Black Ice Vancouver

I think it was Scotty Bowman who said good teams don’t lose three games in a row.

There is little point for in-depth analysis at this juncture in the NHL season. The Canucks have stunk it up pretty bad the past two games, but that’s all it is — two measly games. The sum total of 2.4% of the season has now past us and the Canucks dwell where they dwell best. Need I remind everyone (I am not to the exclusion of this reminder) that there are 80 games left to go. 80 plus more hours of shinny to tear at the fabric of our collective civic mental health.

We are about to see what sort of mettle this team is made of. Unless their mettle is already apparent.

This team is almost identical to last year. Apart from new regulars joining at the forward, defense and backup goalie position the team has changed little from four months ago. This begs the questions, is this the same team that lost 11 games-in-a-row last year only to roar back in March to win 9-in-a-row and clinch the division title? Because that team had Vancouver Canucks written all over it, bold, italic and underlined. That team was the embodiment of what this club has stood for for the past 40 years:

Marginal play with flashes of brilliance followed by soul crushing defeat.

If the answer is yes, this is the same team, then there is little adjustment to be made. My suggestion to Vancouver sports fans this winter is to find a new hobby, much like your humble correspondent, in order to deflect the looming evisceration of defeat.

If the answer is no, this is not the same team, then folks, that article has not been written yet. Like trying to predict what my life would be like if my parents hadn’t gotten a divorce and I was born and raised in the sub-Saharan African village of Djenne, Mali. I could describe what that feeling could be like, but the futility of the venture would soon exhaust all repose and we would all be left standing proverbially with our balls hanging out.

I would assume immediately that if this is a different team then the past 38 teams the Canucks have iced, then Tony Gallagher is out of a job. And Willie Mitchell’s parade route is quickly implemented into the City’s engineering plans. And the bridge-and-tunnel carpet(douche)beggary on Granville Street is amplified 100 times.

Apart from that, we sit and wait. Hope that the thin tissues in your mouth are able to twart an attack from your teeth as you chew on your gums in rapt attention. Drink plenty of beer. Possibly abstain from coitus (or preferred form of stimulation) for 24 hour before each game. Carry gauze with you. Bring a friend.

Rhetorical question: how easy is it to lose three games in a row?

Next Up — Columbus

Articles of Intrigue — Hockey really is a rich man’s sport.

Say what you will about hockey, it has never been accused of being the thinking man’s game. Even Fred “the Fog” Shero, while doing his utmost to protect the intellectual veracity of hockey, was simply mulling over when to tap Dave Schultz on the shoulder and send him over the boards to murder another Bruin. Which is why at the end of a hard day’s night, when the buzzer blows and the players leave the ice for the dressing room and the hot spotlight of the media scrum, I hold my cold beer close to my chest and with elation watch as the most predictable paradigms of linguistic stereotypes are spewed forth from the mumbling tongues of our hockey heroes.

I speak not pejoratively, I speak of the beloved hockey cliche. Below are a few I culled from the sports corner.

10. We just got to get pucks in deep and get in on the forecheck and get pucks at the net 9. We just need to get more shots and get traffic in front of the net
8. We need to play a full 60 minutes
7. We just got to take it one shift at a time
6. We just got to give it 110% every shift
5. I got to play my game and do everything within my control
4. I know I’m struggling, but I just got to keep working hard and hopefully things start going my way
3. We have to play our game and play to our strengths and we should be okay
2. Upper/lower body injury
1. We just didn’t get the bounces