The other night I was chatting with a friend of mine who’s been a long-term Canucks fan. He reminded me of how lucky recently-converted Canucks fans are.
If you became a fan of the Canucks in the 21st century, you’ve had an excellent run. The team has made the playoffs 8 out of 10 times (I’m projecting a playoff berth for this season), and been over .500 for every season.
Previous decades, however, haven’t been quite so excellent. The important line is the 0.5 one. When the blue line is above that one, it indicates that the team won more games than they lost (click to embiggen):
I often get grief from fans who want to know why I’m routinely skeptical about the team’s performance. This is why.
As you can see, excepting a brief bright period in the early nineties (culminating in the fabled 1993-94 playoff run), the Canucks have been historically lousy.
In fact, the team’s recent performance makes me a little uncomfortable. I’m accustomed to cheering for a sad-sack bunch of upstarts.
Liverpool and Blackpool
When I moved to Ireland, I rather randomly asked my coworkers which Premier League soccer team I should support. Someone recommended Liverpool, which, at the time, was one of the top performers in English football. I took their advice, but always felt a little uncomfortable cheering for the high-flying Reds.
In fact, lately I’ve been paying more attention to another ‘Pool–Blackpool. They are, in fact, a group of sad-sack upstarts just promoted to the Premier League and they’re playing quite well this season. Plus, their nickname is ‘The Tangerines’. For obvious reasons.
In any case, I do think this Canucks team is the best one we’ve ever watched. I’m optimistic that they’ll go deep into the playoffs. And that’s saying something.
This past Satuday I went to the Canucks game–my first game in a couple of years. North American sports arenas are, of course, obsessed with distracting you at every stoppage in play. One common tactic is to show people in the crowd on the Jumbotron (or whatever it’s called–the giant cube of screens in the middle of the arena).
Most people, when they recognize themselves on the Jumbotron, seem utterly delighted to be shown to 20,000 other people. I’d say that the ratio of delight to embarrassment was 90% to 10%.
I started wondering about why this was. Surely if you asked those delighted people to give, say, a three-minute speech in front of 50 people many of them would be terrified. And yet they’re pleased to dance, flash the devil horns or otherwise act zaney for 20,000. Why is this?
One side note on this: I’ve got a friend who fears that she won’t recognize herself should she be shown on the Jumbotron. She routinely makes a subtle, peculiar hand gesture as the camera pans the crowd in order to spot herself.
Somebody on Twitter mentioned that “the Canucks game just got way more interesting”, so I visited TEAM 1040′s website to listen to the end of the game (it’s a pay-per-view game, so there’s no regular TV broadcast. I’m happy to pay for a game occasionally, but not when it’s Phoenix.). TEAM 1040 is running a web poll at the moment, asking “Who is the hottest Canuck?”. Check out the results:
For those readers who are not hockey fans, Daniel and Henrik Sedin are identical twins. They look like this:
Though he looks about 15, I’d say Raymond deserves the lead. Here he is sandwiched between Rebecca and Alanah (the photo is by John):
Which, in truth, is pretty unremarkable. Hordichuk, for the non-Canucks fans, is a fourth-line enforcer whose principle job is to work hard and occasionally beat on other players. This was last Friday, and apparently he was returning to Vancouver to be with his wife who was having a baby. I wouldn’t have recognized him–James pointed the NHLer out to me.
We saw his driver first, a huge bald man in a black trench coat. To our amusement, he was carrying a sign that read “Mr. Darcy”. Maybe, I thought, he’s just a lonely Pride and Prejudice fan? I snapped a quick photo of the two of them, waiting for Mr. Darcy’s luggage.
How big is that guy? Hordichuk is listed at 6’1″. I know the perspective is off, but that is one large driver. You’d imagine that an NHL enforcer probably doesn’t need much off-ice back-up. But you get the sense that, to quote The Bourne Identity, the big guy knows how to handle himself.
