Ever wonder why nobody has written a book called 'The Senators before Daniel Alfredsson: A Retrospective' or commissioned a painting entitled 'Accomplishments of the post-expansion era Leafs' is because those are fucking stupid ideas that swell those teams' fanbases with disgust, scorn and regret.
So what's different between that and this drawn out 40th Anniversary celebration the Vancouver Canucks have pulled out this year?
Side note: Canucks ownership, to their credit, have milked the 'vintage' program that the National Hockey League rolled out a few years ago. The Canucks were able to sell a buttload of blue and green merchandise before emblazoning a differet logo on it a few years down the road and selling a buttload more.
Now, this 40th Anniversary Celebration has everything. A book commissioned by the Canucks celebrating their history. Jerseys without nameplates. Honouring former pluggers who scored 62 goals with the team and never having played a playoff game with them.
Sure, it may be fun to look at the past, but when three quarters of your all-time team are in the starting lineup in late October, you should probably lay off on the pomp and ceremony until you win something.
As a Canucks fan can best tell you, here is a brief history of the Vancouver Canucks, sans colourful pictures or waxing poetic about Jack McIlhargey:
1970: The Canucks enter the NHL as part of the Eastern Division and fail to take advantage of any 'Eastern Bias' and go 24-46-8.
1982: Roger Neilsen surrenders in a playoff game against Chicago. This somehow starts the third most popular playoff tradition in Vancouver: Waving white towels at home games. The other most popular playoff traditions are bitching about how we started the towel thing, and bitching about Roberto Luongo on sportstalk radio.
1985: The Canucks allow 401 goals, a league high.
1988: Trevor Linden.
1993: Pavel Bure.
1994: Kirk McLean.
1999: Brian Burke wheels and deals to land two high draft picks, giving the Canucks the Sedin twins, who will eventually become the best players in franchise history and the most reviled by fans.
2004: Hockey punch player.
2010: After years of suffering, a Canuck finally wins the Hart Trophy as the player who has been judged most valuable to his team. Tangible value in the playoffs: absolutely none.
Other sports books that have been commissioned by Canucks Sports & Entertainment include 'Counting to 13' by Jason Armstead and 'How to make friends and influence people' by Hedo Turkgolu.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment