that.

AFTERMATH

There is a lot to write about, and I simply don't have time.  So I'm swinging in very close to point form here...

Hockey is over for the season... if you aren't one of those people who like me pretty much feverishly follow the summer-long sequence of NHL Awards, Rookie Draft, Free Agent Signings, Training Camp, Pre-Season...and we are right back to the beginning again without there ever being any real break from hockey.

THE SEASON
Lost game 1 (to LA) on my birthday - familiar territory.  Canucks lost their very first NHL game on my 1st birthday.
And it all got progressively better from there.
President's Trophy, bitches.

PLAYOFFS
Chicago - monkey off our back... and boy was it exciting what a squeaker that was.  I dropped my beer in the Cambie floor when Burrows sunk that puck.  UNFUCKINGBELIEVEABLEGOALIE #1 - Corey Crawford.
Nashville - probably the series that actually did us in.  Too many games.  Too much overtime.  Too much hard work.  But we prevailed and slayed UNFUCKINGBELIEVEABLEGOALIE #2 - Pekka Reinne.
San Jose - How many ways can you say "out-classed"?  They are a good team.  But they play our game, and we simply play it WAY better. UNFUCKINGBELIEVEABLEGOALIE #3 (the remaining piece of the Chicago demon) - Antti Niemi.

FINAL ROUND
A solid start, but in the end it is all about UNFUCKINGBELIEVEABLEGOALIE #4 - A.K.A. Tim Thomas. I hate that, but I respect it. He tallied a very serious contender for the greatest season any goalie has ever had and beating us in seven games raised the performance to even greater heights.  If he were playing any other team I'd have been saying his name in awe instead of as if it were an epithet.
...and the refi-ing seemed a bit lop-sided.
Game 3: 8-1... yeah that sucked.  But there was a lot of fluke in those 8 goals... even if you take those flukes out, we still lost by a good margin.
Game 4: 4-0 (Mark-I) Thomas.  That's all there is to say.  Tim Thomas.
Game 6: My now the ref-ing was feeling lop-sided.  (Though it never reached the absurdity of game 6 v. Chicago.)  And the Canucks kind of beat themselves on this one.  Two goals could have been enough...if Boston scored four less.

FINAL GAME
The fairest game of the whole series and we lost it fair and square.  I am surprizingly comfortable with that.  Disappointed?  Yeah, sure.  But game 7 was a pretty clean loss... which despite the fact that we shouldn't have ever got to game 7 acutally made losing it somehow more palatable. 
I had plans as to how I was personally going to make "THIS IS STANLEY-TOWN!!!" a local meme.  I guess I'll save it for next year.  Speaking of which, one thing that will not happen next year... this morning I shaved off my first and only playoff beard.  Damned thing drove me nuts towards the end.

RIOTS
Much has been said.  They were Canucks fans.  They weren't Canucks fans.  It is a sign of the times not a sign of hockey or our city.  It was the Black Bloc.  It was several dozen guys plus on-lookers.  It was thousands.  They were planning it all along - win or lose.  It was mostly 20 something guys from the 'outlying municipalities... or not.  Well whatever, it happened.  We lost the game, and we lost our dignity.
Quietest night on my street since May.  That was nice.  So was the "kissing couple."

RESPONSE
I sat at home in front of the computer participating as best I could with the on-line Citizen policing efforts which continue today.  Damn some of those guys are dumb.  They are getting what they deserve.
I was ultimately more actual use I think in the morning when Jodie and December and I went out and joined in the clean up.  We were there before most people got to work and already the lion's share had been done.  We still got our part in, and I got lots of pictures.  I hope the world recognizes this part of the story as clearly as the riot.  Most of us here are disgusted and mad, but very happy to be a part of the spirit that responded to last night's stupidity.

THE FUTURE
We are going to bring home a lot of hardware at the NHL awards.
NEVER in Canucks history has "there's always next year" held so much real currency.
Start naming skilled teams who failed to win the cup one year but came back for righteous revenge the next year.  Here's the answers from my lifetime: Edmonton (83-84), Detroit (94-95), Pittsburgh (08-09) I think we have the raw materials to be one of those teams.

EVEN SO
If the only thing that matters is the Stanley Cup, then our season was no better than the worst team in the league (cough - Edmonton - cough). I beg to differ.
Art Ross.
Jennings.
Nominations (and wins TBD) out the ying-yang: Hart, Vezina, Selke, Adams, Lindsay, Foundation & GM.
President's Trophy.
Western Conference Champions.
Highest goals for.
Lowest goals against.
Best power play.
#1 & 5 assist scorers league wide.
#1 & 4 point scorers league wide.
#2 +/- player league wide.
#1 Powerplay scorer.
#1 Shooting percentage (that is a bit of a joke - Mario Bliznak had one shot and he scored on it.)
It has been one awesome season of hockey.

See you on Granville Mall.

One Exhausting Step Away

(Hmmm... for some reason this didn't post four days ago when I thought I had.... probably mental exhaustion.  I could pretend I never wrote it now that the Canucks have failed to win the Stanley Cup... but that would be disingenuous.)

I haven't played 24 high stakes games of one of the most physically punishing games on earth over the past two months, and I am exhausted.
For reasons not entirely divorced from the Stanley Cup playoffs I am approaching the limits of my endurance. This is in turn has burned my emotional state down to the ragged end of the wick. I wouldn't want to exist in this state for much longer, but for the moment it is exhilarating.
We live downtown - close enough to the arena that when we lived on the other side of the building, games on TV were spoiled by the noise from the arena. Stupid TV delay.
Now, every few nights, we host a raucous celebration eight floors below our bedroom. I'm not complaining. I've celebrated too, I am over the moon, so are 100000 other fans downtown creating our own Blue Mile. I would never take this away from them.
On top of that I am working two jobs, producing a DVD, planning a DVD release party, had a piece of titanium inserted in my jaw last week, out of necessity rode my bike up hill for an hour and a half (no exaggeration) yesterday (first ride in months), and on top of it all I still have no idea how to sanely schedule my life around being a parent.  I am wiped out.