I was talking to somebody about this morning. I doubt they will, but I really have no idea. Less idea than usual when it comes to the Canucks. So, let us vote:
At the start of the year I made a couple of predictions regarding the Canucks. One was that Mats Sundin wouldn’t sign with them–I was obviously wrong about that. The second was that they wouldn’t make the playoffs. For a while there I thought the team was making a fool of me on that front, too.
But like a teenage boyfriend, they never fail to disappoint. This the Canucks team I’ve come to expect after twenty-odd years of fandom. Mediocrity, thy home is Vancouver.
A Low-Hanging Scapegoat
There are plenty of fans calling for Alain Vigneault’s head. Here’s something I’ve come to realize about NHL coaching: when the team does well, the players receive all the praise. When the team falters, the coach’s head is the first one on the chopping block.
On the one hand–to mix my metaphors–the coach is the lowest hanging scapegoat. He doesn’t cost as much as the players, is immediately replaceable and usually isn’t adored by the fans.
On the other hand, the average fan has very little insight into what the coach does. As with a team’s general manager, we get a tip of the iceberg view of an NHL coach. We see him behind the bench, watch him pick lines and observe how the players execute his strategy. We have no view into what happens off-ice, at practice, and only have a vague sense of his coaching during a game. We don’t see how Vigneault spends the majority of his time.
The first critique of a coach is often that the players appear “unmotivated”. I always find that silly. These guys make, on average, more than two million dollars a season. They are elite professionals–the best in the world. Does a brain surgeon need motivation to excise a tumour? Does a trial lawyer need motivation to win a case? If the players can’t get “up” for a game, they have only themselves to blame.
About half the forwards are playing well offensively at the moment. The Sedins are reliable as ever, Kesler and Burrows are shouldering more than their fair share, and Hordichuk and Johnson are ably filling their roles. Everybody else has been sub-par, and the team’s defence has looked pretty shoddy. Even the usually-reliable Willie Mitchell has been coughing up the puck in the defensive zone.
Truth be told, I have no idea what’s wrong with the team. Any suggestions?
I’m very glad Sundin wasn’t signed for next year at $10 million, as per the initial offer. If he sucks over the next six months, the Canucks will be well rid of him. Still, even if he only scores at a, say, 45-50 points for a season pace, that’s a handy player to have around. So, at worst, the team gets a little better and loses nothing (in terms of cap space or assets) in the long term.
That sounds a bit naive, doesn’t it?
Thus far, the Sundin experiment has been pretty miserable. After nine games with the team, consider the numbers:
He’s got three points, two goals (one into an open net on the powerplay) and an assist.
He’s taken eight minor penalties.
His +/- is at -6.
Compare that with the cheaper Brendan Shanahan, another mid-year pick-up who is three years older than Sundin. In five games, he’s got three goals and an assist.
Even if you ignore those numbers, Sundin has clearly not found last year’s playing form. He’s always the slowest player on the ice, he consistently shuns the “dirty areas” in front of the net, and he struggles defensively.
Even if Sundin does find his game, the Canucks face an uphill climb to make the playoffs. Calgary more or less has the division locked up, so Vancouver needs to battle to secure sixth spot, thus avoiding a first round series against San Jose or Detroit.
A Soft Bunch
And even if they do make the playoffs, I’m worried about the team’s make-up. Consider the team’s top-six forwards: Sedin, Sedin, Demitra, Wellwood, Pyatt, Sundin and Kesler. After Kesler and Pyatt, that’s a pretty soft bunch. And grit becomes more important in the post-season, not less.
I’d much rather the team tank it than stagger through the rest of the season in ninth or tenth spot. If the Canucks are obviously sellers at the trading deadline, then the could get very good value for their veteran defensemen (assuming they waive their no-trade causes) and the likes of Taylor Pyatt and Pavel Demitra. That would put them in a better position for next year. Instead, they’re liable to barely miss the playoffs. Looking back, I see that that’s what I was hoping for last July.
I know I’m late to this ballgame, but I just saw this and it struck me as pretty amusing:
This isn’t the first of these remixes that I’ve seen using this snippet from the exceptionally good German film Der Untergang. Is there a Hitler video generator out there on the web somewhere?
