Black Ice Vancouver

After Vancouver’s decisive 4-2 win over Atlanta last night I was checking the leader boards after the game and was shocked to see Hank placed third overall in points.

Earlier in the season I predicted that if Vancouver is going to do anything in the playoffs this year they will need–at least–a 90 point contributor on the team. I also argued that Vancouver needs an elite forward if they are to be taken seriously in the post-season.

Things are looking good.

With Daniel out with foot injury it is assumed that Hank will falter, but just the opposite happened–he exploded–taking 25 points in the 20 games Daniel was out. Times Henrik’s increase in totals, with his eerie consistency and you have a very good formula for elite scoring. A fool proof formula.

The game the Sedins play is like no other.

When the twins, combined with Alex Burrows, are firing on all cylinders, they play one of the most beautiful (and one of the most complex) games in the NHL right now. All Daniel’s injury proved is that they are just as good playing together as they are apart–the only thing is, when they play together the game is prettier. Maybe they don’t have the panache of Crosby and Malkin do, or the stamina that Thornton/Marleau/Heatley have, but they do posses, with Burrows, one of the most dangerously sublte scoring games in the NHL.

It is our game, invented in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden, and transplanted 3000 km to GM Place where it has quietly become the most consistent point producer in the NHL since the lockout.

There is no question that Henrik is slightly better then Daniel, slightly. Come playoff time, however, that won’t really matter.

Next up – Minnesota

The Vancouver Canucks played their best and worst hockey of the season on this past road swing through the Eastern Conference. With there best hockey they seemed to lose the game and with their bad hockey they seemed to win.

New Jersey

The much ballyhooed rivalry between Brodeur and Luongo never really paid off in this game.  The two prides of St. Leonard, Montreal seemed to be playing opposite games. Luongo was sharp but still seemed to let in a softie. Brodeur was limp, never really recuperating from and embarrassing goal off Daniel Sedin.

Brodeur has excelled in a backwater NHL market with little fanfare, but his numbers and hardware are impressive. Luongo on the other hand honed his craft in the swamps of Florida but has put is money where his mouth is by committing to win a championship in Vancouver.

Luongo has taken more of a risk if you ask me. The goalie with biggest balls ought to be Steve Yzerman’s only criteria for choosing goalies for 2010.

Philadelphia Flyers

Vancouver has not has much success with the Flyers the past few years, but they came to play against a team that did not. Mike Richards and Jeff Carter were not the threat they were suppose to be. Phillies best player, Arron Asham, was stoned by our best player, Roberto Luono.

Vancouver is lucky, they caught a good team on the decline. The Flyers will clean up their act. After the Vancouver game they fired coach John Stevens and replaced him with the proven Peter Laviolette–known to squeeze a little blood from stone in the past.

At the beginning I had chosen a Canucks/Flyers final. Will Phillie pull a Pittsburgh this year?

Carolina Hurricanes

It makes sense in retrospect that Vancouver lost this game, but you never want to see them lose in Vagina-jersey town. Not now not ever. They still need to pick up the pace on their road-game that is why I will say that a 2-2 road-trip at this point is actually an improvement.

Nashville Predators

Vancouver could not get anything going from the opening faceoff. They always seemed a step behind the play and every tiny mistake they made turned into a goal for Nashville. Like with Carolina, it’s hard to see a good team beat a bad team, but in both of these cases you can’t fault a bad team from playing well. And in both cases that is exactly what happened.

It was a weird trip, one I’m sure the Canucks are happy is over. Now back to business at home.

Next Up – Atlanta

“I have a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary domestic life, unfortunately, the disease is also ones material.” -Graham Greene

Sometimes when I sit and watch hockey I become aware of a strange sensation. I’m sitting there, the score is tied 0-0, an ambivalence to the match ever growing. I begin to daydream–thinking about urinating at the next intermission, or folding my laundry, or jerking off to pregnant porn–anything besides what is at stake in the standings, anything besides seeing my heroes scrapping it out before my eyes in beautiful high-definition. I realize I’m not really present. I’m only there because at some predetermined time I decided to do this thing and now I’m doing it. I’m here. I’m here but i’m not here, my passion eroding. I’m alone. I don’t care.

Suddenly Vancouver scores, then they score again. I’m lifted out of my complacency and I enter the game. I’m here, present and engaged. Suddenly the flow of the game begins to materialize. Kesler is skating. Raymond is shooting the puck. Luongo is making key saves at key times. We score again. The game advances, elevates then dissipates, end to end.

Then it is over. A victory. Refreshed and satisfied. I walk out the door, attempt to cross the street to buy a pack of cigarettes and I’m hit and killed instantly by a gravel truck speeding down Main St.

Sport is the great arbiter of emotions for the modern, democratically elected man. When I was a child, sport existed to pass the grueling hours of boredom that seemed to accompany my humble, semi-suburban roots. Later in life, I discovered that artistic and intellectual pursuits could similarly pass the time and also add a little meaning to my existence. When the meanings I discovered in art and letters began to erode, replaced by glimpses of crushing mediocrity, I resorted once again to sport: and hockey: and the Canucks.

