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

“A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.” –Socrates

How shall we then fare from here, dear Vancouver, how shall we then fare?

From the minute the puck dropped tonight, every indication pointed toward another classic rout by a Colorado Avalanche squad steeped in surpassed expectation.

For Vancouver, stringing together a winning streak these days is a little like trying to have sex on ecstasy, however easy it is to derobe a woman is equally countered by a bereaved inability to keep the cock up (or in for that matter).

So two bad penalties in the first 10 minutes and once again the Canucks are climbing the Mt. Everest of emasculation (see: Iain MacIntyre).

Keep the sex on ecstasy metaphor in your head for a moment. Last Saturday we beat the Aves 8-2 = derobing, down two goals tonight = impotence.

Still with me?

Now, whether it is a shared emotional value or just an illusion (since I’m the writer and that makes me god I’m not telling) out of the thin gray dome entombing the Fraser Valley arrives a savior in the form of a Viagra shaped 25 year-old German offensive defenseman.

His name folks, Christian Ehrhoff.

Never one, as a staunch Protestant, to defend an Aristotelian reading of the Holy Scriptures it behooves me to believe that the heavens — much like writers themselves — can’t still survive on subtle use of the mixed metaphor.

Jesus saves, Christian scores.

Socrates shoots, Christian scores on the rebound.

Bernier scores, Christian tallies the indelible rebound.

I’m not sure who it was on Team 1040 during the post-game that christened him Bobby Orrhoff (I hope it was Tom Larschaid) but it’s classic Vancouver. “I’m high bitch, let’s fuck!” In the end we got the prize (perhaps at the risk of losing our soul [should one indeed exist]), a 5-2 vindication of whatever the hell needs to be vindicated while high on drugs.

One question remains. Now that the Canucks can get it in, will they be able to, um, finish? If the weather tonight is any indication, then I would say they are in good form.

But this city still might need protection.

Next Up – Chicago

“A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.” -Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past)

Vancouver is a city whose serotonin transporter is directly affected by two things: the weather and hockey. Coincidentally (or not) two things that the average citizen is unable to control.

In search of lost time:

Back in 1915, with the help of a sniper by the name of Cyclone Taylor, the Vancouver Millionaires became the last professional hockey team in the city to win the Stanley Cup. A Vancouver club has since challenged for the Cup on five other separate occasions, losing each time (three more as the Millionaires and twice as the Canucks). That means no generation in Vancouver, since the end of the Great War, has tasted the champagne of victory out of Canada’s holy grail.

Sadly, the bitterness of defeat is all this town truly expects these days.

The Vancouver fan can be compared to the jilted love from time-to-time, swooned by an appetite for victory and all her splendor, yet unprepared for the gamble that is at the root of any infatuation. Like we’re some sort of Jane Austin meta-fantasy whereby Darcy perpetually asks Elizabeth to marry her and then perpetually skips town before the wedding.

The art of being a Canucks fan is based around how one braces for crushing blows.

Once bitten, twice shy they say — but in the land of Canuck it often feels as though the fanbase is feeding off her own body, tearing herself apart limb-by-limb like an autocannibal, thirsting on the taste of her own blood.

Oh negative:

Whatever the reason, the culture of losing is so rampant here that it seems as though defeat, while still disappointing, is almost a point of collective pride for the city. Yeah we lose, fuck you, we got mountains and tonnes of green shit, and no snow an shit…fuuuuuuuckkk (said in a drunken bridge-and-tunnel slur). It’s almost like we have twisted our inability to win into a deftly accrued ability to lose.

And the rest of the country scoffs, rolling their eyes at our self-inflicted-delusion.

A few questions for you Vancouver: Are you even interested in winning? What would you do should the occasion actually arise? Could you handle that much joy Vancouver? Have you possibly dug yourself an existential hole of self-loathing so deep (hypothetically anyways) that you are now too petrified (or disinterested or too comfortable) to dig yourself out?

The one thing important to keep in mind during this week of remembrance is that this team might be ready to win: maybe. Although I highly doubt it. Coach Vee could manage to staunch the flow of blood oozing out of this bitch and slap her with identity harder then a trick walking away from a free blowjob — but that is a gargantuan if. (We’re talking Cinderella-bringing-her-pumpkins-home-to-roost type shit.)

