Like a bad top 40 tune from the 70s: "It's over... It's over... It's over... yeah, yeah yeah..." And it was over no matter what Vancouver did as Nashville gained a regulation-time win over St. Louis. Too bad.
And as I wrote the last time, I've stopped caring very much. I haven't stopped wishing, nor will I stop cheering for excellence whenever it appears. It's just that right now, the slogan, "We are all Canucks" feels too much like "We are all losers".
Friday, April 04, 2008
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Oh, the woes of a Vancouver Canucks fan...
It's either woe, or you stop caring very much what the next game will bring. The talent isn't changing from night to night but the coach doesn't know how to bring out their best night after night.
After the trouncing of Calgary on Sunday, it seemed anything, including a Stanley Cup was possible. At least if that team showed up again, finally. But on Thursday, yet again, sure as Stanley Park in rain, a two goal lead goes down the drain and the fans can feel the pain of fate. Fate out of our hands: someone else has to lose now, for Vancouver to get in -- and, like as not, embarrass themselves and everyone else in in bowing to the Detroit Red Wings in five or six, if they're lucky. Most likely it'd be four straight though.
If this team isn't tough to recognize come training camp next fall, I predict falling gates, falling excitement unless the team's commitment to charitable causes keeps them in the hearts of the populace more effectively than their on-ice performance has.
The good news is, the Giants are in the 2nd round in the WHL, with very little of their core mindset disturbed from what it was. Will they own the W's berth in the Memorial Cup again? Who knows! Go, Giants, Go!
After the trouncing of Calgary on Sunday, it seemed anything, including a Stanley Cup was possible. At least if that team showed up again, finally. But on Thursday, yet again, sure as Stanley Park in rain, a two goal lead goes down the drain and the fans can feel the pain of fate. Fate out of our hands: someone else has to lose now, for Vancouver to get in -- and, like as not, embarrass themselves and everyone else in in bowing to the Detroit Red Wings in five or six, if they're lucky. Most likely it'd be four straight though.
If this team isn't tough to recognize come training camp next fall, I predict falling gates, falling excitement unless the team's commitment to charitable causes keeps them in the hearts of the populace more effectively than their on-ice performance has.
The good news is, the Giants are in the 2nd round in the WHL, with very little of their core mindset disturbed from what it was. Will they own the W's berth in the Memorial Cup again? Who knows! Go, Giants, Go!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The NHL, injuries and suspensions
I wrote yesterday about some of the longterm effects of an injury in the NHL. Today, I'd like to wrte about a gap in the NHL's disciplinary process as it relates to injuries and suspensions.
The Vancouver Canucks have lost a lot of player-games to injury this year, but one of the most galling recent events was the knee-on-knee check to rookie Mason Raymond which could have ended his career before it's properly begun. No penalty was assessed on the play. No suspension handed out subsequently, but even if this weren't the Canucks, my home town team, we were talking about, I would still say that when a single check results in injuries, especially to the head, the kneck, the spine or a knee, something more needs to be done.
Even if the hit itself is "clean" from a hockey point of view, the play should be reviewed for intent to injure. And the standard at that point should turn on its head: guilty (at least to some extent) unless proven innocent beyond all reasonable doubt. The guilt could perhaps be pro-rated but the player causing the injury should be suspended for at least half the games that the victim misses as a result of the injury, at least for one season's worth of games. Some have said that coaches are culpable for the injuries their players inflict when there's cause to believe that the coach said, "Go get him, boys." But if a coach knew that some of his players could be lost to him if they do serious damage to the other players, then they would be less likely to let any dogs of war slip.
By that rule, I know, Bertuzzi would probably have been out for much longer after the Steve Moore incident. But conversely, the Steve Moore incident might never have happened because Moore would have been off for all or most of the games that Näslund was missing as a result of the concussion and there wouldn't have been the sense of injustice that set up that incident in the first place.
In the same way, Mason Raymond's checker would be gone now, too, to the detriment of his team -- and if that had been the potential price, waiting at the boards with knee extended as was done to Raymond, might have been coached out of the perp's common practice. Clean, hard hits are one thing. Clean, hard hits with slew-footed variations are quite another and if the NHL really cared about the long-term health of its players, the punishments would fit the crimes. They wouldn't be subject to the whims of a league office whose decisions are open, all too often, to charges of partiality on grounds that most fans cannot begin to understand, especially those that have watched one or the other of their stars be sidelined for significant numbers of games.
The Vancouver Canucks have lost a lot of player-games to injury this year, but one of the most galling recent events was the knee-on-knee check to rookie Mason Raymond which could have ended his career before it's properly begun. No penalty was assessed on the play. No suspension handed out subsequently, but even if this weren't the Canucks, my home town team, we were talking about, I would still say that when a single check results in injuries, especially to the head, the kneck, the spine or a knee, something more needs to be done.
