Black Ice Vancouver

“For when the One Great Scorer comes, to write against your name, he marks – not that you won or lost – but how you played the Game.” -Grantland Rice

Vancouver won on Thursday night in only the insipid way a professional sporting team from Vancouver knows how to win – they won the loss.

Heading into Los Angeles with over 1/3 of their roster in the infirmary it was up to Coach Vee to pull a rabbit out of this conundrum.

Fortunately he had this proverbial hare – in the form of a game plan – grown and nurtured in the Franco-hockey heartland of Jacques Lemaire’s brain.
I speak of the one and only trap. As in steel.

Mitigated oh so often in the career of Vignault in order to squeeze a win out of a roster barely built for two (wins), it dawned on affable Bam-Bam that the only real reason to play the game, is to win. However the result that may materialize is immaterial.

The truth is, when the Canucks lose, it is way more fodder for the tabloid cannon.
And we lap it up just like the people of Jonestown drank the Kool-Aid. We love our heroes, but we love their miscues even more. We are lured by celebrities and so we punish them for our humiliation at being duped.

It’s human nature, we are drawn to the fuck ups of others. When perfection creeps in, we stand even more guarded, waiting in attack mode for any slip.

Right now the Canucks aren’t fuckin up by losing, their doing it by winning.

Next Up – Anaheim

Vancouver lost Tuesday night at the garage in two ways than one.

First they lost the game (badly), then they lost Ryan Johnson (to a neck injury suffered during the 2nd period) which makes 6 regulars missing from the line-up since the beginning of the season.

So that makes the following on the RIP list this year: Daniel Sedin, Pavol Demitra, Kyle Wellwood, Rick Rypien and Jannik Hansen to injury, as well as defenceman Sami Salo.

And no end insight.

So how did the Canucks fare after after losing Johnson in the 2nd period and opening the 3rd with a 2-1 lead?

Fuck-all, shit-ass to be frank.

And since Vancouver had less the second coming of Ron Francis and more the second coming of Francis Kane in their midst it was certain that the Canucks were doomed to defeat.

Games-within-games they lost. Special-team they lost. They even lost the loss, if that is possible.

The Canucks lost so badly that I seriously considered leaving the Propagandi show I was attending at the time of the loss just to witness, in real-time the loss, while it was happening in real-time.

What can I say? Just as the Canucks are scrapping the bottom of the depth barrel, a struggling Detroit team is finally getting a lock with their own depth issues.

(Physical act of throwing hands in the air)

Next Up – Los Angeles