from Ed Willes of the Vancouver Province,

It's hard to know when the forces of evil kidnapped the Western Conference and held it for ransom in Jacques Lemaire's basement. The L.A. Kings Stanley Cup victory? Maybe. But, long before the Kings hoisted the chalice, the darkness had already taken hold in St. Louis, in Nashville, in Phoenix, in Minnesota.

The erosion of the Detroit Red Wings? That might have had more to do with it. When the Wings were winning, there was still the idea that you could have success with speed and skill. When they began to deteriorate, it became easier to align yourself with Satan.

But, however it happened, make no mistake this is the world in which the Vancouver Canucks now find themselves in the West. It is a violent world. It's an unforgiving world. And the only way to have success in that world is to be as mean and ugly as the cloven-hooved opposition.

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