Even if the hit itself is "clean" from a hockey point of view, the play should be reviewed for intent to injure. And the standard at that point should turn on its head: guilty (at least to some extent) unless proven innocent beyond all reasonable doubt. The guilt could perhaps be pro-rated but the player causing the injury should be suspended for at least half the games that the victim misses as a result of the injury, at least for one season's worth of games. Some have said that coaches are culpable for the injuries their players inflict when there's cause to believe that the coach said, "Go get him, boys." But if a coach knew that some of his players could be lost to him if they do serious damage to the other players, then they would be less likely to let any dogs of war slip.
By that rule, I know, Bertuzzi would probably have been out for much longer after the Steve Moore incident. But conversely, the Steve Moore incident might never have happened because Moore would have been off for all or most of the games that Näslund was missing as a result of the concussion and there wouldn't have been the sense of injustice that set up that incident in the first place.
In the same way, Mason Raymond's checker would be gone now, too, to the detriment of his team -- and if that had been the potential price, waiting at the boards with knee extended as was done to Raymond, might have been coached out of the perp's common practice. Clean, hard hits are one thing. Clean, hard hits with slew-footed variations are quite another and if the NHL really cared about the long-term health of its players, the punishments would fit the crimes. They wouldn't be subject to the whims of a league office whose decisions are open, all too often, to charges of partiality on grounds that most fans cannot begin to understand, especially those that have watched one or the other of their stars be sidelined for significant numbers of games.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The Real Problem with the Canucks
I am amused to hear the moaning and wailing in the Vancouver sports media over the stumbling of the Canucks. Last night, with a 4-0 loss to Minnesota, Vancouver's current spot is 9th in the west, out of the playoffs. When I said to a friend, who has "Oilers" tattooed on his heart, that I didn't much care about the fate of the Canucks, he said, "What? Off the bandwagon?"
No. But the Canucks have managed my expectations to the point where nothing surprises me, certainly not the under-performance that we see. Vancouver has suffered with over 82 man-games of injuries on the blue line alone, so that any success they've had is surprising. But the problem goes deeper.
It's not Näslund's fault. It's not the Sedins' fault. And it's certainly not Luongo's fault. The problems with the Canucks are behind the bench with Defensive Co-ordinator / Minor Leaguer Alain Vigneault and Management Trainee Dave Nonis. Don't get me wrong. Both of these men have shown flashes of brilliance. Both of them have their strengths and their talents, but neither of them have what it really takes to excel at the positions they occupy.
For Nonis, two things. First, a good GM gets the trades done. He makes gambits and wins some, loses others. Hopefully he wins more than he loses. But this GM has essentially buried what assets he has in the ground, not even depositing them in the bank for interest, hoping the fans, his ultimate masters, don't notice the bits of dirt collecting at the edges of his coins every time he pulls them out of the ground.
Second, a good GM recognizes when his coach isn't getting things done before it's screaming out at everyone else. And he does something about it. I'm not saying he does things like the gotta-be-a-winner-myself antics in New Jersey where the GM takes over the coaching role so that it can be his name on the Stanley Cup, which then disappears into thin air. But a good GM recognizes a coach's limitations before the front office's collective nose is rubbed in it. What is Vigneault's weakness?
He's a defensive co-ordinator masquerading as a coach. Crafting a stifling defense without fostering a sniper or two for every line does not win anything lasting. Last year everything came together and Vigneault's negative effects on his snipers hadn't materialized yet but I'm getting ahead of myself. The common cry in the Sun, on the TEAM, wherever is "Where's Nazzy?" "Why are they paying this guy to do nothing?" I have a theory.
The loyal Näslund has not yet lived-down the unfair treatment of his loyal friend, Todd Bertuzzi. Bertuzzi can be called all kinds of things but to say that he was primarily responsible for Steve Moore's injury strikes me as one-dimensional. To me, the biggest culprit is the league who regularly fail to deal with players who dish out injuries with any consistency or proportionality, but that's another story. If Moore had been suspended after his concussive hit on Näslund, the rest of what's happened since would have been hypothetical.
That not having happened, the Canucks lost sight of the (eventually 9-4!) scoreboard and Bertuzzi went after Moore. Watch the tape again. There's no way that #44's hit on Moore is what injured him. What finished him off was the dog pile, part Canucks, part Avalanche putting pressure on his head at ice level. So the first guy in is the easiest one to punish, the guy with the target painted on his back but to lay all the retribution on that one guy isn't fair, and doesn't appear so to a fair-minded guy like Marcus Näslund. You could argue that he should have gotten past that by now but he hasn't. Real men with a real sense of justice sometimes have that problem. They do eventually put it behind them and probably Marcus will get there eventually. He just hasn't yet.
But great coaches get into their players' heads and get them past this kind of thing. Vigneault's long-term successes so far has been with kids. Judging from his performance with Näslund, he doesn't have a clue about the kind of mental surgery an adult player living with those contradictions needs in order to get him out of a slump. His treatment of Trevor Linden (for heart, easily the Stevie-Y of Vancouver) shows him up in even worse light: that he doesn't know how to motivate any adults, let alone those living with the perception of past injustice.
And that's ironic. In Don Hay of the Giants, we have a guy who did it all at the professional level (not to mention Kevin Constantine behind the bench of his arch-rivals in Everett) but seems to prefer staying at the junior level. In Vigneualt, we have a guy who should have stayed there awhile longer. And above Vigneault we have a GM who can't see how deep and crippling the weaknesses of his coach are.
And surrounding them all we have a cadré of pres who see all the problems as being on the ice and in the locker room, alternately praising Luongo for his brilliance or villifying him for throwing his comrades under a bus and leaving them when his wife is about to give birth after a hard pregnancy. And fixated on Näslund's under-performance: yes it is his problem but we know what's under that skin and good coaches bring the great out of their players by any means necessary.
But the pres is wrong: the problems right now are in the front office and behind the bench. And now that the Aquilinis have finished establishing their claim to legitimate ownership of the team, perhaps they can deal with them in the off-season and turn this team into champions at more than the box office. It's probably too late for us to derive maximum benefit from Luongo and Näslund. It may even be too late in the case of the Sedins, Morrison, Ohlund and Salo. I hope not, but I'm a realist.
All I want is that when the ad says, "We are all Canucks," that I don't have a voice in the back of my mind saying, "We are all Cannots," strapped to a wheel of coulda-woulda-shoulda-mights. And that goes beyond on-ice leadership and performance to the guys behind the bench and in the front office. Gas the GM, gas the coach, but have a plan in place when you do, not like the last time, when Brian Burke was the guy that should have stayed and then maybe none of this circus would have happened.
No. But the Canucks have managed my expectations to the point where nothing surprises me, certainly not the under-performance that we see. Vancouver has suffered with over 82 man-games of injuries on the blue line alone, so that any success they've had is surprising. But the problem goes deeper.
It's not Näslund's fault. It's not the Sedins' fault. And it's certainly not Luongo's fault. The problems with the Canucks are behind the bench with Defensive Co-ordinator / Minor Leaguer Alain Vigneault and Management Trainee Dave Nonis. Don't get me wrong. Both of these men have shown flashes of brilliance. Both of them have their strengths and their talents, but neither of them have what it really takes to excel at the positions they occupy.
For Nonis, two things. First, a good GM gets the trades done. He makes gambits and wins some, loses others. Hopefully he wins more than he loses. But this GM has essentially buried what assets he has in the ground, not even depositing them in the bank for interest, hoping the fans, his ultimate masters, don't notice the bits of dirt collecting at the edges of his coins every time he pulls them out of the ground.
Second, a good GM recognizes when his coach isn't getting things done before it's screaming out at everyone else. And he does something about it. I'm not saying he does things like the gotta-be-a-winner-myself antics in New Jersey where the GM takes over the coaching role so that it can be his name on the Stanley Cup, which then disappears into thin air. But a good GM recognizes a coach's limitations before the front office's collective nose is rubbed in it. What is Vigneault's weakness?
He's a defensive co-ordinator masquerading as a coach. Crafting a stifling defense without fostering a sniper or two for every line does not win anything lasting. Last year everything came together and Vigneault's negative effects on his snipers hadn't materialized yet but I'm getting ahead of myself. The common cry in the Sun, on the TEAM, wherever is "Where's Nazzy?" "Why are they paying this guy to do nothing?" I have a theory.
The loyal Näslund has not yet lived-down the unfair treatment of his loyal friend, Todd Bertuzzi. Bertuzzi can be called all kinds of things but to say that he was primarily responsible for Steve Moore's injury strikes me as one-dimensional. To me, the biggest culprit is the league who regularly fail to deal with players who dish out injuries with any consistency or proportionality, but that's another story. If Moore had been suspended after his concussive hit on Näslund, the rest of what's happened since would have been hypothetical.
That not having happened, the Canucks lost sight of the (eventually 9-4!) scoreboard and Bertuzzi went after Moore. Watch the tape again. There's no way that #44's hit on Moore is what injured him. What finished him off was the dog pile, part Canucks, part Avalanche putting pressure on his head at ice level. So the first guy in is the easiest one to punish, the guy with the target painted on his back but to lay all the retribution on that one guy isn't fair, and doesn't appear so to a fair-minded guy like Marcus Näslund. You could argue that he should have gotten past that by now but he hasn't. Real men with a real sense of justice sometimes have that problem. They do eventually put it behind them and probably Marcus will get there eventually. He just hasn't yet.
