I’ve not said anything in the debate about how penalties are being called this season. Generally I think enough people are already whining about it, and I’ve got little to add anyway. My opinion is that the refs often take an undeserved amount of crap from people as they work to find a balance between limiting obstruction, while still keeping the game moving. Mistakes are made, but that’s to be expected.

But last night’s Canucks/Wild game defied any explanation other than bad, bad officiating. So many problems, I don’t even know where to start. Fortunately, The Province’s Ed Willes pretty much nails it with his column today.

Here’s a portion:

The game lurched from whistle to whistle without cohesion or rhythm. Eighty per cent of the offence was produced on the power play. Players struggled to locate where the line was between fair and foul. […]

On a call that defied reason, [Jan Bulis] took a roughing minor during a battle for the puck with the Wild’s Todd White in the second period.

Eighty-six seconds later Kevin Bieksa was sent off for attempting to hold a member of the Wild during a post-whistle scrum.

The resulting five-on-three, we remind you, was in a tie game late in the second period.

“Oh my gawd,” said Bulis. “What the hell was that. I’ve never seen a call like that. It was a one-on-one battle. I’ve got both my hands on my stick. I didn’t hit him. I just kind of leaned into him.”

But this isn’t about one fluffed call or a misjudgment or even the video replay, which the Wild had a legitimate beef about. This is about the standard. This is about the game the NHL is trying to create.

And there are just too many games players, fans and the media, like Bulis, are wondering what the hell was that.

China-based reader GZ Expat had a great surprise on his blog the other day — he had photographed the street hockey game being enjoyed by his young son and his friends.

But geez, the kids need new sticks! Says Expat:

There is only 1 rink in Guangzhou…and its a 1/2 sized one in a shopping mall. They have a very small shop next to it with a couple of sticks for sale. Wooden sticks at composite prices.

The sad part is…most of the sticks are actually manufactured in China…its just a matter of finding the right contact.

The sticks you see were broken shafts that I have had since the early 80’s…with the plastic street hockey blade added to them.

What was amazing was how easily they all took to the game…and how much fun they were having.

Calgary’s home win streak just ran to 10 games, a club record, and understandably they’re feeling cocky and ready to beat anyone, particularly the ever-beatable Vancouver Canucks.

But they’d be wrong — Vancouver should kick their asses tonight.*

The other side of the equation is that Calgary has not won a road game since November 11th (when they beat on the Canucks… but let us just ignore that inconvenient fact). Meanwhile, the Canucks themselves are on fragile but steady streak of improvements. Scoring a few goals and sticking with some new lines for longer than 2 shifts, they should be equipped with more confidence.

Finally, I’d expect Roberto Luongo to be looking to make a statement with tonight’s game. We’ve all had enough of the Northwest Division making the Canucks look like a freakin’ expansion team — I bet Yo! Luongo has finally had enough of it, too.

P.S. Reps of Todd Bertuzzi and Steve Moore are meeting with Gary Bettman to possibly negotiate some resolution to their legal battles. Perhaps the end of this sad story is finally near? (Link found via Kukla’s)

____________________________________
*yes, it’s entirely possible I’m full of crap…

This week’s Thursday Quote Sheet is full of coaches. 9 quotes total.

(Thanks to everyone for the tips!)

Blue Jackets’ Anders Eriksson on Rick Nash getting slashed in a sensitive area: “He took one in the next generation.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday night we recorded the latest edition of The Crazy Canucks podcast.

Thank you to everyone who tunes into this chaotic show every week. I must admit, it’s a lot of fun to do.

Note: This episode starts out early with Dave O throwing out, “How’s it goin’, eh?”
(How Canadian is that?!)

There are many nice, misty-romantic pieces that can be found out there, remembering Jovo-Cop’s role on the Vancouver blueline. Honestly, I miss him too — I was always a fan.

But before we get too carried away with the remembering the good times, remember this (below) from The Province, July 2, 2006:

That’s $6.5 million bucks a season. For FIVE years. And this season has mostly been a rough ride for him — although picking up recently with a current total 16 points and a +1.

But in Vancouver, I’d guess it would be much worse. In Vigneault’s world of “defense first” I think Jovo would’ve have been completely lost. We’ve gone from Jovo-hockey to Mitchell-hockey. I think that just about says it all.

It’s nice to see one of my favourite D-men back in town though. He was crazy-fun to watch some nights.

Last week I had to opportunity to attend the Vancouver Canucks/ Edmonton Oilers game (or, as I like to call it, The Day Hope Died) and followed Edmonton radio and television analyst Morley Scott around to experience his busy game day schedule first-hand.

The result is this feature article. I hope you enjoy it.;-)

Negative campaigning is a surprising turn of events — witness some important reasons why Nicklas Lidstrom and Scott Niedermayer don’t even deserve to go to the All-Star game.

Flames Record:

With last night’s win over the Canucks, the Flames have a 9-game home ice winning streak, tying a franchise record achieved on four previous occasions. The only good news is that, if they do set a new record, it will be on the backs of the visiting Minnesota Wild Tuesday night. That wouldn’t make me cry.

VCOE Spam Boredom:

This website receives a minimum of 500 spam comments a day. Usually of the freakish-sexual variety, but occasionally of the buy-my-drugs variety. Regardless, there’s not enough real variety overall. If you spammer-freaks are going to keep making me read and delete this crap, give me something new. Anything.