Every year as the playoffs begin I allow myself several moments of imagination, thinking about what it would be like to watch the Canucks hoist the Stanley Cup. And every year the dame thing happens. I experience a moment of overwhelming emotion which I quell - disallowing myself the full faux experience - only to later experience the all too familiar hollow feeling of yet another year of disappointment.

But this year we just keep going.  It's fucking glorious. But it is getting a bit embarrassing.  As we step closer and closer to winning - now closer than we have ever been - and as my fatigue makes my emotional state increasingly prone to fragility I find it harder and harder to control those fleeting moments where I seriously consider the possibility of the Canucks as Stanley Cup champions.
I have to concentrate at work today to keep from thinking momentary thoughts that are betrayed in my voice.

I'm not ashamed of feeling this way. Indeed, I am revelling in it. Should tonight we unite Stanley's Cup with his park, or should it be Wednesday, it will never feel like this again. Not in my lifetime. No matter how many times we win. So I may as well be experiencing this from a position of scant emotional control - to go all the way.

As it is said. History will be made.

See you on Granville Mall.

I, For One, Believe We have Done It

I had about half my voice yesterday from screaming so hard the previous night. From where I sat last night under the big screen at the Cambie it appeared that Vancouver was losing its mind.


With good reason.

The Canucks were finally winning a playoff game in the manner we'd been expecting all post season. But I think there was something else in the air. Not the collective hate-on for Ben Eager's appalling sportsmanship, nor reactions to the lass who showed us there is a new bra-size on the market with Stanley Cups.

I think we all suddenly saw our future. The one where the last 40 years are behind us. The one where Vancouver is not only home to Lord Stanley's Park, but his coveted Cup as well.

"Whoa whoa whoa! Those chickens ain't hatched. We still need six wins. It's the playoffs, anything can happen."

Yes. You are absolutely right. But go with me a moment. Look ahead 6-12 games to the night that I imagine I'll be crying tears of joy and Granville & Robson looks a lot like it did on February 28 2010. We will look back at Tuesday's game as the point where it all fell into place.

The only people who think the remaining Eastern Conference teams stand a chance against either of the top two Western teams, wear Tampa and Boston jersey either professionally or recreationally. (Though Chara and Thomas will put up a better fight.) And a 2-0 lead in the Conference final is nearly insurmountable. The Sharks are showing no sign of having a miracle comeback in them, and the San Jose news outlets are singing a defeatist tune that would have sounded all too familiar to Canucks fans not long ago. In other words, the real battle for the Stanley Cup moves to the HP Pavilion tonight, and we seriously have the upper hand. Indeed a 4 or 5 game series while the East hammer each other for 6 or 7 will all but seal the deal.

What I am saying is that if the team sticks to the game plan, and doesn't act with laissez-faire entitlement, we have turned the corner. Tuesday night, in the back of every Canucks fan's heart was the knowledge that with that game we had most likely won the Stanley Cup.

Whew!

So for context, the Canucks just...

Beat their arch nemesis of three years.  Beat the Stanley Cup Champions.  Beat the Money on their Backs.  Beat the Monkey on Luongo's back.  Beat This Series.  And learned a hard lesson.

I just wrote this in an email to a friend:

I want Vancouver v. Buffalo.


1970s expansion Cup.

Ya know... we in Vancouver feel hard done by by the hockey gods.

Buffalo won the draft coin flip (not lettery) that year and got Gilbert Perrault.

Since then we've been to the Cup final twice - once to game seven and a cross bar. Buffalo has been there once and lost it on a bullshit refereeing call in game six. (And in a fair fight they would have lost anyhow.) So really, we are a head of the curve for the class of 1970.

An Open Letter to the NHL

A few things to get out of the way before I really start ranting...


I'm not the conspiracy sort. I don't think Gary Bettman has it out for the Canucks or Canadian teams in general.

Also, I'll be happy to be the first to point out that teams can't afford to squander a game (or TWO) just in case the referees determine the results of a game (or two).

I'm not typically one to point at imbalanced refereeing and call foul.  Usually I accept that these things tend to equal out in the long run and that we as observers tend to cherry pick the officiating that supports the view from our side of hockey fandom.

All that in mind, regarding tonight's game between the Canucks and Blackhawks... WHAT THE FUCK!?!

Seriously.  What the fuck was that?

In any game I cry out "What? That should have been a penalty!" a dozen or so times.  I am not even going to bother with any of the stuff that I know was me simply picking my team's side of an 'iffy' 50/50 call.  There's no point - that is the stuff that I figure equals out in the end. 

There were seven separate instances in tonight's game - mostly in the 3rd and OT periods - that were all well beyond my level of tolerance, and two of them each on their own unequivocally make the difference in the game.... but I'll save those for last.

1) I was always of the belief that taking a stick to the face was just about automatically a high-sticking penalty.

...oh right... historically that doesn't count when it's against a Sedin twin.

2) When someone swings their stick downwards at another player's stick and breaks it in two... isn't that slashing?  Or does the Sedin exemption count for that too?

3) I'm guessing that somewhere between when Hodgson put the puck over the glass and when the Blackhawks did the same thing that the rules changed... or perhaps a Sedin was on the ice?

4) If you took tonight's hit on Bieksa and overlaid it with the hit on Seabrook from game three - they are the exact same hit.  I don't think that Torres should have been penalized, but give me a fucking break.  Of these four points this one is by far the most egrigious.  Be consistent at least!

All of the above seem pretty fucking obvious to me.  Each of those should have been a penalty in the Canucks' favour.  Would those power plays have resulted in game-changing goals?  Maybe.  Heck, the Canucks DID score on just shy of one quarter of their power plays in the regular season, so it's an even bet that there's another goal hiding in those bullshit calls.

What about the other three...

5) So, the 'Hawks ice the puck and have exhausted players on the ice and no time-out left.  Looks like a break for the Canucks!  Until some ass-hat decides that it's a perfectly good time for the snow-crew to hit the ice.  I don't know who makes the decisions about these things, but I'm guessing it has more to do with arena operations than NHL officiating.  I'm kinda figuring that the folks who run the United Centre are 'Hawks faithful.  You know, I always thought that when a fan causes a critical delay of game that it was a penalty for the benefiting team.  I admit I don't know quite how this is supposed to work, but the timing of the ice maintenance stinks.  Even the commentators on CBC were caught off-guard by it.  This just doesn't pass the sniff test.

