Black Ice Vancouver

“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

“From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all.” –Albert Camus

Well I certainly tried to figured out the Canucks salary-cap high-wire act and came up with very little at the end of the day. But I tried and that is half-the battle (don’t ask about the other half of that battle, the argument is too cumbersome in-and-of itself).

Last year I had this couch. It belonged to my roommate but it was quickly co-opted by myself. It was sort of an old-lady couch with flowers — minus the plastic. I fell asleep to Sportsnet Connected every night on this couch in my clothes. I watched all the Canucks games on this couch. It was my office. My sanctuary. My home.

I recently returned home from a social-model brainwashing experiment and I have encamped at a new fixed address — and a new couch. I fell asleep on my new couch last night to the exuberant tenor of Don Taylor reading by-lines and I had a dream that my roommate’s converted to Jehovah’s Witnesses on their trip to China. I don’t know if this is some strange, convoluted foreshadowing of things to come — the Canucks don’t play until tomorrow night — but I got a strange feeling nonetheless and it hasn’t sat well with me all day.

Anyhow, I suppose that with a new couch comes new opinions. So here goes: I think letting go of Morrison is gonna sting the Canucks down the road but it won’t kill them. It will just make them stronger I suppose, whatever the hell that means (ask Nietzsche). The nostalgia factor was enticing, if not necessarily practical. On that note, I like the Peter Shaefer move. It was all economics, but perhaps he will play that Selanne roll I was talking about in my last post.

Hordichuk was done. Don’t miss him. His presence on the team was becoming moot. He was well liked in the dressing room, but magnanimity doesn’t score goals.

Claytron and I will probably miss ripping on Shane-the-big-mistake-O’Brien but he sort of ran himself out of the city. Hearing Vigneault’s gracious parting words about O’Brien yesterday on Team 1040 only cements the fact that he never really bought-in despite the Canucks’ brass giving him every opportunity.

With that said, you have to give Gillis credit for actually giving creed to his reclamation projects (despite none of them actually having worked out). He gives them all a chance, but has become unafraid to let them go if opportunities knocking fall on deaf ears (like when I’m sleeping in on Saturday morning and the JW’s come-a-preachin’ with their Chinese bibles).

Anyhow, that is about it for me right now.  Tomorrow is the big day, puck drops at 7:00 pm. All this pre-season action has tired me out.

I need a nap on my new couch.