Some days I come across in these agnostic entries as a bitter fan. Slumping toward an ending that seems as elusive as death, my journey becomes parallel to that of the Vancouver Canucks simply because they have become seared into my brain from the minute Pavel Bure took off on his first breakaway at Pacific Coliseum.

Their existence has become a parallel to my own pursuits just like a soccer fan in England or a football fan in the US. Man-versus-man; tete et tete; momo e mono. It is a sense of accomplishment and superiority, yes, which forces us to cheer, but there is a deeper relevance then just superiority: solidarity. In a world where everybody is their own sovereign pleasure craft, cruising around at sub-sonic speeds, crashing and avoiding each other and micro-blogging about the miscreant that lives in the apartment next door. In this urban decay we crave solidarity with our neighbor, as much as we loath them.

Why do you think that whenever a natural disaster happens the first emphasis in the news is always on all the courageous and selfless acts that have occurred amongst the calamitous nature of the event?

In a world where everybody hates each other it has always struck me as amusing that we insist on living in such close proximity. In this proximity, we need a martyr: the hockey team will do.

The City of Vancouver has two great arbiters: the weather and the hockey team. They are both controlled–at least on game day–by a supernatural force hell bent on playing Zeus-like with the emotions of the citizens. In the summer, generally it is gorgeous, we don’t need distractions, but come fall, the tides turn, the sky darkens, we are left with litres of rain to decide the outcome of our existence.

Millions of gallons of ink and pixels has been spilled regarding the meaning of the game of hockey to Canadians. More is sure to come. And for the complacent Vancouverite laying on the couch looking for meaning in that first crisp pass out of the defensive zone, win or lose, it’s an experience best shared with ones neighbor.

Because fuck it, we’re all gonna die.

Next Up – New Jersey

“I know my players don’t like my practices, but that’s okay because I don’t like their games.” -Harry Neale

Vancouver is a good team, they are not an elite team. Could this change by the end of the 2009-10 season? Possibly. Will it change? Probably not.

The reason, something I’ve been illustrating for the past few years to any poor sap with a sympathetic ear, is simple–they lack a superstar.

Now detractors might respond with a litany of “what about Luongos?” and “how about the Sedins?” but a close look at the aforementioned players history suggests: inconsistent to brilliant play on one hand (Luongo) and consistent yet uninspired play on the other (the Sedins).

These players are good, maybe one day great, but they are not enough (along with resident character assasins Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler) to put this team over the bulwark.

It’s difficult as a Canucks lifer–a state more and more resembling that of a prison sentence–to watch teams out east such as Washington (with their Ovechkin) and Pittsburgh (with their Crosby) without turning slightly green with envy. Close behind Washington and Pittsburgh in skill and firepower are the Chicago Blackhawks and the San Jose Sharks. Two teams that, quite frankly, Vancouver doesn’t stand a chance of beating some playoff time.

They have more skill, chutzpah and raw strength then Vancouver, or any team in Canada come to think of it, has to offer.

Last month the Canucks managed a route on the Hawks in Chicago, but that win only speaks to a young, tired team that is inexperienced–they will soon learn and adapt–and they will adapt by the end of this season.

San Jose is a team that has been outplaying Vancouver for the better part of the decade since the lockout. They are mightily and consistently beating the shit out of us and barely breaking a sweat. Even adding Sharks castoffs such as Christian Erhoff and Steve Bernier to the mix has proven futile.

They are simply too good for a mediocre hockey squad (or a soft power as Jean Chretien might say) like the Vancouver Canucks to beat.

While it’s inevitable that the Sharks will choke in the playoffs (maybe this year to the Blackhawks) it is also inevitable that the Sharks will steal at leat six points from Vancouver in the standings come season end (based on the entirely unscientific prediction system I’ve concocted for myself).

This could be the difference between a division win and a playoff berth come April: history is not on our side.

Now anecdotally speaking I would like to share with my few readership the story of the first time I drank Listerine:

On a dare to myself–I enjoy silly little psychological games played with myself for companionship from time-to-time–I, while shit-faced, thought it might be nifty to take the good swig of listerine I had drained into my mouth, after puking up the contents of the evenings festivities, and swallow it down my throat in solidarity of our homeless Vancouver brethren to the north.

I promptly regurgitated the rest my belly’s contents into the toilet again.

What came next was an alarming revelation. After puking the second time, from the listerine no doubt, I no longer had a desire to rinse my mouth of the sick that accompanies a regurgitaion of that magnitude. I’m proud to discover that after puking I was now the proud owner of a breath, quite possibly, the mintiest, freshest breath that exists this side of the soul sucking Fraser River.

Why am I reminded of this tale?

Just thinking that whether or not the Canucks make the playoff or exit in the first, second or third round, I know one thing: they are sure to dissapoint. I’m just saying–and I’d like to maybe suggest this to other people out there that share this mythical martyrdom of Canucks fanhood–I’m keeping a bottle of listerine close, close by my side.

Because there is going to be a whole lot of drinking and puking going on.

Next Up – New Jersey