And now the real juice.

6) The Frolik penalty shot.  Bieska didn't even touch him until he had already lost his footing, and even then he hardly touched him.  Penalty shot?  Really?  Let's look at how this one plays out... Frolik punches over his weight-class and scores the tying goal.  Without that goal, the game and series is over at the end of regulation.

7) The early whistle.  You know the one I mean.  The puck slips under Crawford's pads for a fraction of a second - a stick (a Sedin stick I believe) slips in and pokes it out as the whistle blows, the puck is slapped into the net reflexively before the whistle quits reverbing.  The whistle was absurdly fast and the rest of that play would have happened with or without the ref stopping play.  Without the whistle: goal - Canucks.  The 'Hawks don't score a fourth goal until the 16th minute of overtime... long after the game would have been over had it been 4-3 canucks after 60 minutes of play.

The Canucks were the better team through most of this game - and all but about one critical second of overtime.  I accept that there is some randomness, but that is a big part of why we play best of seven, to help filter it out.  But if the referees have to filter out their own biases - or whatever the fuck happened out there tonight - it makes a mockery of the sport.  The Canucks had better win game seven so I can just forget about this.

You Can't Take That Away From Me

The Canucks played thier first game on my first birthday.  They lost.

Canucks fans - the long term, well studied ones - can lay out a long history of might have beens that begin with not quite making the cut for the orginal expansion, and then losing first draft pick two years later (Gilbert Perrault) on a coin flip to the Buffalo Sabres.  The list goes on and on - Cam Neely, Nathan Lafayette and the cross-bar, that whiny punk Pavel Bure (which started well if you recall - and if you look at the eventual trade, did work out in Canuck's favour), the Messier years (also a lot of up-side which we are witnessing now.)  The Steve Moore hit... oh that fucking Steve Moore hit - arguably cost us a cup... see, I'm not immune! In our best years the Canucks have been a team that has been over achieveing.

But damn we are a good team this year.  Tonight we clinched the President's Cup.  Not barely.  Decisively.

Sure we did it at the expense of the rest of our division.  Calgary hasn't mathematically been eliminated from the playoffs yet, but it isn't looking good, even if they are the only real remaining candidate.  We have decimated our four most immediate rivals.  Soundly.  Two of them sit at the bottom of the entire league.  (No hard feelings Edmonton, but this is what the mid-eighties felt like.)

The 2011 Vancouver Canucks are a really good team.  And it's not just the Sedins (who are collectively going to win two Art Rosses in two years (Squee!)) and Luongo (probable Vezina candidate.)  The rest of the team is as solid a supporting cast as any team realistically needs these days.  It is a beautiful thing.  And it has been creeping up on us for a few years - even most of a decade if you look closely.

I'm not pretending that the President's Trophy is as important as winning the Stanley Cup - no way.  But hey - we just won the President's Trophy tonight with five games to go.  Five games wherein most of the team can relax a bit.  Daniel still needs to keep scoring a point a game for a three or so tilts to be secure with the scoring title, but if anyone is disappointed with this season they haven't been paying attention, or they are nothing more than fair weather playoff-fans.

Forty years coming.  And yeah, so many times in the past this would have felt like an April Fools' joke, but...

You can not take this away from me.

MVP

This one makes me howl.  It was probably funnier ten years ago when the references were that much fresher.  I didn't write this for any reason but to amuse myself... that happens a lot.

EXT. OUTSIDE MADISON SQUARE GARDENS, NEW YORK - TWILIGHT

Broadway is barren of people.  The sky is a dark, dirty red.  There are huge potholes in the pavement.  Abandoned cars litter the street.  Windows in the surrounding street are long since broken.  Vines and creepers cover many things.  It has been a long time since this place was disturbed by sentient life.

Madison Square Gardens itself is in terrible repair.  The roof appears to be caved in and the doors are broken off, hanging on their hinges.

A lonely wind blows dust down the street.

The sound of horse hooves echoes between buildings.

A pair of horses appear at a trot.  They slow down to a walk outside of MSG.  Atop one horse is an earthy, busty, beautiful woman in a short buck-shin dress.  On the other - Brendan Shannahan.  Shannahan is dirty and unkempt.  He is wearing a loin cloth.

He dismounts and helps the woman down.  He looks at MSG in awe.  The couple enter the colesieum.

INT. MADISON SQUARE GARDENS, RINK LEVEL VOMITORIUM - MINUTES LATER

Dim light fingers through the huge hole in the ceiling.  Rubble is strewn across the rink and the seats are all in dis-repair.

A lonely zamboni, broken, sits mid-rink.

Through the passageway enters Shannahan and his female side-kick.  He enters the rink area and looks around, gaping in disbelieving horror.

He casts his gaze upwards where his eye falls upon a banner in the Rangers' colours.  Boldly printed on the banner - which hangs askew from a broken girder - is the number "99."

Shannahan falls to his knees and pounds the floor.

                SHANNAHAN
     You did it.  you finally did it you bastards!  Damnit all to hell.  You blew it up, you bastards.  God damn it, you blew it up!

                VOICE OVER
     Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

                                                             SMASH CUT TO:

INT. HOCKEY RINK - MODERN DAY

A chimpanzee stick-handles down the ice....   Skates in on goal.

He shoots!  He.....

How's that "How's that 'own the podium' initiative working out, Canada?" snarkiness working out for you Brian?

The cherry on the cake.

And really, even without the cherry, it was pretty great cake.

When coming in third is better than second

It would hardly be the first time I thought about this, but watching the medals get awarded for Women's Hockey, it struck me again.

Watching the American team last night, they were (with one notable exception) subdued to glum about winning a silver medal.

It's a SILVER medal in the Olympics.  I'd give my left kidney to have a reasonable shot at winning one for myself.  But, no... a few of those ladies were downright despondent.  Watching the medals be put around their necks and seeing their lips say "thank-you" while their eyes said "whatever" had me thinking that it's really unfortunate that the sheer numbers of olympians on the ice make putting off the medal ceremony to the official vicotry ceremony prohibitive.  Just a few hours of separation from the game would allow the silver winning team a bit of perspective.

