Canucks and Beyond

Entries with the tag: boston bruins
Goodbye, Windy City
by Alanah McGinley on 08/09/11 at 06:38 PM ET
Comments (23)
Here in Vancouver Canucks land, we have a stalker and it’s starting to get out of hand.
It didn’t used to be so bad. After all, she was smoking hot for a couple years, and the Canucks—truth be told—had a hard time keeping up with her game.
But then a few months ago the Canucks finally had enough and roundly dumped her.
But ever since, the girl—let’s call her Chi-Chi—just cannot seem to get over it.
Filed in: vancouver canucks, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
chicago+blackhawks,
media,
vancouver+canucks
Whatever Happened to…?
by Alanah McGinley on 07/20/11 at 05:47 PM ET
Comments (2)
Did you ever stop to wonder that with so many draft picks every year, whatever happened to the majority who don’t make it to the NHL or AHL, and seem to disappear into obscurity? One such story caught my attention today.
Back in 2005, forward Daniel Ryder was drafted in the third round by the Calgary Flames, and in 2006, won the Wayne Gretzky 99 Award for being the most valuable player in that year’s OHL playoffs. His future was bright, as Hockey’s Future analyzed his talent here:
Daniel, like his older brother Michael, is a goal scorer, pure and simple. He has a knack for finding open ice as well as finding the open man. He fights for loose pucks, battles hard in the corners and does a lot of the other intangibles that are crucial come playoff time.
But sometime over the next year or so, everything went very wrong for Daniel Ryder.
Filed in: | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
calgary+flames,
daniel+ryder,
michael+ryder
Game 7: Bruins/Canucks—Open Post
by Alanah McGinley on 06/15/11 at 09:30 PM ET
Comments (121)
Sometime tonight, a whole lot of people will be celebrating and a whole lot of others will be feeling pretty crappy. But what we can all agree on, I hope, is that it would be great to enjoy a fantastic hockey game before that final buzzer. A roller-coaster series like this one deserves to end with an epic game.
Whatever team you’re rooting for, enjoy the ride. (And… Go Canucks!)
P.S. I wrote a post before this series about all the reasons I’d celebrate winning a Stanley Cup. One of those reasons was in the memory of Luc Bourdon. So I’ll let Tom Cochrane end this post with his tribute to Bourdon nearly three years ago:
Filed in: playoff hockey, vancouver canucks, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
game+7,
luc+bourdon,
stanley+cup,
vancouver+canucks
Game 6: Vancouver at Boston—Open Post
by Alanah McGinley on 06/13/11 at 09:46 PM ET
Comments (33)
Canucks at Bruins, 5pm.
I’m afraid I’m sticking with my original series prediction of 7 games, with the Canucks coming out on top in the end. This is a home-ice-advantage series if every there was one, and while I feel optimistic about the end result, tonight is going to be a tough one to pull out. Of course, maybe the lessons learned against Chicago, Nashville and San Jose will pay off and the Canucks will find that extra gear that allows them to put an end to this series tonight. That would certainly be nice, because a game 7 in this series will probably come down to a single ridiculous bounce…
Which would make for one seriously scary hockey game to watch.
P.S. The sports producer at Boston.com hung out in Vancouver after game 5, talking to Vancouverites to find out what they know about Boston, as well as to explain the Canadian obsession with hockey. Here’s the video of his encounters below.
Filed in: playoff hockey, vancouver canucks, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
stanley+cup+finals,
vancouver+canucks
Post-Game 4: Thoughts, Anxieties and the Art of Optimism
by Alanah McGinley on 06/09/11 at 01:35 AM ET
Comments (2)
The Canucks have looked tired, weak, confused and disoriented these last two games. If the Canucks were a dog we’d probably talk to a vet about euthanasia. However, I do think the team will regain their vigor back home, barring some injuries we don’t know about, anyway. (Seriously, Ryan Kesler, where’d you go???)
