Canucks and Beyond

A friend of mine eagerly awaited February’s issue of Stuff Magazine last week, and when it finally arrived he was quick to pass on a bit of news.

So what could possibly interest me from an issue of Stuff Magazine? Well, this article had some potential: “What Song Did You Lose Your Virginity To?”

Various celebrities answered the question, including the L.A. Kings’ resident lady charmer, Sean Avery. And his response?

“Love Hurts” because “I didn’t want her to get her hopes up,” said Avery.

___________________________

Note #1: I’ll confess, Sean Avery is sort of growing on me over the years. He’s just the gift that keeps on giving…
Note #2: Lyrics to Love Hurts. (beware of pop-ups)

From CBC,

It’s been called “Canada’s Second National Anthem.” It’s heard on backyard rinks, frozen ponds across the country, the asphalt tarmac of an air base serving Canadian troops in Afghanistan — wherever Canadians gather with sticks in hand.
Dun-dun-DUN-DUN-dah…
Come Saturday, the Hockey Night in Canada Theme will echo in the Selkirk Mountains around Nelson, a city of about 10,000 people in B.C.‘s Southern Interior.

And so finally, Hockey Fan Christmas officially begins. Here’s some stuff on the schedule:

A collection of random quotes from the hockey world this week.*

“When you coach against him, you notice some of the breakdowns, but not as many as when he’s on your team.”

Edmonton Oilers coach Craig MacTavish commenting on his ex-player Mike Comrie, recently traded to Ottawa.

Released in this morning’s financial news:

Shoemaker Crocs Inc. has signed licensing agreements with the National Football League and the National Hockey League.
The Niwot company (NASDAQ: CROX) said Wednesday it will begin manufacturing its distinctive clogs with the logos for all 32 NFL teams and all 30 NHL teams. Shoes with the team logos will begin appearing before the end of the current season, but roll out with a full introduction before the start of the 2007-2008 season.

Wow. Hockey fashionistas must be drooling.

To start things off on a good footing, I’ve developed potential advertising campaigns for Crocs and the NHL to work out jointly. In the interests of time, I’ve just done the top 4 teams in the Western Conference. (It’s not like anyone’s paying for my sound business advice…)

A while back, Global Television did a series on the 7 Greatest Canucks of all time. Since the team is currently on a 7-game win-streak and I just tossed off a list of the Best 7 Players in the Last 7, there continue to be signs of number 7 strangeness.

For instance, the first video issued in that series was a profile on Harold Snepsts, #27, which a good hockey fan was kind enough to upload to YouTube on January 7, 2007.

Yeah, I think I’m getting carried away with the #7, but what the hell.

Anyway, I also thought that all this recent Rory Fitzpatrick business made it a perfectly good moment to bring a little Snepsts into everyone’s life. After all, this hard-working, lunch-bucket player made it to two NHL All Star games—1977 and 1982.

This week’s hockey talk and links to the fan writers of the game.

Eyes on the Prize runs down the evidence and asks: Who’s better: Crosby or Ovechkin? Compare the video and decide. And along the same theme you can also head Mike Chen’s direction where he explores the same issue, adding Evgeni Malkin for a bonus challenge.

Inspired by the NFL Playoffs—yet still for absolutely no defensible reason—I Googled “GOD LOVES FOOTBALL” yesterday. The result was 685 hits on the internet. Now, for some comparisons…

“GOD LOVES HOCKEY”... a mere 60 hits. Bad, sure, but guess who’s really going to hell? “GOD LOVES BASEBALL” produces only 44 hits and “GOD LOVES BASKETBALL” has only 5.

The reason this is all very important (no, not really) is that I’m pretty sure God and His Internet Keyword Army have got it wrong.

Congratulations to Canada. Fun to watch, great to win.

This week is also the 20 year anniversary of another very memorable WJC game between these two teams. Canada and Russia met in 1987 at the World Junior’s in Czechoslovakia for an infamous battle—which was quite literally a battle.

A report on TSN the other day reminded me of the fight, with some great “20 Years Later” interviews with a few of the players, including Mike Keenan, Theo Fleury and Sergei Federov. The Wikipedia provides this re-telling of the incident, and is fairly accurate as far as I know it. There’s also a video of the events below.

One of the most infamous incidents in WJHC history occurred in 1987 in Piestany, Czechoslovakia where a massive bench clearing brawl between Canada and the Soviet Union led to both teams being disqualified from the tournament. While the Soviets were out of medal contention, Canada was playing for the gold medal, and were leading 4-2 at the time of the brawl. It began when Pavel Kostichkin took a two handed slash at Theoren Fleury beginning the melee. The Soviet Union’s Evgeny Davydov was the first player off the bench, leading to both benches clearing. The officials could not break up the fight so they left the ice and eventually tried turning out the arena lights. The brawl lasted for 20 minutes. Afterwards, Soviet hockey official Anatoly Kastriukov claimed a trainer for the Canadian team had fuelled hostilities by coming over to the Soviet bench and pummelling one of their assistant coaches. The Canadians maintained that the Soviets had started the brawl by leaving their bench first. Neither team was allowed to attend the players’ banquet at the end of the tournament.

With the Canucks playing well—at least for a few minutes—and the Red Wings getting ripped last night, I thought it would be fun to do a quick post-game ‘analysis’ of that always-entertaining team. (God, how I’ve missed a bit of trash-talk…)

And this time I don’t even have to make crap up or do bad photoshoppery… reality is more than enough fun.

Let’s start with The Dominator…

Rory Fitzpatrick dropped to 3rd place by the end of All Star voting the other day. Ritch, the American Hockey Fan, has something to say about whole debacle:

Many people have criticized it, Don Cherry among them, who said “the league is not a joke, and this is a joke.” To that, I respectfully disagree, especially seeing as Grapes happens to be a personal hero of mine.

Look- while Vote for Rory might be funny, it’s not JUST a joke. It’s a legitimate effort to insert some new blood into the NHL All Star game, and reward a player who has worked his ass off to stay in this league. If some people want to laugh, fine. But has baseball, basketball or football ever suggested anything this cool?

Read the whole post. It’s entertaining, plus he finishes it off with a pretty good zinger, if you ask me.

Some of this week’s world o’ hockey quotes—just odds and ends from the chatty guys of the NHL.

“You’ve got to have patience. If you’re a good player and you keep working hard, by the time you’re 18 or 19 someone’s going to notice you. It’s easy to sell your soul and give in, because the Western league will give you this and that. But if you really want to go play college ... if you have a dream, don’t doubt yourself.”

WJC Team Canada star Jonathan Towes has some advice for other players who worry that taking the college route to professional hockey might limit their career chances. Towes was drafted in 2006 by the Chicago Blackhawks.