Consistently at these ceremonies you have two teams who have won in order to get their medal, and one that has lost and lost only minutes earlier.  As a result, Silver is a losers medal.

The Finnish team were downright giddy getting their bronze.  The Canadians were also delighted - though considering some of them were getting their third gold medal in a row you can hardly blame the veterans a certain level of complacency.  The juxtaposition undermines the triumph of the moment.

It seems to me that if there were a day or even just a few hours between the game and the medal ceremony that the silver medalists would have time to re-frame their immediate loss as the overall win that it is.

For now I'm crossing my fingers that each of the Canadian Curling teams & the Men's Hockey team don't have to deal with the disappointment of winning the loser medal, and if they do that they see it as a victory.

"How's that 'own the podium' initiative working out, Canada?"

The answer is "Go fuck yourself America"! (And Brian - though I have yet to get to that.)

Perhaps you haven't noticed that your population is 309 million, while ours is 34?  Do the fucking math.

And... the Own the Podium initiative was intended to focus on getting a higher medal count than ever before.  We aren't there yet, but the games aren't over yet either.  And even if we don't... the majority of the ire against the initiative comes from the country that brought us "Mission Accomplished" - to say nothing of the manufactured fracas that built up to that piece of bullshit propaganda.

We may not get a record high medal count - it may even be the writing on the wall already - but the issue for me is that some ass-wipes from the USA think that that failure is really relevant and more importantly; significant.

Canada is taking shit right now for - god forbid - trying to be competitive. 

It's the fucking Olympics!

We've already done better than we ever have on home soil.  So guess what?  We fucking win!  "Mission Accomplished."  Game over asshole!  Oh, the asshole in question is a minor-league-famous podcaster named Brian who posted the title of this post as his Facebook profile tonight.

BBC has also vilified Canada for (oh shame!) the Own the Podium initiative.  Gee, we must really be dickheads for trying to out do... who?... OURSELVES!  How un-Canadian!  This IS a competition.  Why should we sit back and simply let other people win?  The entire premise is ridiculous.  Yes, you are right, we are such jerks, trying to set our sights higher and putting more effort into advancing our position - no real country would ever try and do that.

Seriously you guys (And Brian), go fuck yourselves.  Yeah, I'm saying 'fuck' a lot.  But that simply a reflection of how childish your dispertions are.

I had a totally civil and awesome dinner with an American couple (total strangers) two nights ago who felt no need to dispense contempt.  We were watching curling and we could have cast our lack of respect for how poorly the US team is doing in curling... (the worst.... period) but that was totally un-necessary.  We had an awesome night with them.

So...

I really hope that Canada still manages to have our highest medal count ever - we only fell off the pace yesterday and a turn around is TOTALLY within sight.  But even if it doesn't, we had already - by day three - out performed our previous medal aspirations by getting a gold... FOUR by now.  That would be the equivalent of 40 for the US population.  We are doing fine, thank you, how are you faring against the count of 40?  (Answer = 7 = gofuckyourselfbrian.)

...or is this a US v. Canada hockey thing?

Yeah, you beat us today.  Whatever.  When did you last win the olympics?  Oh... that was when I was ten.  If you do better than us on the podium for hockey then 'fucking-yay for you.'  But until then the answer is still: gofuckyourselfbrian.  This IS still the preliminary round... and that means SFA.  It is by name and definition, preliminary.

Damn that Puck Luck!

Whatever you do, don't make the mistake of accusing the Canucks of rolling over and dying.

And while I'm at it, let me compile a shot list of reasons the call-in radio-show crowd will be perpetuating – none of which are the reason they lost:

Bad officiating.

A no-show from Mats Sundin.

Poor coaching.

Playing defensively.

I'm not even going to get down on Luongo for looking human in the conference semi-finals.

So what did it then? I propose it was a confluence of things – let's face it, it almost always is – some of which have seeds of truth in the points listed above, but as much as anything, that elusive x-factor "puck-luck" worked against us more than in favour of us, largely by when it reared its head. The Canucks got favourable bounces and unforeseeable circumstances, but never when it counted.

Few people mention or even noticed when in game two a Canucks player lost his stick; if flew up in the air, half of the distance into the defensive end, landing... right back in its owners hands. It didn't amount to anything. I don't even recall who it was and can't find it on-line... because it never made a bit of difference.

But when it mattered most, time after time, the 'Hawks got the breaks.

Game one was a squeaker. The Canucks came out strong with three goals, and then gave up three before taking advantage of the 'Hawks aggression and getting behind their defence for a three on one game winner.

Game two the Canucks came out blazing again, and again it bit back. This time it was a disaster. Chicago's facility with the stretch-pass owned the Canucks, and even though Luongo was still making some spectacular saves he wasn't a sheet of plywood across the goal-mouth and pucks were making it in. To his credit, most of the shots that made it in were good plays on Chicago's part. If anyone was to blame, it was the skaters in front of him – but in their defence, a locked-down game was clearly not the plan. To make matters worse, two back to back bad bits of luck burned the Canucks hard. First, on the penalty-kill – which up to that point had been the Canucks stock-in-trade for months – the puck went off Willie Mitchell's stick over the glass in the defensive end. There wasn't the least bit of intention to do so on his part, it just happened that way. On the ensuing three on five Kelser broke his stick and could not get to the bench to get another, effectively giving the Hawks a five on two and a half. It's no wonder they scored, and that is where things really turned in that game. The flood gates opened and Luongo let more pucks past him than he had in the entire St. Louis series. Psychologically I propose that was a HUGE blow.

For game three coach Alain Vigneault recognized that Chicago's style of offence – specifically that stretch pass – HAD to be shut down. And for the most part, in game three it worked. It would be the last game the Canucks would win.