Couple reasons I’m not freaking out. First, I did write before this series started that I expected a couple blowout scoring games, so I guess I can’t complain when it happens. (Of course, I wish at least one them was where we came out on top, but what can you do?). Second, I’d figured on a 7 game series. Being tied 2-2 pretty much tracks.
Of course, playing like ass for these last two games didn’t really fit into my agenda, but them’s the breaks. The series against Chicago sort of conditioned me to grin and bear the pain… good things happen to those who don’t have a heart attack before the final whistle.
All I know is: thank God for that President’s Trophy and the game 7 home ice that comes with it.
Filed in: vancouver canucks, website business, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
scf,
vancouver+canucks
When Vancouver Loses, They Like to be Showy About it
by Alanah McGinley on 06/07/11 at 01:10 AM ET
Comments (0)
Kaboom. And Bruins win 8-1.
Geezus, that wasn’t so much a ‘loss’ as it was an execution.
Anyway, most important thing: I hope there’s good news about Nathan Horton later. That was terrible to see, and I think we can reasonably expect not to see Aaron Rome back in this series, as I’m sure the NHL will inform us all on Tuesday. (Note: NHL hearing with Rome is at 11am.)
As for the rest of that game… I’m going to have to resort to that old standby “Not tonight dear, I have a headache.” But I’ll try and post some video for you to watch soon (*Also a phrase I’ve used before. Weird).
God, what an atrocious game—it was like a game 4 Canucks - Blackhawks redux. And that wasn’t much fun the first time, either.
Update 9:02pm PT: Alain Vigneault, post-game press conference video and transcript are here.
Filed in: playoff hockey, vancouver canucks, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: alain+vigneault,
boston+bruins,
vancouver+canucks
Canucks/Bruins Game 3—Open Post
by Alanah McGinley on 06/06/11 at 09:30 PM ET
Comments (39)
Canucks at Bruins: 5pm PT. (Puckdrop @ 5:20)
Scratches: Hamhuis, Ballard, Samuelsson, Glass, Tanev, Bolduc, Hodgson. (via Wharnsby)
Pre-Game Stuff:
- My 5 things about tonight’s game
- Enter the contest for a couple Reebok Canucks Western Conference Champ t-shirts!
- So, Canucks took 7 to win round 1, 6 to win round two, 5 to win round 3. And round 4? (Just saying. It’s a fun pattern.)
- Canucks fans in Boston sleeping in their rental cars tonight.
- And don’t forget: U.S. may be our allies, but Boston is the enemy! (Hey, they started it…)
*Art is credit to the talented Toyebot
Filed in: playoff hockey, vancouver canucks, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
stanley+cup+finals,
vancouver+canucks
Bruins/Canucks Game Three—5 Things to Watch
by Alanah McGinley on 06/06/11 at 05:40 PM ET
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1. Goaltending:
So far, Roberto Luongo and Tim Thomas are the featured players in this Stanley Cup Finals goalie duel, one that Justin Goldman of NHL.com describes as a “rare opportunity to watch two world collide.”
Thomas took a lot of criticism for his gaffe in game 2’s OT, but I personally don’t believe it was much warranted. We expect our goalies to take chances. If Thomas thwarts Alex Burrows in a shot coming in on his right, he’d have been hailed as a genius for taking away a very good shooting spot from Burrows. As it happened, Burrows faked him out, his defense had a breakdown, and the rest is history.
That doesn’t make Thomas a goat for game 2… he simply played the odds and he lost.
Filed in: playoff hockey, vancouver canucks, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
stanley+cup+playoffs,
vancouver+canucks
Canucks Lead Series 2-0—VIDEO
by Alanah McGinley on 06/05/11 at 01:15 AM ET
Comments (10)
UPDATED
Lots of video here. First, downtown Vancouver errupts…
Next, Alex Burrows’s game winner, called by CBC:
Filed in: playoff hockey, vancouver canucks, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: alex+burrows,
boston+bruins,
cbc,
daniel+sedin,
manny+malhotra,
nbc,
vancouver+canucks
Canucks/Bruins Q&A
by Alanah McGinley on 05/30/11 at 05:10 PM ET
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Blogger Nikolay Dudaev, an NHL writer at the Russian sports site Tribuna Sports, was kind enough to ask me (and some other Canucks and Bruins folks) a series of questions on the Boston - Vancouver matchup starting on Wednesday. I was glad to oblige—after all, I figure there’s an outside chance I sound far more brilliantly insightful when translated into Russian, than I do in English.
