Dialing it in; AV's firing...

Well, the Vancouver Canucks made what I like to refer to as another 'Messier' by firing all-time winningest coach in Canuck history, Alain Vani- Vaingne- AV a couple weeks after a 4 game sweep by the San Jose Sharks, 2 years after their near-Cup glory run in 2011.

'I heard there's a coaching position available?' 

Of course, being hockey nuts, we all know that. Some say that AV had to go, some say that he was thrown under the zamboni by a desperate GM, Mike Gillis.

Simple fact is that Vancouver (unofficial motto; keeping expectations unrealistically high since 1982) pressured Mike Gillis into this firing. Vancouver fans are a fickle bunch and most fail to realize that they should be grateful that they at least got to see a cup run during their generation. There are a lot of fans out there that haven't including Toronto, Montreal, both New York teams, San Jose, Nashville, St. Louis... the list goes on but let's face it, reaching the finals once every 15 years is a pretty good average compared to the bottom half of the league. Even Scotty Bowman didn't make it to the Stanley Cup every year he had a team and he won exactly only one more Jack Adams trophy for best NHL coach than AV has.  Go figure...

Vancouver is known as a goalie graveyard. It took only one year for Luongo to fall from grace to be replaced by someone who has around 5 playoff games under his pads. Thankfully, Luongo is still a celebrity on twitter and has shown himself to be one of the most amicable (and richest) back up goalies in history...so good for him.

Maybe it would be easier to just buy a new car
everytime I'm low on gas...

Maybe AV will take to twitter as well in the few weeks he's unemployed for he has officially become the most sought after coach in the league as of 1 minute after he was fired. For the record, it's almost better for a Canuck coach to not nearly win the cup than it is to just keep the team above 500.  It's the difference between being Marc Crawford and being Alain Vaingneault, however you spell it.

Roger Nielson, who led the team to the 82 finals, was released in less than 2 seasons after near glory. Pat Quinn, another Jack Adams Coach of the Year winner, like AV left the coaching to Rick Ley right after their near glory run in 1994.  Both of their successors lasted less than a few years before they were given walking papers.

The last 2 Canuck coaches, Marc Crawford and AV have led the team to more points in the last 13 years than the previous 9 coaches had in the 20 years before them, including Pat Quinn and Mike Keenan's records.

So, if present history holds true and if Patrick Roy can come back as the Colorado Avalanche head coach, then look to the Canucks to win fan favour by perhaps finally giving the reins to someone who will run the team into Avalanche type territory in the next couple of years before hiring either or both of the all-time greatest Canucks, Trevor Linden or Stan 'Steamer' Smyl.

Something in this picture isn't quite right...

Holy shit...would that be awesome.  

Retro Post; The Greatest Canuck Stanley Cup Run

Ahhh, Vancouver.  If Montreal is to the NHL what the Yankees are to MLB, then Vancouver Canucks are the NFL's Buffalo Bills.  They've been to the Big Show three times, only to each time come away empty.  Unless you happen to be in downtown Vancouver after the final game, then you are probably coming away with quite a few things unpaid for.

While 1983 was perhaps an anomaly in that nobody truly expected the Canucks to defeat the 2x defending champion New York Islanders (yes, you read that right), 1994 was the year when believers were made.  A strong core of forwards led by Pavel Bure, Trevor Linden, and Gino Odjick. Jyrki Lumme, Dave Babych and Dana Murzyn on defence and the last of the great stand up goaltenders in Kirk McLean, before everybody started adopting the Patrick Roy butterfly followed by hip surgery in your 30's style.  The Canucks provided an amazing playoff run full of drama, emotion and continuous highlight reel moments, courtesy of Pavel Bure. While the 2011 Canucks had the diving, the biting, the LUongoing nothing can beat 1994's team for sheer Hollywood drama.

First the dramatics of the come from behind 1st round seven game defeat of the Calgary Flames after being behind 3 games to 1 in the series, featuring Kirk McLean in 'The Save'

which led to the perhaps the biggest moment in Canuck playoff history up to that time, Pavel Bure and 'The Goal';

Canuck low-lights part 4 of an ongoing series in non-chronological order

Back to hockey;


(Full disclosure; i found this little bit in the drafts section of my blog written obviously before my Canadian hockey soul was once again crushed by the NHL.  Trying to keep the home fires burning, so to speak, i've finally edited it in a lackluster way and well, here you go) .

Over the years, I've heard plenty of reasons why the Canucks should win the Cup. 

All right, I lie.  I don't really hear any reasons why, other than people think that for some reason, Vancouver deserves a Stanley Cup because it's goddamn Vancouver.  Nothing could be worse for a city who's residents already have dangerous self-involved hockey ego issues to comparable to Montrealish embarrassing heights.  However the question really is; does the Canuck organization (in any incarnation) deserve their name on Stanley? 