Game four the Canucks employed the same strategy that won them game three. And why not? Letting the Chicago offence have its' way had led to near disaster in game one, and DID lead to disaster in game two. The plan worked. For most of the game. With less than three minutes left Willie Mitchell had to make a split-second decision about where to clear the puck. He made the high-percentage choice – the one he should make on instinct when there is no time to consider. In other words, in MOST cases clearing the puck along the boards instead of up the middle is the right play for a defenseman to make. This time however there happened to be a flotilla of Blackhawks where he was clearing to... and they scored. Overtime went the Hawks' way too. And THAT was the real turning point of the series. I don't think there is any hockey literate fan who would really bother arguing otherwise.

Game five Vigneault stuck to the plan. It had worked in game three and had for all practical purposes worked in game four – except for those last few crucial minutes. He felt he had more to be scared of the 'Hawks shooting game, and that seems like a reasonable assumption. Once again it nearly works. But twice more puck-luck fucks us late in the game. Arguably Kelser's botched clearing attempt was bad luck giving Bfuglien a momentum changing goal. If someone wants to declare that Kelser failed on that play, I won't stop them. He was mid-check and clearing one-handed. Even if he failed, he was making the play under duress. But then... on the penalty-kill again, Mitchell (Notice how often he is associated with the bad puck luck? Hmmm... perhaps we should be looking harder at Mitchell, but I don't hear him being offered the horns much.) breaks his stick... and Chicago gets the go-ahead. And then to add insult to injury... that is very nearly a pun – with Luongo out of net for the extra attacker in the final two minutes and the assault on Khabibulin mounted, Kelser and Salo trip over each other allowing Havlat an empty net goal. He was probably half-embarrassed to put it in the net, but how could he not?

With the series on the line, Vigneault was put in a bad position. He had to change the game plan again. He had to abandon the strategy that had worked in game three and had worked in games four and five – except for crucial moments where fate had different plans – BECAUSE despite being effective for 90% of the game, that 10% where it didn't cost us the game... twice. He was forced to go back to the strategy that had nearly lost us one game and lost us a second BADLY.

Game six... was insane. A five – seven outcome for the Hawks doesn't tell the tale. The whole game was back and forth and even in the dying minutes two goals behind it still felt like the Canucks might come back. Not much puck luck giving the Canucks the gears in this game. The team just isn't the right team to beat Chicago at their own game. Vigneault accurately said this himself a week ago in mid-series. We made a good show of it, but in the wash the Canucks played better defensive games against Chicago than the run and gun games.

Before game six started, Ami, one of the friends I watched with asked me to predict what was going to be the game story. I said "Knowing that if we don't win that it's the last game of his career, Sundin will play like we've never seen him play." I'd argue that he did. He scored what in almost any other game would have been the game winner but it was soon answered, and he was regularly in the play. For the playoffs, Mats Sundin was third to the Sedins in both scoring and goals. Mats Sundin was NOT the problem on this team.

Bad officiating? Alain Vigneault has the class to not bitch about iffy-calls. He knows they all equal out over time. Canucks fans can suck it up and do the same. I doubt that there was a single call in this series that the refs heard back from Toronto about after the fact.

Bad coaching – Vigneault did what he had to do and made the right choices. They just don't always work out. If anything, he should have stuck to his guns and kept with the defensive game for game six. The previous two losses under that system were mostly due to unfortunate circumstances. But I can't say I blame him for changing. If he stuck to the plan and lost he'd put his job in jeopardy. Making the change, win or lose, he'd made a proactive choice. Alain will still be our coach next year.

Defensive play? – The Canucks won one and lost two for each style of play; offensive and defensive. I don't like to count empty-net goals – they skew the stats away from the real game story. In any case, take the games the Canucks played defensively and the games they played offensively and compare them. All goals counted, the Hawks out-scored the Canucks 7-6 in defensive games; and 16-13 in offensive games. Take away empty net goals and its 6-6 in defensive games and 16-12 in offensive games. Though I don't have the figure in front of me, I am confident that if the amount of time the Canucks held the lead in those games were compared, the difference would be even more apparent. Now... which way came closer to winning?

Anyhow... there's always next year!

Keep Vigneault. Re-sign the Sedins. Give Mitchell a good shake. Hope Kelser plays more like his best than his mediocre self. Give Sundin a heart-felt handshake, thank him for the effort, and buy him a watch. Think hard about the futures of Salo and Demitra... they too may be put out to stud, but not with a hint of shame. Then acquire a few really promising free agents and show Luongo that this is a team he's going to want to keep fighting alongside of after next season... you know, the season where we win the Cup.

A 'Meh' Moment in NHL History

The Wings won the Cup last night. It makes me happy. Pittsburgh is a really promising team with a heap of young talent that whether together or in other cities WILL win their share of Stanley Cups, but Detroit is just too damned good.
The current team has plenty of experience, yet isn't terribly old - Chelios and Hasek excepted.

In the final round, as good a fight as Pittsburgh put up - it often looked really evenly matched (the first seven periods of the series excepted) - there was barely a single stat that Pittsburgh led in for any relevant length of time. Sure, there were two games where the Penguins led on the scoreboard at the end of a game. In game three that was mostly because Detroit looked a little old for the second period and then couldn't catch up. They turned around and never looked weary again - even late in overtime in game five. In game five it was Fleury, whose outstanding goaltending outdueled Osgood for a game - most importantly in the last three periods of the game. Osgood looked like the goat in that game, but he was in fact solid straight through the series from start to finish. But when you shut-out the competition for nearly seven straight periods at the start of a series there is only one direction to go... I predict that that single direction was the reason he didn't win the Conn Smythe.

Zetterberg won the Conn Smythe. I've got no argument with that. If you saw game four you know that Detroit weathered nearly a full two minutes of 5 on three. If it had been 5 on Zetterberg it would have made no difference. He seemed to single-handedly killed that pair of penalties and nearly got a short-hander out of it to boot. It was totally fucking amazing. He also tied that Pittsburgh kid for points in the playoffs at 27.

Last time the Wings won the Cup - six years ago - the Conn Smythe was won, for the first time by a European. Niklas Lidstrom. Last night he did something else no European has ever done before - he was the first to hoist the Cup. The honour of recieveing the Cup goes to the team Captain. No European has ever Captained a Stanley Cup winner until now.

