Black Ice Vancouver

“An ideal form of government is democracy tempered by assassination” –Voltaire

Abraham Lincoln — dead. James A. Garfield — dead. William McKinley — dead. John F. Kennedy — dead.

Are you sensing a pattern develop here?

As I sit here and watch the Canucks attempt to clinch their first President’s Trophy in team history, my thoughts immediately turn to dead presidents. How tenuous of a link does one need?

Seven teams who have won the regular season have gone on to win the Cup in the last 25 years. No one is saying it’s a death wish, it just doesn’t help. However, there remains one interesting caveat regarding the Canucks prospects this year — we are ACTUALLY the best team in the whole, wide NHL. And THAT puts us in the best position to win a Championship.

Charles I — beheaded. Henry VI — Murdered in the Tower of London. James I — assassinated.

Sensing another pattern developing? (forgive me, they are playing the Kings, I couldn’t help myself.)

The fact is, there is neither rhyme nor reason to any of this. It’s a crap shoot. 25% of the last 20 President’s Trophy winners have gone on to win the cup. 10% lost in the final. 25% lost in the third round. The list goes on.

Every year we’ve made the playoffs the common sentiment has been: is this our year? The Canucks lead in every major statistical category in the league and yet the only thing that matters is winning it all.

This may or may not be our year.

One has to imagine that in lieu of a championship parade the City of Vancouver may want to prepare for another procession: a state funeral

But what are we gonna bury? Our greatest hope or our greatest perpetual annual fear?

–Joseph F. Delamar

Editors Note: The enclosed picture is that of Wendish skating funeral procession. God bless the internet.

“To weep is to make less the depth of grief.”  ~William Shakespeare, King Henry the Sixth

For those who follow sports talk radio (seriously, who doesn’t?) there was a lot of chatter today about the Canucks recent milestone: finishing 1st overall in the Western Conference. This is NOT to be confused with Western Conference Champions. THAT is an honour reserved for the team that wins the first 3/4 of the NHL playoffs and will represent the Western Conference in the Stanley Cup finals.

If I have lost you already — apologees.

I spend the better part of my days lifting retarded heavy things and my lifeblood the past few years has become the benign chitter of sports radio. I find both the pedantic callers and the equally robust bloviations from the radio hosts to be pleasantly time-consuming.

The fact is that the prognosticators had this team pegged to win it all right from the get-go. The plan was in place. Then the plan was executed with Aryan precision. And now we sit and argue mustard seeds all day. Gone are the by-gone days of crying over unmoved mountains. In fact, one might wonder about a possible spring-flood. After-all, there is a vast reservoir of tears yet to spilled over this team. A vast reservoir that has accumulated over 40 years of pain, dissapointment and defeat.

One can’t help but think of a sweet spring rain that might follow a victory of this aforementioned Stanley Cup finals. The by-product of one million Canucks fans weeping tears of joy.

Either that or the VPD better get rain slickers to accompany their riot gear.

–Joseph F. Delamar

“Sometimes the silence can be like thunder.” — Bob Dylan

The trouble with being a Canucks fan these days is that we are unable to perform our annual rite of lowering-our-expectations-to-a-audible-groan. Most people I have talked to about the team find it difficult, if not uncomfortable, to discuss the topic at hand. The topic being the Canucks unfamiliar position of leading the NHL in points. Set to win their first Presidents Trophy in team history.

The truth is similar to what happens in Baseball when a pitcher is pitching a no-hitter or perfect game. No one talks to the pitcher. No one looks at the pitcher. No one says a word.

At this point in the season your average Canucks fan might find themselves in a mild odessey. To see the Canucks cemented at the top of the league standings (I guarantee they win the Presedents Trophy) is a little perplexing to say the least. It’s like the stern father who has been beating his child every semester for 40 years for bringing home failing grades. Suddenly the kid arrives home one day. The old man immediately begins taking off his belt. The child hands the man the report card with A+ honours.

Shocked the old man loops his belt back around his waist and retorts in a puff,

“Okay fine, but it don’t mean shit until you get into Harvard.”

So it don’t mean shit if we win the Presidents Trophy. It don’t mean shit if my prognostications are wrong six-ways from Sunday. It don’t mean shit who will be the next Prime Minister.

All that matters is — that which we shall not speak of.

–Joseph F. Delamar

“In Canada your not a hockey player until you’ve lost some teeth.” Andy Bathgae

Just a few thoughts on the game Thursday night against the San Jose Sharks. Might have been the best game of the year. Great goaltending, great physical, end-to-end-most-of-it-in-our-end action. And did I mention goaltending?

It felt like good old fashioned firebrand hockey. like the style we used to play when we were kids, out in the backyard rinks. Out on the Beeke’s driveway. Where goals were scored liberally and every tilt ended with all our gear on the ice (or pavement) from the the obligatory line-brawl. Mrs. Beeke always made us a post-game snack to ease the pain of any bruised knees (egos) that transpired along the way.