But as for the English, here it is. Alas, not so ‘brilliantly insightful’, but it’s a starting point for my series preview which should be up tomorrow.
1. When it became clear that Vancouver was in the Final how did you feel?
I was excited to see that Vancouver made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, of course, but very nervous, too. Usually the stress is over for Canucks fans by June, since we’re usually drowning our sorrows in beer and writing team eulogies. Not that I’m complaining.
Filed in: playoff hockey, vancouver canucks, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
stanley+cup+finals,
vancouver+canucks
Bruins Fans Share Big Expectations
by Alanah McGinley on 05/28/11 at 03:44 PM ET
Comments (3)
So, my little poll last night shows about 80% of respondents favoring Vancouver to win the series… but I suppose the opposite results are appearing on some Boston dude’s blog today, too. I haven’t looked around the ‘net yet, but “unbiased” probably doesn’t apply to any of us.
Still, Boston fans are feeling seriously confident.
The video below is from NESN, and catches the excitement in Boston after their big win last night. (Not to mention, a whole lot of Bruins fans making some big predictions about kicking some Vancouver butt…)
Filed in: playoff hockey, vancouver canucks, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
hockey+fans,
stanley+cup+finals
Checking in on the Canucks Rumors
by Alanah McGinley on 10/02/08 at 06:09 PM ET
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From the Canucks—
They say preseason doesn’t mean anything but don’t tell that to the Canucks, who are undefeated so far in the preseason after five games with two remaining on their schedule. While the games aren’t worth points or standings, the wins don’t hurt and going into the regular season with some confidence can only be encouraging, especially after a summer of change and many skeptics.
Skeptics? Us? Well, sure. It’s what we do, after all. Still, last night’s thrashing of Miika and the Flames was a pleasure to behold, so fans should enjoy the winning streak while it lasts. Pre-season or not, I’ll take my happy moments wherever I can get them and tonight’s game will be online at Canucks.com at 7pm Pacific. (Update: Game feed will be available directly at this link starting at 6:55 pm PT)
Meanwhile, what about those “Kevin Bieksa and Taylor Pyatt to Boston for Marc Savard” rumors?
Filed in: vancouver canucks, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
kevin+bieksa,
marc+savard,
peter+chiarelli,
taylor+pyatt
Boston Must Be Stopped
by Alanah McGinley on 02/02/08 at 09:23 PM ET
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Quoted in the AP today (via the Miami Herald), Jerry O’Connell has had enough:
“I’m sick of Boston winning so much. It’s like a monopoly,” the actor told The Associated Press on Saturday as he partied with friends at Maxim magazine’s sprawling pre-Super Bowl party.
O’Connell, who stars in ABC’s comedy “Carpoolers,” jokingly called for some serious intervention if Boston’s teams monopolize all sports championships.
“It looks like the Celtics are going to win the season as well,” O’Connell said. “If the Boston Bruins, the NHL team, wins, the federal government has to break them up. They have to take a team away - they have to.”
Geez… If he thinks Boston deserves the attention of the U.S. Federal government, just imagine how he’d feel if the Detroit Red Wings were on his radar…
(And they should be—O’Connell looked a bit like an Anaheim Ducks fan last June…)
Filed in: dumb stuff, nhl general, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
jerry+o'connell,
nba,
nfl,
superbowl
Hockey Soup
by Alanah McGinley on 11/15/07 at 05:20 PM ET
Comments (0)
Without any common theme, some random odds & ends stories and related NHL commentary from this past week.
First, about the head injuries:
Filed in: nhl general, | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: boston+bruins,
chicago+blackhawks,
eric+lindros,
jiri+tlusty,
toronto+maple+leafs