Historically I don't really see it as that momentous. But it is worth considering why it hasn't happened until now. Europeans have been playing the the NHL for longer than I've been alive. Granted, there wasn't a particularly big influx of them until the Russians started playing in the NHL - significantly Fetisov and Larionov, in 1989. Which wasn't so long ago really. Larionov played for Detroit for all three of it's previous Stanley Cups in the past 12 years - most recently 2002. Fetisov for the first two. It was a decade ago that the league made the two year All-Star game experiment of dividing the league between North American players and European Players, rather than East and West conferences. They couldn`t have done that if there wasn`t significant balance in the league. So, if in theory there were as many marquee players of European decent as North American a decade ago and more, then why did it take this long for one to Captain a team to victoryÉ Certainly, there was some reticence to making them Captains. But TEN YEARSÉ I haven`t looked at the stats. I`m sure some mining there would be illuminating.

What seemed far more interesting to me was who he handed it to. I always thought that there was something special being said in who the Cup was handed to first after the Captain. Some kind of acknowledgement, that `hey you are special to this team - this victory.` The two most significant being Steve Yzerman handing the cup to a wheelchair bound Vladimir Konstantinov in 1998 - which caused me to burst into tears ina bout a quarter of a second; and Joe Sakic wasting an entire two seconds between recieving the Cup from Gary Bettman and handing it over to Ray Bourque in 2001. Failing such obvious emotional choices there are other options, including any single one of; a stand-out player who DIDN`T win the Conn Smythe (which Borque was), a veteran workhorse who has likely played his last game (which Bourque was), a veteran who had finally won the Cup (Bourque for the trifecta), a goaltender who worked his ass off - which strikes me as the default choice. Last night Lidstrom passed the Cup to Dallas Drake. Drake is my age - which is to say that failing a Chelios-like stamina (which it`s safe to say he doesn`t have) he is going to retire any moment now. This was his first Cup.

Hockey Nirvana

Two posts in one day. I've been slack lately, so this is a change of pace - literally.

With two hours and counting 'til game one of the Stanley Cup Final I just couldn't let the moment go un-commented upon.

I am SO excited. I think most hockey fans are. When was the last time there was a match-up so promising in the final? The closest we've come most recently is Colorado v/ New Jersey in 2001. The drama of Mission 16W. That was a pretty great series. Seven games. The last one, if I recall was pretty one sided - more so than the 3-1 decision implies. But this series is still all promise. It could still be the greatest hockey series ever played. It really could. It is absolutley in the realm of possibility.

I've been looking forward to today since about half way through the second round, when it started looking realistic that the Wings and the Penguins could be facing off against each other for the cup.

I think they genuinely are the two best teams in the league - sorry Montreal fans. Wait a second, why am I sorry? I hate the Canadiens.

Detroit has been my second favourite team for about as long as I've been a hockey fan. It's been a good decade and a half to be Detroit fan. I expect them to win, but I don't expect it to be easy. I also expect that this will be the end of the glory years in Detroit - times are too hard there in the auto industry and that can only hurt the club. They may go back to being the Dead Wings of 25 years ago and further - the pre-Yzerman era. But for now... four cups in 12 years, they've made it to the conference finals or further as many additional times since '95, they've been 1st in thier division every season but three since '94 (and they won the Cup in two of those three years.), Since it's inception in 1986 only one team has won the President's Trophy more than twice - Detriot - SIX times. They are the closest thing to a dynasty left in hockey in the new millenium.

But the boys in Pittsburgh aren't going to be a pushover. Crosby and Malkin are undisputed superstars in waiting. I think we can expect that this Cup will be to Pittsburgh what the 82-83 thumping the Islanders gave the Oilers. They handed them their ass, but showed them what it took to be a great team, passing the torch in the process. I don't expect the Pens to get swept, but I doubt they can out perform the combination of winning experience and skill that has been steeping in Hockeytown for over a decade.

Okay... now there are only 90 minutes left.

A LONG long weekend.

I'm still recovering from the past five days.

On Sunday night I drove up to Penticton with David, the producer of Beast of Bottomless Lake. We arrived at the Ranch after 11pm, and pretty much went to sleep.

The morning provided the sole lie-in of the weekend.
When we got up I got to have a bit of a boo around the ranch. It is our location production office in the Okanagan. Nice place. Though once we cram a dozen people in dorm-style, it's going to be a good thing that we have plenty of exterior room to escape each other in. Not that we'll be doing much more than sleep there, but still.

Over the day David and I prepped for the arrival of the others. I also got to watch the world men's curling final - Canada kicked ass.

We bought food (which I prepped for minimum maintenance over the next four days) and did a bit of organizing of space - both for accomodation and shooting.

Shari arrived around 4:30ish with her Grip, Thomas.

Last time Shari and I were up in the Okanagan we were doing some pretty unabashed flirting. We are now each variously attached. Or rather, she is. I am merely feeling overwhelmed by the time pressure of the project to the point of not being able to find the time for romance... though I feel good about a prospect who knows full well I'm heading her way as soon as the film is in the can.
We lightly addressed that and all was well. Though our friendly adversarial relationship continued through this week, just without the innuendo.

Craig arrived abound six-ish with Rob our camera op and Patrick (Location sound).

Between the early work David and I did, and Shari and Thomas did after they arrived, the set (the garage) was practically ready.

We sat down for dinner (I made pasta) and the Craig and Shari started planning the evening shoot. Gabe - an old friend of mine from university who lives in the Okanagan - was our actor for the evening. When he arrived we got him in costume and got to work. It took about three hours to shoot his scene.
It was fun and silly. It's one of two bits that are supposed to be poorly done re-creations. Such an odd thing deliberately making something badly. The trick is to not do anything to consciously make it bad. The trick is to stop yourself from doing the things that would make it good.

After a late night de-brief/production-meeting we went to bed.

Craig and I were sharing a room. We were both too excited to sleep. Add in a few well timed farts (oh the puerile humour) and we were up until dawn. Craig figured he got about 2 hours sleep. I figure I got less than one.

Easter Monday morning we were off to CATO to meet with students and to do some final auditions for the 'Young Paul'.