But great coaches get into their players' heads and get them past this kind of thing. Vigneault's long-term successes so far has been with kids. Judging from his performance with Näslund, he doesn't have a clue about the kind of mental surgery an adult player living with those contradictions needs in order to get him out of a slump. His treatment of Trevor Linden (for heart, easily the Stevie-Y of Vancouver) shows him up in even worse light: that he doesn't know how to motivate any adults, let alone those living with the perception of past injustice.
And that's ironic. In Don Hay of the Giants, we have a guy who did it all at the professional level (not to mention Kevin Constantine behind the bench of his arch-rivals in Everett) but seems to prefer staying at the junior level. In Vigneualt, we have a guy who should have stayed there awhile longer. And above Vigneault we have a GM who can't see how deep and crippling the weaknesses of his coach are.
And surrounding them all we have a cadré of pres who see all the problems as being on the ice and in the locker room, alternately praising Luongo for his brilliance or villifying him for throwing his comrades under a bus and leaving them when his wife is about to give birth after a hard pregnancy. And fixated on Näslund's under-performance: yes it is his problem but we know what's under that skin and good coaches bring the great out of their players by any means necessary.
But the pres is wrong: the problems right now are in the front office and behind the bench. And now that the Aquilinis have finished establishing their claim to legitimate ownership of the team, perhaps they can deal with them in the off-season and turn this team into champions at more than the box office. It's probably too late for us to derive maximum benefit from Luongo and Näslund. It may even be too late in the case of the Sedins, Morrison, Ohlund and Salo. I hope not, but I'm a realist.
All I want is that when the ad says, "We are all Canucks," that I don't have a voice in the back of my mind saying, "We are all Cannots," strapped to a wheel of coulda-woulda-shoulda-mights. And that goes beyond on-ice leadership and performance to the guys behind the bench and in the front office. Gas the GM, gas the coach, but have a plan in place when you do, not like the last time, when Brian Burke was the guy that should have stayed and then maybe none of this circus would have happened.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Two Young Stars at Once
Considering Vancouver's game last night against, Anaheim and the synergy of Mason Raymond and Jason Jaffrey, I was wondering if...
As in English Football, where different pairs of players are often brought in to the national side from different teams so they can have some level of natural synergy in key places, I wonder if it would make sense to groom pairs of young guns with a view to bringing them up to the NHL simultaneously, intentionally.
Now all that is probably not a "magic bullet" -- just look at the way the San Jose is beating up on Vancouver tonight. 3-0 after two periods. sigh...
As in English Football, where different pairs of players are often brought in to the national side from different teams so they can have some level of natural synergy in key places, I wonder if it would make sense to groom pairs of young guns with a view to bringing them up to the NHL simultaneously, intentionally.
Now all that is probably not a "magic bullet" -- just look at the way the San Jose is beating up on Vancouver tonight. 3-0 after two periods. sigh...
Monday, May 14, 2007
Memorial Cup hullo?
So, the Memorial Cup is Canada's biggest trophy in Junior Hockey. And two of the teams going to the big party are the Lewiston MAINE-iacs (from the Q) and the Plymouth (Michigan) Whalers (from the OHL). Go figure. And the other two participants-to-be are still playing each other in the WHL best-of-seven, to be decided tonight. May the best team win and all that, but I gotta say that I'll be cheering for Medicine Hat and Vancouver above the other two options and it won't entirely be because the WHL is the part of the CHL covered by where I live.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Canucks gone -- New Jersey gone
I hear Roberto Luongo took responsibility for the Canucks' overtime loss. Before we give that to him, we should also give him the responsibility for the Canucks being in the playoffs at all, let alone into the second round, as indeed the commentator who mentioned his tearful mea culpa also said. Don't cry too hard, Lu II (after Lui Passaglia, the longtime BC Lions kicker). 07/08 is another season and you've made Nonis look like a genius already.
I also read that it was Brodeur who couldn't carry New Jersey through to the third round, to which I won't dispute or agree strongly. I am glad to see Lou Lamoriello's idiocy in firing his winning coach days before the playoff start paid back in the most fitting manner imaginable. You da man, eh, Lou? I don't think so.
And what are the odds that a good coach will ever go to New Jersey so long as such caprice might be exercised against him? I think the ownership of the Devils would be wise to encourage Lou's retirement (at least from the top job) before they go out looking for a bench boss appropriate to the level of talent that still fills their locker room.
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