Urban Vancouver

Team Canada and Team Sweden are dueling it out at this very moment, the score currently 1-0 for Canada midway through the first.  Yesterday, Ken Campbell at THN wrote:

This semifinal represents everything that Canada and Sweden games usually are not. Under normal circumstances, Sweden is usually the team with the skill players and Canada almost always has a decided edge in goaltending. But that certainly won’t be the case when the two teams meet Friday.

The Swedes are sorely lacking NHL caliber talent up front, but they more than make up for that in goal where they have two-time Vezina Trophy finalist Henrik Lundqvist, a player who has an Olympic gold medal and an 11-2-4 record in World Championship play.

Campbell went on to write: “Advantage: Sweden (huge).”

Update 4:24pm PT: Winner: Canada (barely!)

To watch the game:

Continue reading "Game in Progress - Sweden/Canada"

Team Canada and Team Sweden are dueling it out at this very moment, the score currently 1-0 for Canada midway through the first.  Yesterday, Ken Campbell at THN wrote:

This semifinal represents everything that Canada and Sweden games usually are not. Under normal circumstances, Sweden is usually the team with the skill players and Canada almost always has a decided edge in goaltending. But that certainly won’t be the case when the two teams meet Friday.

The Swedes are sorely lacking NHL caliber talent up front, but they more than make up for that in goal where they have two-time Vezina Trophy finalist Henrik Lundqvist, a player who has an Olympic gold medal and an 11-2-4 record in World Championship play.

Campbell went on to write: “Advantage: Sweden (huge).”

Update 4:24pm PT: Winner: Canada (barely!)

To watch the game:

Continue reading "Game in Progress - Sweden/Canada"

Will Vigneault be fired in Vegas? The poll (below) indicates that most fans think so. But while I’m not a fan of the coach, I tend to agree (at least in part) with Iain MacIntyre via the National Post, who feels Viggy will get more time.

So, ask yourself: Would the GM include his coach in critical strategy sessions to finalize the Canucks’ entry-draft list, identify free-agent targets and generally plan for next season, then punt him? You know, so Vigneault could take his Jack Adams Trophy and the Canucks’ top-secret plans to another team?

Gillis is unconventional, but not mad.

Chances are the delay in clarifying Vigneault’s status is not due to the possible termination of his contract, but the possible extension of it. Vigneault has a year remaining and obviously would prefer not to be a lame duck, since the most recent one of those - Quenneville - will be pulling shotgun pellets from his rump for weeks.

Firing the Jack Adams-carrying coach is simply much riskier for Gillis than keeping him on another season.

Continue reading "Renewing the Vows in Vegas"

Will Vigneault be fired in Vegas? The poll (below) indicates that most fans think so. But while I’m not a fan of the coach, I tend to agree (at least in part) with Iain MacIntyre via the National Post, who feels Viggy will get more time.

So, ask yourself: Would the GM include his coach in critical strategy sessions to finalize the Canucks’ entry-draft list, identify free-agent targets and generally plan for next season, then punt him? You know, so Vigneault could take his Jack Adams Trophy and the Canucks’ top-secret plans to another team?

Gillis is unconventional, but not mad.

Chances are the delay in clarifying Vigneault’s status is not due to the possible termination of his contract, but the possible extension of it. Vigneault has a year remaining and obviously would prefer not to be a lame duck, since the most recent one of those - Quenneville - will be pulling shotgun pellets from his rump for weeks.

Firing the Jack Adams-carrying coach is simply much riskier for Gillis than keeping him on another season.

Continue reading "Renewing the Vows in Vegas"

Late Wednesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit in California accusing Samueli and Henry T. Nicholas III of manipulating stock options over a five-year period to attract coveted employees to their company, Broadcom Corp. The SEC has...

Geez, time flies, doesn’t it?  I can’t believe this happened nearly 5 years ago, but I think Vancouver fans will remember this story. From Marc Weber at The Province:

Chris Levesque lived every man’s dream when he suited up for the Vancouver Canucks in 2003, but that brush with the bigs also made it tougher to forget his own.

For all the fun and fanfare surrounding that day of real-life fantasy—plucked from studying on the UBC campus and thrust into the NHL spotlight—there was also an element of “what if?”

Levesque wasn’t just an emergency backup, after all. He was an emergency backup who came within a whisker of playing—famously working his gum on the bench while Johan Hedberg lay motionless after a first-period collision.

He’s now a sous chef in Vancouver with fond memories of that surreal experience. Back December of 2003, I wrote about Levesque’s brush with hockey fame, and with some envy…

Continue reading "Canuck-For-A-Day"

Geez, time flies, doesn’t it?  I can’t believe this happened nearly 5 years ago, but I think Vancouver fans will remember this story. From Marc Weber at The Province:

Chris Levesque lived every man’s dream when he suited up for the Vancouver Canucks in 2003, but that brush with the bigs also made it tougher to forget his own.

For all the fun and fanfare surrounding that day of real-life fantasy—plucked from studying on the UBC campus and thrust into the NHL spotlight—there was also an element of “what if?”

Levesque wasn’t just an emergency backup, after all. He was an emergency backup who came within a whisker of playing—famously working his gum on the bench while Johan Hedberg lay motionless after a first-period collision.

He’s now a sous chef in Vancouver with fond memories of that surreal experience. Back December of 2003, I wrote about Levesque’s brush with hockey fame, and with some envy…

Continue reading "Canuck-For-A-Day"

HockeyStars.com is doing a promotion (for Citzens Bank) for Canadian hockey fans:

Whether you’re on the ice, on the bench or in the stands, we know you love the game. And we know that you have a hockey moment that you can’t forget. Was it captured in a photo or on video? If so, that first winning goal, or clip of you cheering for your favourite player may turn out to be a winner!

All you need to do is submit a photo or video describing why it’s your Best Hockey Highlight by June 9, 2008.

Go here to find out more and check out some of the entries already on the site. (Open to Canadians only.)

In association with the HockeyStars promotion, Miss604 is giving away a couple of great hockey books. You can enter her May 20th draw if you leave a comment on her post.  Good luck!

HockeyStars.com is doing a promotion (for Citzens Bank) for Canadian hockey fans:

Whether you’re on the ice, on the bench or in the stands, we know you love the game. And we know that you have a hockey moment that you can’t forget. Was it captured in a photo or on video? If so, that first winning goal, or clip of you cheering for your favourite player may turn out to be a winner!

All you need to do is submit a photo or video describing why it’s your Best Hockey Highlight by June 9, 2008.

Go here to find out more and check out some of the entries already on the site. (Open to Canadians only.)

In association with the HockeyStars promotion, Miss604 is giving away a couple of great hockey books. You can enter her May 20th draw if you leave a comment on her post.  Good luck!

From Scott Burnside at ESPN,

Busy times in Vancouver as new owner Francesco Aquilini cries to the local papers every time he reads something that rankles him and with new GM Mike Gillis throwing everyone connected to the Dave Nonis regime under the bus. Now, Gillis is starting to rebuild the Canucks in his own image, announcing that he’s hired longtime NHLer Scott Mellanby to be a conduit between the team’s hockey operations and himself. [...]

The Canucks are holding their annual meetings in Las Vegas this week and Gillis is expected to make a final decision on whether to bring back coach Alain Vigneault. Sources have told ESPN.com that Vigneault rubbed some veteran players the wrong way and there is a strong suspicion Gillis will bring in his own coach.

That about sums it up, although I’m not sure how Burnside came up with the idea that Gillis is “throwing everyone connected to the Dave Nonis regime under the bus.” Perhaps he will, but not yet.

As for “sources” suggesting Vigneault rubbed some veteran players the wrong way… well, I don’t think you’d need sources any more complex than a television set and some common sense to have figured that one out.

Update 8:35am PT: A bit more on Mellanby, plus comments from Markus Naslund and Brendan Morrison…

Continue reading "Busy Days—From Vancouver to Vegas"

From Scott Burnside at ESPN,

Busy times in Vancouver as new owner Francesco Aquilini cries to the local papers every time he reads something that rankles him and with new GM Mike Gillis throwing everyone connected to the Dave Nonis regime under the bus. Now, Gillis is starting to rebuild the Canucks in his own image, announcing that he’s hired longtime NHLer Scott Mellanby to be a conduit between the team’s hockey operations and himself. [...]

The Canucks are holding their annual meetings in Las Vegas this week and Gillis is expected to make a final decision on whether to bring back coach Alain Vigneault. Sources have told ESPN.com that Vigneault rubbed some veteran players the wrong way and there is a strong suspicion Gillis will bring in his own coach.

That about sums it up, although I’m not sure how Burnside came up with the idea that Gillis is “throwing everyone connected to the Dave Nonis regime under the bus.” Perhaps he will, but not yet.

As for “sources” suggesting Vigneault rubbed some veteran players the wrong way… well, I don’t think you’d need sources any more complex than a television set and some common sense to have figured that one out.