Mike Gillis with his methodical approach to steering the ship; Vigneault with his steady precision keeping the boat on course; Forsberg with his annual will-he-or-won’t-he-sign Canuck cocktease — all of them leaving anything possible behind in their wake.

Might:

This team might win a championship one day but not before they find a city worth winning one for. That, however, is something the average citizen does have control over.

Next Up – Colorado

(Note: I’m becoming formally aware of my growing endearment to fellatio themed images. I imagine it will continue. If you don’t like it you can suck my cock.)

Try to name the three NHL teams that don’t end in S*.

In the time it took me to answer that question last night the Vancouver Canucks (yeah that’s right, we’re not one of them) gave up four goals on 13 shots on the way to a 6-1 roast by the home team — the St. Louis Blues.

Vengeance is mine saith Murray:

The loss was inevitable — Vancouver a tired road-team — St. Louis a team tired of losing.

Lest we forget last spring, where broom jokes were flogged like dead horses.

Alexandre Burrows must have been celebrating his O/T winner from Game Four still because he was on the ice for three of the Blues first four goals. Along with Henrik and still obviously flu-swined Steve Bernier.

All scored within seven minutes of the opening faceoff.

And Andrew Raycroft, clearly pissed that Luongo is back from injury, did his best to insure a Vancouver (hel)l by stepping aside from an Andy McDonald knuckle-puck .18 seconds into the first period.

Fuck the horse, let’s blame it on the pigs.

And make no mistake, we’ll flog this swine flu until the next intifada wrestles back control of the newspaper headlines.

Or balloon boy gets molested by Michael Jackson on the steps of Congress.

Or the economy jerks off into the mouth of the New York Yankees.

Or to heaven we fly on the wings of a pig (thanks Steinbeck!)

And the game last night. Or the team these past couple of road-games. You inquire dear reader?

Not their greatest work. Not their greatest work by far. But rest assured, like every other conflict or controversy we hear about in this 24 hour news cycle, it it will soon be eclipsed by something else, something far more urgent, something far more  breaking, something far more new[s].

Next Up – Detroit

*Wild, Avalanche and Lightning

“The team was good offensively, they could score goals, but they played by the seat of their pants. And the goaltending was never up to snuff. I called Steve [Yzerman] in and I said, ‘you have a lot of good individual stats, but if you don’t play a lot more defense, then the rest of the guys are going to keep playing the way that they are.’” – Legendary Scotty Bowman on the pre-dynasty Detroit Red Wings of the 90’s

Ryan Kesler, in his six year tenure with Vancouver (four with the Canucks, two with the Moose) has been more of a well guarded treasure than a well kept secret.

Never was this more clear than three years ago when Philadelphia Flyers’ feisty GM Bobby Clark offered Kesler 1.9 million to defect east and play a year on Broad Street.

It would have been a match made in hockey heaven, but the nuptuils never materialized.

Thanks-be-to-god that Dave Nonis had the wherewithal (despite this being the dawn of the penny-pinching Salary Cap era) to counter the offer sheet. A tense standoff between front offices was soon resolved but not without a very important footnote to NHL history being added to the annals of its business dealings (later to be dug up and slugged out by Brian Burke and Kevin Lowe during their now famous feud).

To the Vancouver Canucks, however, Ryan Kesler has risen from fledgling rookie with speed and potential, to defensive specialist extraordinaire (capped with a Selke nomination this spring), to offensive dynamo, carrying the load of a team seriously handicapped by injuries to the top-six corps and impotence from the bottom-six.

Roberto Luongo may be the face of the franchise, but Ryan Kesler has slowly but surely become the heart-and-soul.

And now to that period last night. It is almost like Coach Vee did a Bowman-about-face this summer, took Kesler aside and said, “look Ryan, your defense is spectacular, but your offense is suspect, the team is going to follow your lead, so if you score more goals, so will the team.”

Sunday night, Tanner Glass scored his first of the season.