It is a testament to the modernization of the game. A game where 8 goals are scored (and one more in the shootout) is rarely praised for it’s beauty. It is a time when technical python-hockey (see: Barry Trotz) is held in higher esteem then, well, goals.

Tonight should prove to be a good match. Calgary is looking for a playoff seed. Vancouver is looking for it’s first Presidents Trophy. There are serious points on the line. This is a serious game. But let us remember, it is only a game.

So let’s see some goals. And toothless grins.

The Canadian way.

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.” –Albert Einstien

What can I say? I like pretty girls. When it comes to the recent nuptuals of Nashville Predator Mike Fisher and mega-babe Carrie Underwood all that comes to mind is, “lucky bastard.”

You think I’m kidding? You think I chid at the idea of a strapping Northern stud marrying the Queen of Muskogee?

She loves a hockey player. She loves Jesus. She sings like a meadow lark. And she is just so damn pretty.

What does this have to do with our belovedly beleaguered ‘Nuckleheads? Nothing. But in the face of the coming apocalypse I typically like to keep my mind occupied with blond and bubbly. Don’t ask. I don’t really believe in guilty pleasures. I like Carrie Underwood. She takes my breathe away. She makes me swoon. I would dip my nashville in her predator anyday.

But seriously folks. As your humble correspondent, it pains me to see the deluge of our offensive game at the hands of Barry Trotz and his beautifully boring squad of Southern hockey squires. It boggles my mind each year this team ices a competitive unit. Not because I don’t think the State of Tennessee doesn’t deserve a sip from Lord Stanley’s chalice, but because the concept just strikes me as odd.

It is akin to Inuit tailgating outside a NASCAR parking lot.

Thursday’s game against the Predators was painful to watch in all the ways a game ought to be painful. They exposed our weaknesses on defence and took the liberty of showcasing a future Vezina consideration in Pekka Rinne. It leaves me wondering what it is in Finnish drinking water that produces such otherwordly goaltending from  otherworldy countries such as Finland.

Did you know there are 1.8 million saunas in Finland? Did you know it is the only country in the world with a news broadcast in Latin?

Finland and Carrie Underwood are what I find myself Googling most of the game. Between missed opportunities by our top line to capitalize on the power-play and thoughts of throwing my laptop across the room in vitriolic rage. Between reason once again advocating a safe retreat from my obsessive fury and the psychic implications of malignant rage. My fury subsides into fatigue.

I fall asleep.

In my dream I’m playing shinny on an outdoor pond in the middle of Saskatchewan with Pekka Rinne. I score a goal on him. It’s a deft head-fake commencing a tender backhand top-shelf. In the glowing thunder of the crowd I skate to the centre of the pond in a Tiger Williams-esque celebration, using my hockey stick as a triumphant steed. Afterward, Rinne takes his mask off only to reveal he has the head of Carrie Underwood. I figure, opportunity knocks only once, so I ask her out on a date. She giggles coquettishly, responding between sips from her gatorade bottle,

“Yes, but don’t tell my husband.”

–Joseph F. Delamar

“Invincibility lies in the defence, the possibility of victory in the attack.” –Sun Tzu

Yann Sauve made his NHL debut last night in Minnesota as the Canucks presided over their 17th road win of the season. He is the 12th defencemen on the Vancouver Canucks to dress this season. Earlier this year, after training camp, Sauve suffered a concussion after being struck by a car in Downtown Vancouver. The season hadn’t began yet and the injury plague had already struck the Canucks.

And then there was Sami Salo and his magnificently rupturing Achilles Heal.

Who is the Paris of our beloved local hockey club? Who keeps shooting all these arrows and marching our defence corp to the infirmary? Is this the death of the season? Is this the end of the beginning for our belovedey beleaguered franchise?

The most effective part of the Canucks offence is The Pinch. That means when the puck enters the offensive zone the defenders stands guards for loose pucks threatening to leave the zone. If a puck begins to creep up the half-board a defender will “pinch” which means leaving his position in order to join the attack. When this happens it leaves the points vulnerable and the forwards must remain vigilant in case a turn-over occurs, causing an odd-man rush the other way. The Pinch keeps a puck-possession team like the Canucks in the offensive zone longer then most teams feel comfortable so that two scenarios may unfold: 1) the Canucks score a goal, or 2) the Canucks draw a penalty and then score a goal on the power-play.

It is a style of play that has developed over many years with this Vigneault helmed squad. It has only, however, in it’s last two seasons reached it’s full potential.

Hockey like so many other professional sports has evolved tremendously since it’s inception as an outdoor, seven-man, on-side recreational game in the late 19th century. It has survived two World Wars, the Influenza, Harold Ballard, two lockouts, the trap and the perennial No-Star Gary Bettman presiding over and mis-managing the league for the better part of two decades. It has seen the advent of the wrist shot, the slap shot, the curved stick, Gordie Howe’s hattrick, Gretzky’s office, Marty McSorley’s stick, the enforcer, the instigator, the dead puck and puck possession.

The last one was brought back to life by teams such as the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the post-lockout era, when obstruction rules were meant to speed the game up from it’s Jacques Lemaire influenced retardando.