Update 8:35am PT: A bit more on Mellanby, plus comments from Markus Naslund and Brendan Morrison…

Continue reading "Busy Days—From Vancouver to Vegas"

Jamie Fitzpatrick makes the point that the whining about officiating rarely notes that the officiating gaffes work both ways. More than a few comments around the blogosphere note the same point: Mike [Babcock] was steamed because his team had been...

No, he didn’t un-retire himself… he’s now a “consultant” with the team. From the Vancouver Canucks:

Vancouver Canucks General Manager Mike Gillis today announced that Scott Mellanby will join the club in the capacity of Consultant to the General Manager and Hockey Operations department. Mellanby played 20 years in the National Hockey League with five different teams.

“We are pleased that Scott has agreed to join our Hockey Operations department, his experiences in our League over two decades as a player will be a great asset to me and our entire department,” said Gillis. “Scott displayed strong leadership skills and character throughout his NHL career; these are the same qualities we are looking for as we build our team.”

Updates below...

Continue reading "Scott Mellanby Joins the Canucks"

No, he didn’t un-retire himself… he’s now a “consultant” with the team. From the Vancouver Canucks:

Vancouver Canucks General Manager Mike Gillis today announced that Scott Mellanby will join the club in the capacity of Consultant to the General Manager and Hockey Operations department. Mellanby played 20 years in the National Hockey League with five different teams.

“We are pleased that Scott has agreed to join our Hockey Operations department, his experiences in our League over two decades as a player will be a great asset to me and our entire department,” said Gillis. “Scott displayed strong leadership skills and character throughout his NHL career; these are the same qualities we are looking for as we build our team.”

Updates below...

Continue reading "Scott Mellanby Joins the Canucks"

From Ben Kuzma at Canwest (via the Guardian):

The coaching fate of the Vancouver Canucks’ Alain Vigneault will be determined by the end of this week in the most ironic of locations — the gambling heartland of Las Vegas.

With Canucks management and scouts assembling in the Nevada city for their annual meetings, new general manager Mike Gillis said Tuesday that Vigneault has been summoned from his home in Gatineau, Que., to face further scrutiny over the next two days.[...]

In his season-ending address, Vigneault defended his defensive style as one that is common throughout the NHL. Still, the Canucks finished 24th in offence with 213 goals — down nine from the previous season — and their power play was ranked 18th at 17.1-per-cent efficiency. It was 17.2 per cent in 2006-07.

Lay your bets, hockey fans: Will Vigneault keep his job, or does he get offed in Vegas?

From Ben Kuzma at Canwest (via the Guardian):

The coaching fate of the Vancouver Canucks’ Alain Vigneault will be determined by the end of this week in the most ironic of locations — the gambling heartland of Las Vegas.

With Canucks management and scouts assembling in the Nevada city for their annual meetings, new general manager Mike Gillis said Tuesday that Vigneault has been summoned from his home in Gatineau, Que., to face further scrutiny over the next two days.[...]

In his season-ending address, Vigneault defended his defensive style as one that is common throughout the NHL. Still, the Canucks finished 24th in offence with 213 goals — down nine from the previous season — and their power play was ranked 18th at 17.1-per-cent efficiency. It was 17.2 per cent in 2006-07.

Lay your bets, hockey fans: Will Vigneault keep his job, or does he get offed in Vegas?

There’s an election coming up for the city of Vancouver, and traditionally that matters to most people about as much as what’s playing on the Lifetime Channel tonight at 2am. But if you’re a sports fan in this city, politics matter at the local level, and the fact that Nat Bailey Stadium exists, and has been [...]

I’ll admit that when the Golden Baseball League came to fruition, I laughed my ass off at what I was sure would follow. ‘There’s no way this thing is going to work,’ I said. After all, the single-ownership model has just never worked out well, historically. And the embarrassingly short-lived Canadian Baseball League would be a [...]

Chris Pritchett: Still hangin’ aroundLast season’s C’s hitting coach, Chris Pritchett, is still in town, even though he won’t be running BP for the Vancouver Canadians this season. Yesterday he was profiled in The Province as part of their ‘B.C. Sports Heroes: Where are they now?’ series, complete with the news that he’ll be doing [...]

Yesterday proved to be a busy, yet successful day for the Nat Bailey faithful, as well as the Lewis-Clark State Baseball team. UBC’s baseball team lost their opening round game Thursday, before staying alive on Friday with a grand slam by Senior Mike Styrna.  They then, however, lost to College of Idaho Friday night, ending their [...]