The Blogspot Exclusive Club:

Many, many people who maintain hockey blogspot blogs have been converting their blogs lately, making it so that only other blogspot users (not me) can comment. Presumably this is NOT to prevent comment spam since that can be achieved with “word verification”. Maybe you just don’t want me (and many others) to comment on your work? Perfectly understandable in reference to me, but maybe a stupid idea in general.

Tony Gallagher:

He wrote another column today. Why must he keep doing that?

Christmas:

It’s already December 10th. Wow. Only two weeks left. For people with no life, here’s some help. (Personally, I was turned off as soon as I saw the word “list”…)

Warning: really stupid hockey blog post coming
But I didn’t make any of this up. And besides, being a Canucks fan, it takes a bit of creativity to make fun of anyone else this season… and I’m bored of making fun of my own team. It’s like shooting ducks in a barrel lately.

December 08, 2006
Press Release, Sports Features Communications

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING TO HOST POST-GAME CONCERT WITH GANDALF MURPHY & THE SLAMBOVIAN CIRCUS OF DREAMS

Concert Immediately Follows the Tampa Bay Lightning v. New York Rangers Game on February 3

The Tampa Bay Lightning will host a post-game concert with Gandalf Murphy & the Slambovian Circus of Dreams on the Chrysler-Jeep Plaza immediately following the Lightning v. Rangers game on Saturday,February 3. All game tickets include the price of admission for the concert. […]

The official website of the Slambovian Circus of Dreams is charming. They’ve already produced many rocking hits, possibly in honor of the Lightning? Hits include:

– Look Ma, No Hands
– Fumes
– Flapjacks from the Sky
– Gonna Get Up
– I Wish
– Already Broken
– Silent Revolution
– Genius

Tickets: All game tickets include the post-game concert with Gandalf and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. AFS Club tickets are priced at $100 (regularly priced at $175), which includes your seat in the luxurious AFS Club, unlimited gourmet buffet, beer, wine and soda. Lower level seats are $60 (regularly priced at $100) and the last five rows of the terrace are $15 (Regularly priced at $20).

For $15 in Tampa, you can have: an NHL hockey game, a musical thingy, and unlimited “gourmet buffet, beer, wine and soda.”

For comparison: you can buy ONE BEER with $15 at GM Place. (Just add $500 for the other stuff.)

Anyway, enough of being jealous of Tampa fans, and back to making fun of their team…

Finally, the Slambovian Lightning’s Top Selling Album. (”Music that can heal what ails ya!”) Hard to say which ones, but I figure those are definitely Tampa players on the cover.

Last night against Carolina was such a high, it’s almost scary to hope for a second win in a row. But what the hell — we’re Canucks fans. Hope is like breathing. And food. And beer.

Canucks Hockey Blog noted a Vancouver Sun story today, claiming GM Dave Nonis ran a pep rally in the dressing room yesterday before game time. And as difficult a time as I have imagining such a thing, I find it even more unbelievable that the Vancouver Canucks actually scored 4 power play goals last night.

Or scored 4 goals period.

So, thanks Dave. And I sure hope you factored this Calgary game into your pep talk…

Depressing game. But this video featured on After Hours, CBC, numbed the pain a bit: 12 seconds of Alex Tanguay doing Colorado Idol.

1st Line: Naslund — Morrison — Cooke
2nd Line: Sedin — Sedin — Bulis

To be honest, I have no idea which is the first line and which is the 2nd. (Does anyone?) Now, injuries.

D Salo
C Rypien
RW Pyatt

And substitutions:

D Yannick Tremblay — Who hasn’t played an NHL game since January, 2004.

This whole deal almost leaves me speechless (though not quite — you only wish). I figure tonight is a must-win game on multiple levels. For one thing, they simply can’t afford to keep losing. They’re one game below .500 in a league where 21 out of 30 teams are playing over .500 hockey.

For another thing, this move screams desperation to most hockey fans and hockey writers. And while desperate moves are probably needed, putting Jan Bulis on with the Sedins is one serious doozy of desperate.

The Matt Cooke thing doesn’t shock me so much — one thing Cooke can do is clear bodies. If he can do that à la Bertuzzi-style, he’ll make Brendan Morrison and Markus Naslund very happy hockey players. I’ve been eager to see how this combination works, to be honest.

But the whole thing is still pretty chaotic and uncertain, and if the experiment fails horribly — either Cooke or Bulis — the media and fans are gonna eat this team alive.

The final thing to consider is who the Canucks are playing tonight — the Stanley Cup Champion Carolina Hurricanes. Not because the Hurricanes are storming the hockey world this season (33 points in 30 games isn’t much better than Vancouver’s own record of 27 points in 28 games) but because it’s an important measuring stick.

Can they play with these guys? The Canucks are usually a hard-working team, but they’re not a very skilled group as we well know. Turning the lines upside down and backwards could be just the tonic this team needs — or a disaster of comical-tragic proportions.

If you’re over the age of 19, I suggest a trip to the liquor store sometime before game time. If you’re under 19, just pass over this game and go play World of Warcraft or something… at least there you can resurrect your team every time it goes up in flames.