Despite their recent back to back President's trophies, the answer is a quick No.  From their treatment of past players to present day fans, the faceless entity deserves little respect from that chalice that demands perfection, persistence and patience.  Insert P joke here...

I'm resigned, like i think most hockey fans are that there will be no hockey before at least christmas.  The NHL owners have put their foot down and said 'hey, we could be making more money if we weren't handing out insane amounts of money for marquee players' while the players are saying "Shea Weber? Who did he play for? What's my agent's number in Bermuda?"

So in an effort to remain interested in what's going to happen in my fantasy hockey pool, i've been reading 'I'm not making this up' by Al Strachan, which is great candid reading for behind-the-scenes hockey fans who like to hear more of what a player is like other than their stats and pending free agent status.

But back to the original question; does Vancouver deserve a Stanley Cup?

Exhibit A;

The story of Pavel Bure

One of the top three Russians to enter the NHL when the barriers were finally dropped, Bure was the superstar that Canuck fans always dreamed of and marketing executives drooled over.  Like Alex Mogilny and Sergei Federov before him, he was young, entertaining, and man, could he play.  I remember highlights of his first game against Winnipeg.  He was fast. Like really fast. If i need to tell you his nickname, you shouldn't be here.  But spoiler alert; he was traded to Florida with Bret Hedican, Brad Ference, and Vancouver's third-round choice in the 2000 NHL Entry Draft (Robert Fried) for Ed Jovanovski, Dave Gagner, Mike Brown, Kevin Weekes.  Why would Vancouver's first true superstar demand to be traded?  Probably since the way he was treated since the first day of his arrival.


The story goes that during the mess of trying to get Bure cleared from his duties to play for the Russian team, he traveled to LA to his agent's house, where he was expecting to meet up with Canuck representatives to help him with his transition to Canada.  Nobody contacted him for 10 days.  Finally he was contacted by Brian Burke who told him to sit tight, which meant another 2 weeks while the Canucks worked on the legalities of the deal. 
So you have this young kid, leaving his mother country to come play for you and you don't even have the respect to meet him as he comes off the plane in another country?  Then you don't even contact him for a week?
Now the fun really begins;
The Canucks were informed they had to pay $250,000 for Bure's rights to play for them.  They paid $200,000 and told Bure that he had to pay the other $50,000.  So, already they are off to a great start with someone who was to become their most prolific goal scorer in history.  He also asked to where number 96 to commeroate his arrival on Sept 6 to North America but apparently Pat 'Old School' Quinn had a problem with high jersey numbers (we will talk about Wayne Gretzky later).



i wonder how this ends up...

I have utmost respect for Pavel Bure, as does Shane Churla (now).  When talk of Bure wanting a trade began to hit the Vancouver papers, he was painted as being selfish and immature.  The Canucks failed to reward him for being the Calder Trophy winner (despite missing 17 games) by saying they would renegotiate his contract after the next season (which he went on to score 60 goals).  They basically told him that they were going to wait to see if that wasn't a 'fluke' season and postponed signing him because they weren't sure he was worth the money. Weren't sure he was worth the money...

Now anyone who can see the humor in that last sentence is more qualified to run the Canucks pocket books than the team managers at the time who were...let's see...Pat Quinn and Brian Burke. 

Wow. Small world.

So, he was finally able to leave the clutches of the Vancouver system to the sunnier confines of Florida and then New York where he retired, years too early from a multitude of knee operations that started from returning too soon from his first knee operation in Vancouver.  He is now a top official in the Russian Hockey League, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and one of the reasons why Vancouver is jinxed.

Seriously...F^^# That Guy

Mark doing what he does best.

Mark Messier, the man who crushed many a Canuck fans dreams has once again placed his boot on the face of the Canuck franchise, this time to the tune of $6 million.  A New York (go figure) arbitrator awarded the sum to Messier after he brought a lawsuit against the Canucks for...if i understand this right...not paying him a percentage of the value the Canuck franchise increased from the time Messier joined the Canucks in 1997 to the time he finished demolishing it in 2000.   

Say what you will, but this man knows how to write a contract.  I heard that when he signed with the Rangers the first time, there was a clause that he had to be in the top 3 highest earning players.  That means he admitted that he did not deserve more than Gretzky or Lemieux but basically, he was more valuable than anyone else.  So when Jaromir Jagr received a pay raise, making him 3rd highest paid in the league, Messier's contract automatically called for a raise to leapfrog him back into 3rd. 

And i think he was his own agent too.  Talk about the balls on this guy.  So when his contract expired with the NYR and the beginning of the new era of NHL 'super' stars; Bure, Lindros, Mogilny, Jagr emerged, he felt slighted that the Rangers would not again resign him to be the 3rd highest paid player in the league and so for some deep-seated hatred, decided to offer his services to whichever team would allow him to destroy Trevor Linden the most.  That team? The Vancouver Canucks.