The turn out of student volunteers was disappointing. (Though we got a number of emails over the next few days.) The auditions were pretty clear cut. Twenty young men, only two really worked for us and even then, one of the two was clearly better suited than the other.

We then went and did a tech-scout of the boat we will be using for the shoot - it went really well. The skipper seems a great guy and seemed to like us. The boat itself is just the right level of functionality, space and just enough things that look like they need repair to give it real character.

We followed up with our biggest location - the Summerland Yacht Club. I was very impressed. It is totally as much as we could expect from a gratis locale.

Back home to the ranch for Barbecue. Mmmmm. Barbecue.

After another evening meeting it was time for an earlier bed.

An even earlier morning followed. We rushed to Kelowna to shoot a few scenes at Shelter Bay marina. It was great. Our 'Buck Rogers' arrived and we shot his main interview scene. Next we moved down to the docks to shoot some play-back footage of a reporter. Our actor, Dorothy Dalba was a bit nervous. Craig and I did what we could to loosen her up. Gradually we made our way towards what we needed. Before take 5 I told her that she was charming and delightful and that the news-item she was presenting was totally silly, and that when she was laughing at it it was sexy.
I got a lot of razzing for flirting with her, but she nailed the next take with a big smile on her face. In the last bit we had her do (which integrated 'Buck') I joked around about the flirting before take three - again she nailed it. I'm thinking it's a tactic that's going to be valuable, even if I do take some flak for it.

Clare & Lainie came down and watched some of the shooting. A few of us stopped at their place on the way back to the ranch and visited for a bit and collected the map that Clare painted for us and their investment in the film.

After a quick lunch we shot Chief Bigsky. Perry Williams nailed it in two takes. Craig was moved to tears. The shots look great.

That night we went out to a Mexican dinner and had another pow-wow including a longer meeting between Craig, David and I. We ran numbers about and looked at everything and despite being cranky as all hell, came out the other end with the promising outlook that we are within spitting distance of being able to pull this sucker off.

Wednesday morning Shari and Thomas (who I might add was awesome - too bad he's not going to be around for principal) headed out really early. Craig and Patrick and I headed back to Kelowna for a number of meetings and David and Rob hung back at the Ranch to clean up before heading back to Vancouver.

Craig and Patrick and I met with a caterer - a very nice lady named Lynn. We hope she comes through for us. We stopped by CATO again to say thanks. We nixed a connection with Rodney... who has been a bit hard to nail down anyhow.
We ran out to Bertram Park for a tech-scout. That was excellent. We met with the guy who will be custodian to us there and got really specific about where we're shooting each of our scenes there.

A few minor stops including lunch and we hit the road home.

I was really wiped out. My plan was to get home, relax and watch Game one of the Canucks playoffs and get to be early. I got in just after the game had started - only missed a little bit of the first period. Well, so much for my relax and go to bed early plan - the game became the sixth longest in NHL history. The Canucks won in the end, thank God. And Roberto Luongo not only won his first playoff game ever, but simultaneously got the record for the most shots a goalie has ever faced in a game ever - at 75.

About Pucking Time...

Hockey starts today! Hockey starts today! Hockey starts today!

I've kind of let myself ignore it, but this mornign when I woke up there was just one thought on my mind - the NHL is back!

Game One tonight has every team in the league playing on one night. Here in Vancouver, Gretzky will coach his first game in what could be the hockey hat-trick of all time - the greatest player of all time; the administrator who brought the olympic gold back to Canada; and if things go well, an All-Star coach. Could be - pretty exciting if it does work that way.

As for the Canucks... well they are very nearly the same team that was iced two years ago - not many teams can claim that. Anson Carter is buoying up the Sedins and seem to be giving us a really strong second line - at least in the pre-season that is what appeared. Recall that in Spring 2004 the Canucks when to game seven O.T. with the team that came within a goal of winning the Stanely Cup in Game seven - and the Canucks didn't have Bertuzzi, Naslund had no wrist-shot thanks to a bone-spur, and we were dressing our third-string goal-tender. So many 'what-ifs.' But as any die-hard Canuck will point out, it's finally YEAR 12. I can't believe it's here already. If 'Year 12' means nothing to you, you aren't a Canucks fan. If you want to know, I'm not telling, but I will give you a hint to do some detective work: 70, 82, 94. It really seems like it COULD happen this time.

Bertuzzi - oh how we missed him. I'm curious how life in Colorado is for Brad May. But here in Vancouver, Bertuzzi did little wrong - or at least the wrongs he did were seen as somewhat justified & the lead up to it was hypocritical when compared to the outcome. He did the wrong thing for the right reason and it got blown out of proportion - or at the very least any previous similar incidents were not blown INTO proportion simply because they didn't lead to an injury of equivalent gravity. But he's back and has something to prove. If he proves it, we could be a totally fearsome team. Naslund, Bertuzzi, plus a second line that will do the scoring when the oposing defense is expending itself trying to shut down the deadliest line in the NHL... ahhhh 'tis good.

Goaltending. Apart from Bertuzzi, the other big Q is in goal. We've got three goaltenders who could step it up. If one of them does - and I DO hope it's cloutier, but I'm not fussy - the Canucks are nearly unstoppable, if not they'll have to fight for superiority.

But...

No one really knows. This year was the big reset button. The Canucks got lucky and kept their core - unlike, say Anaheim. This season will be a career maker for someone(s) - a coach (maybe Gretzky - I'd prefer Crawford) who has the vision to capitalize on the new rules; a General manager who most quickly sees how to exploit the new business rules; a player who breaks out with the new restrictions on obstruction, or one who conversely re-invents himself as he is otherwise obsolete.
Previously it was relatively easy to expect things to be similar from season to season, with team quality shifting, but not significantly shaking up (in any given year a team or two might climb or drop a long ways up the league ladder, but generally a good team this year will be a decent team or better, next year and a bad team can only build so much in the off-season.) But with a big shake up of personel, new rules for business and play and a year off for many players (or a reduced season for the others) there are simply too many x-factors to truly say "Team-X is a real contender." Best guesses are the most we can hope for.