Tuesday night, Rick Rypien had his first of the season and Mikhail Samuelsson potted two to lead the Canucks past the New York Rangers in a re-match of the ‘94 Cup final. All three of those goals were assisted by Kesler who hit, blocked shots, created space for his team and finished with practically every box on the score-sheet filled out in his name.

That is the type of player that wins championships, the one that captures the heart and minds of both the fans and the players.

Now it just remains to be seen: will the other Canucks keep up.

Next Up – Minnesota

“Just another day in medical hell for the Vancouver Canucks.” Elliot Pap on Vancouver’s mounting injury woes.

After suffering not one but two cataclysmic Halloween hangovers over the weekend at the hands of my amoral troupe of friends, it was only possible to witness the Canucks play the Aves the old-fashioned way — laying on my bed with a naked girl, eating Chinese food and listening to the game on the radio.

Fuck pay-per-view for this many reasons:

1) The god-awful Canucks TV segments featuring Dan “Smurf” Murphy. The one reason the Canucks continue to employ this faux-hawked midget must be due to some inside-joke nepotism that clearly assumes the team brass.

Sort of hockey’s equivalent of the village idiot, every town has one, or some other Goldberg variation therein.

I would be compelled to feel sorry for Smurf, however, my aforementioned hangover dictates the most lethal of attitude toward everything small and wimp-like.

Besides, throwing shit at the radio is way cheaper in the long-haul then if I ever get off my ass and buy a digital cable box.

2) God-awful digital cable boxes. If you don’t have one of these little faggots then you have to sit in a Vancouver sports bar (or your equivalent substitute for hell) and watch Smurf and Co. along with the hoi polloi from hell (i.e. Vancouver hockey fans).

Avoiding the pay-per-view Ponzi scheme is something I consider to be a civic duty. While Shorthouse and Garret do the call (and Shorty is the best behind Jim Hughson), it’s all  that surrounding clap-trap the broadcast provides which sends me into hallucinations of competing irritations.

Apart from listening by the fire in the comfort of your own living room, the next best thing I suggest is watching the game at the peeler bar.

3) Paying to watch a god-awful team (purported to be a contending team) playing a contending team (purported to be god-awful).

Now to the Canucks faithful, annual crushing disappointment is paramount. The season of 2009-10 is no different, pegged by pundits to finish top five in the league, the Canucks are off to an acceptable 8-7-0 start. The injury problems facing the team have been no secret and the high expectations for Vancouver (and Calgary) seem to have allowed Colorado to slip under the radar and start the year with an eye-jerking 10-2-2 record.

So while the Canucks could very well manage a respectable run in the near future, the parity of the league in the modern NHL allows devastating upsets to abound.

Two years ago the Canucks made a similar start to the season, went on a decent run in February and then missed the playoff by one point in April, simply by not winning against teams like the Avalanche.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, they did beat the Aves, I fell asleep in the comfort of my own intoxication.

Alas.

Next Up – New York

How bad can it get?

A 2-0 lead in the first period turned into a 7-2 route by the Anaheim Ducks as Vancouver coughed up an early advantage on a balmy evening in Orange County.

What started out as decent, turned into to pre-Halloween nightmare for the .500 Vancouver squad.

The Canucks started strong getting two quick goals in the first, trying to take advantage of a Ducks team that hasn’t won at home in five games.

After that it was all Duck. Giving up seven unanswered goals to a famished Anaheim squad that took advantage of a Canucks team that is missing five regular forwards and their star-goaltender.

The anemic Perry-Getzlaf-Ryan line finally got a chance to juke their stats, earning a combined eight points on the night and steering their own ship out of trouble, all-the-while watching Vancouver struggle to wade above their own .500 mark.

It seems like Vancouver, after gaining lead, forgot about their own scoring woes (remember all those forward out with injury) and gave the Ducks every chance available to get on the board, thereby sending Vancouver back north with a two-game road split.

A certain degree of hubris set in after getting the early lead, this helped the Ducks dictate the rest of the game.

Again I ask, can it get any worse?

It could, but for the Canucks what is worse then terrible is mediocrity. Unfortunately it is the mediocrity that Vancouver has excelled at for so long that makes them doomed to saddle themselves in defeat for many years to come.

To Vancouver, worst is not bad, and that sucks.

Next Up – Colorado