Rick Bowness and Alain Vigneault have done a bang-up job usurping this idea into their own game plan and tweaking it’s essentials into what I like to call The Pinch. Essential to the effectiveness of The Pinch is the health and welfare of the blueline. It is a strategy both exciting to watch as a fan and effective for a team still leading the standings after over two months at the top of the heap.

It begs the question in terms of possibility: What is the answer to the endless parade to the infirmary that seems to indulge the Vancouver Canucks every year the past few years?

You gotta to think, if this question could be answered, one can only imagine the extent invincibility might go for this talent laden group.

–Joseph F. Delamar

“Red ice sells hockey tickets.” –Bob Stewart

Somebody call the doctor, Sami is back.

Or in the age of infinite irony, Sami Salo is back and half of the other certified blue liners on the Vancouver Canucks are on ice. Dan Hamhuis is out with a concussion because Ryan Getzlaf decided to clean the end glass with his face. Keith Ballard is out with an ailing knee because of a Milan Mihalek slew foot . Alex Edler is out having microdiscectomectomectomewhatever.

All this means for slim pickin’s south of the red line.

And how about that forth line eh?

The facts are the facts, and like most tautologies they speak for themselves. Vancouver holds the best record in the National Hockey League. they are having their best season in franchise history. They have the reigning Hart and Art Ross champion on their roster (Brother Henrik). They have two legitimate 40-goal scorers (Kesler and Brother Daniel) in the line-up. And, if Alexandre Burrows and Mikael Samuelsson are still scoring at their current break-neck pace, the team could have four 30+ goal scorers.

Much like Satan and eternal souls, this team exists to possess pucks.

Most of that puck possession game (a term forged in the fires of hockey hell — Detroit) begins in the defensive zone. Mike Gilles has done an admirable job shoring up possession in other ways, like bringing in Manny Malhotra as a face-off specialist and having Rollie Melanson teach Luongo some stick handling skills. It all begs the question now, how are the Canucks gonna get the puck out of their zone now?

With mobile defenders such as Hamhuis and Edler out indefinitely it remains to be seen how the Canucks will execute their evolving game-plan. So far the no-such-thing-as-too-many-defensemen approach has worked. Inevitably there is no such thing as too many defensemen in the NHL. We saw as much last year when wily Willie Michell went down for the season and the Canucks were left handicapped in D-man land.

As with most questions this season, all roads lead to the playoffs. The Canucks are in no risk of missing the playoffs, but without a cadre of defenders breaking down plays, the team could see another early exit.

When it comes to the question of injuries to defensemen, the jury is still out.

Let the future judge now!

–Joseph F. Delamar

“Out first priority was staying alive, our second was stopping the puck” –Glenn Hall

I hit black ice the other day. Scared the hell out of me. Thought I was gonna die. First you don’t know what is happening. Your car drifts left, then right. Life flashes before your eyes. Light at the end of the tunnel. The bammo, my thread caught pavement again and I was fine. It put everything into perspective for me as I drove to work that morning. Metaphysics, the meaning of life, you name it. Perspective abound!

Then there are those crazy Canucks. One minute there are on top of the NHL standings. The next they are dawdling in mediocracy. Losing four straight (three of the four in the shootout). So they moved forward with loser points, but they were drifting, much like my experience hitting black ice.

This past week in Canucks land has seen a lot of sober reflection of this team. Will they have the secondary scoring in the playoffs? Are they a one line team? When is the injury bug going to hit? All of these questions hit solid ground last night during the Canucks drubbing of the Dallas Stars.

They didn’t just play better. They were better. And that is what great teams do. They look good winning. They hit. They fought. They scored. It was the best game of the year by far. It reminded me that there are no weak links on this team. Just weak execution. It put all the prognosticator from the begininning of the year back on track.

And what happens when they lose another game?

Well it will put the naysayers and bandwagoneers back on track too. What can I say in the age of parity?

–Joseph F. Delamar

“Israel’s weary wanderings were all over, and the promised rest was attained.” — CH Spurgeon

Due to a couple of unforeseen emotional crisis’ I have not really been able to stay on top of my game this weekend, but that has not stopped the Vancouver Canucks from staying on top of theirs.

The only really interesting thing about our last game was that afterward pundits claimed it was not really a good game, but it was an exciting one. Which is sort of like saying, “well, I got laid, but it wasn’t very good sex.” For the disinclined I suppose everything can have it’s shortcomings, what I saw on Saturday night was four rolling lines, a lethal power-play and timely saves by the 10 Million Dollar Man. Sure Lou let in four goals, but he stopped the ones that counted bitches.

It was said in the off-season that our team was good on paper, but with this latest six-game win streak the paper feels a lot more like ice these days. This five-game road trip East will really test the mettle of our troops, but the emotional purgatory Canuck fans experience season-after-season may cease if they can prove they are no flash in the pan. That means wins.

That means no less then a President’s Trophy.

That means, you know, a ring and a silver Chalice.

–Joseph F. Delamar