I'm crossing my fingers for a Vancouver/Ottawa Cup final. That's a no-lose situation, especially if Ottawa crushes Philadelphia in round one and the Canucks face Detroit in the Conference final. If the Canucks hoisted the hardware when all was said and done, THAT would be hockey nirvana.

An End to this Mess

Mark Messier has retired.

He is my favourite player of all time. There are others who are close - ones who could surpass him even given more time. There was no way, so long as he kept playing that anyone would surpass him in my mind.

It was time. But it still saddens me. An era is over. I think that in the same way that the music of your college years tends to define your musical taste for life, the sports team of your adolescence (in this case the 80s Oilers) tends to define your concept of the best that ever played the game. That team is pretty much gone now. Sure, rookies are now the grizzled veterans, but the core of that team has hung up it's skates forever.

That makes me feel old.

I'll feel older when Trevor Linden retires. He's only a month older than me, and he's one of the few players that have any chance of passing Messier in my mind as my favourite. I suppose he's my favourite player now playing... although Stevie Y is way up there, I just haven't got a lot of faith in Yzerman's knees which makes it really hard to cannonize him.

Speaking of bad-knees... I once had a discussion with Mark Messier. It was when he was playing in Vancouver (Don't get me started. Those were bad times, but it wasn't Messier's fault.)

Mess was injured - his knee. He'd been our for a few weeks.

I was walking to work and I passed a restaurant downtown with a big window. Who was sitting having lunch, but Mark Messier. I stopped and looked. I mean, he is my favourite player right. I had to. But my look turned into a stare before I realized it. After a moment Mess turned and looked back. I realised that I was being rude and shook myself and went on, but then thought "Damn! This is Mark Messier!"

So I turned back and waved. He waved back. I pointed to my knee and made motions that I can only describe as 'questioning.' He made a 'so-so' gesture with his hand. I smiled and nodded and gave a quick salute 'bye.' He reciperocated and on I went with my day.

My other Messier story is from a game. A friend had tickets that he couldn't use. 3rd row, corner. The first and second rows were being used by the Pee-Wee teams that would eventually play during the second intermission, so they disappeared at the first break. The friend I brought and I moved up to the glass.
Early in the second period the game took a bad turn. It was a game against Phoenix, and it was back in the day when Vancouver still thought of Phoenix as their old Winnipeg Jets rival. Long story short, it was the roughest game I've ever seen, and it turned out to be the most penalized game of the season, the Canucks second most penalized ever.
In the 3rd, things were getting really brutal and both teams were absolutely furious. The puck got iced into the corner in front of us. Bob Corkum had the jump on Messier for the puck and beat him to it, keeping play alive, but Messier was right on top of him and nailed him. Hard. HARD. We practically jumped back to our original seats. We thought for sure Corkum was about to land in our laps. But at much as anything, what I recall is the infamous 'look.' It's not just a legend folks. It's real. Messier's eyes, when he is 'on' are terrifying. The intensity is... well there aren't words.

Thanks Mark.

I just pray that in the new NHL there will be some heroes who at least come close.

Should we just start blaming Steve Moore now?

Well, Canada lost at the IIHF Worlds of Hockey.

A Silver will have to do. And the Czechs need to be given acknowledgement as a damned good team. (Actually all four of the last teams were the four teams that should have gone into the final four. Sweden, Russia, Czech and Canada. The US was merely a close 'also ran' to those four.

But what would have happened if Canada had had Todd Bertuzzi? Would Bertie have been good for that extra punch in the final game? My money is on 'yes' - partly as a Bertuzzi true-believer, and partly out of a need to blame someone.

So who exactly do we blame for the loss then? Well, Canada really seemed to lose the game in the third - both the first two periods were solid (despite the first goal fairly early on), but the third was full of mistakes and a lack of discipline. The team is culpable there, for certain.

But if Steve Moore wasn't such a knob from the start - read: his hit on Naslund and it's fall-out that I've already weighed in on at length - then Bertuzzi could have been playing today. Canada could have won.

Really.

Moore & Bertuzzi

The NHL has finally had a hearing over the Moore-hit.

I suppose there was no real hurry thanks to the lock-out, but I do find it a shame that the lack of completion means that Bertuzzi cannot compete in the Worlds. Moore is a Canadian and he is technically responsible for keeping one of our best players from competing. I suppose there are numerous avenues by which one can argue that Moore is not responsible - and I wouldn't bother arguing against their creedence, there is a lot of validity in many of them. But Steve Moore is going to look like the bad-guy here. He's going to look like the guy who kept Bertuzzi off the team. If we do any less than Gold, he's going to take flak.

But again note... someone else - Canuck's lawyer, Michael O'Donnell - thinks that the civil suit is being conducted in the wrong forum. Colorado... it just doesn't make sense. Bertuzzi - Canadian. Moore - Canadian. The incident - Vancouver. The only connection to Colorado is that Moore was an Avalanche player at the time.

Adrian Clarkson and the Stanley Cup

This news is so new I can't even find a hit on it yet.

Adrian Clarkson, Canada's Governor General has suggested that the Stanley Cup be awarded this year... to the best Women's Hockey Team.

Who gets to play for it? The NWHL? Anyone who can put together a credible team?

I don't know. I kind of like the idea of the latter. Exactly what constitutes a 'credible team' would need to be defined. But it would harken back to the original days of the Cup - awarded to the best team in hockey, and virtually anyone could challenge for it. Eventually they had to become more structured., not be a 'challenge cup.'

What the heck, take all the major women's teams and round out the field with a few wild-card teams... imagine being the best team in your rec-league and suddenly find yourself playing for the Stanley Cup. Why not 32 teams in a standard 5 round elimination playoff. Say 3 games in the first round. 5 games in the second. 7 in each of the quarter; semi; and final rounds.

The Cup SHOULD NOT GO unawarded. It would just be wrong. And awarding it to a junior team seems not right. While many juniors will never have the opportunity, being men, they do in theory have the opportunity. The best of them will go on to the NHL and some of them will eventually raise the chalice. Not so for the women.

The most storied women yet to play hockey are playing the game today - let them play for the Stanley Cup, just once.


Addendum: A Link!