Canucks Wing It In Overtime

The Canucks have sold out the Garage for six zillion straight games...or have they? So far this season there have been single seat sales for all but two games (the first Detroit visit Nov. 2 and, of course, the Make Beliefs' visit Nov. 15). Mainly this Coca-Cola half-price single seat policy that started, I believe, three years ago and would show up maybe six times a year has been expanded for '08/09.

Some kid rockin' a Wings tee

This, of course, meant Johnny Canucklehead and Franz Klammer (part-time ski hero and transplanted hockey fan) could snag a couple of ducats to see the Stanley Cup champions take on the Curtis Sanford. All of this for the price of $59.75 (including ticketmonster and Mats Sundin escrow account fees) is decent...not something I'd pay to watch Columbus or Minnesota but for the Cup champs, I'm there! So here's the view from the last row of the upper bowl right on the blueline (in case the NHL need me to do booth reviews on offside calls).

Starting off, there sure were a lot of GM employees at the game. I thought the company was in dire straits or maybe all the Steve Yzermans, Brendan Shanahans and Nick Libetts took advantage of the half-price sale to show up in their Wings jerseys. The Nux have finally dropped the dated U2 intro music but now opt for what sounds suspiciously like Vangelis's Chariots of Fire theme. Oh well guess we'll be hearing music from 2008 in all probability by 2038.

All of the trees and electricity that have been wasted on what a good game this was, don't believe the hype. Yes, this Canuck team looks like more of a "team" and kudos to Ryan Kesler and Kyle Wellwood for driving the net and creating chances but Pavol Demitra hit the net, please, and Willie Mitchell get rid of that stupid Martin St. Louis long stick you use.

The Wings looked so smooth and in control especially breaking out of their own end. So how did they lose? One intrepid reporter (Tony Gallagher) pointed out they missed Tomas Holmstrom sticking his big butt in the opposing goalie's face. That's probably it as Johan Franzen is more Holmstrom Lite. Given the Wings outshot Vancouver 34-16 through 60 minutes, a good screen or two and it'd have been game over.

Luckily, Daniel Sedin got a bit of a flukey bad hop goal over third base late and the locals woke up. The Nux owned the OT outshooting the Wings 8-0 and Sami Salo scored a beauty on a powerplay to win it. End of story.

Now I'm not sure if the fans razzing Detroit goalie Chris Osgood throughout the game helped but it can't have hurt. Even so, last I looked, Osgood was the starter on two Cup teams so . . . until Roberto Luongo brings the silver chalice home, I'll say Ozzie is not as bad as those long drifters from the past he's let in.

Finally, let's get to my fave timeworn topic--the fans. I thought moving up two price ranges I'd escape the yahoos but let's review. The wannabe gangsta (of course, a white boy with a cheesy Wendy Clark attempt at a 'stache) in front of me started the game off telling us in the row behind him to "get up." Then he attempted to start a "Let's Go Canucks" chant which as the game wore on became a "Let's Go Detroit" chant. I figure the two Detroit babes (and I use that term loosely) next to him convinced Mr. "One Beer And I'm Jello" to switch sides mid-game. Either that or he fell in love with Henrik Zetterberg's sweet Viking beard thinking he'd have a shot at a honey like Henrik's wife, Emma Andersson.

The older couple in Luongo jerseys in my row said nary a peep all game mistaking the Garage for the old days of the Pacific Mausoleum. Glad you could join us.

Then the piece de resistance, an in-game interview with former Nux captain (and recipient of a broken jaw in the '70s courtesy Keith Magnuson) Chris Oddleifson was interviewed on the big screen. This prompted the neighborly stock broker (see, the economic crisis is real if he is sitting in the last row of the upper bowl) next to me to pipe up and say that Chrissy Boy was his fave Canuck. I guess Bryan McSheffrey was taken. He also thought Oddleifson was #6. Dennis Kearns to that, says #14!

Those, my friends, are your Canuck fans. Unless the scoreboard tells them to "Make Some Noise," many of them do become confused by my yelling and screaming at the Sedins to shoot the freakin' puck and enough with the Tour de France. Then again here's comes the Wave--woooo!

Early 2010 Olympic Fever Fueled by Koreans

No longer just home to the Giants of hockey

This first test of any of the 2010 Winter Olympic facilities occurred over the past weekend (Oct. 24-26/08) at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum with a World Cup short track speed skating event.
All I can say is: Ship over as many Koreans as you can if you want to spice (or I should say "kimchi") up any event. Sure Samsung sponsoring the event, as well as having plenty of world-class Korean skaters there, helped but as the World Cup soccer in 2002 showed, Koreans know how to make an event come alive.

The ubiquitous thunderstix were everywhere and baseball's Anaheim Angels of Orange County fans take note, the Koreans are not wedded to these noisemakers. The screams and cheers Korean skaters received from start to finish were just as loud, and it didn't stop there. Koreans were going nuts anytime a Canadian made a move on the track. This was no sympathy "well done, good effort, oh so close usual Canadian 4th-place non-medal finish" cheering as over the weekend Canada's men and women skaters finished second in the medal totals to Korea. Canada bagged eight medals to the sport's powerhouse nation's 11.

To those of you who thought Chicago Stadium was loud, the Koreans given the numbers can match that. This was a crowd of 7,000 without any "Make Some Noise, Lemmings" scoreboard messages orchestrating the noise while the fake decibel metre showed what great fans apparently every NHL arena has now.

As far as the sport of short track speed skating itself, people here are going to be in for a treat. Watching it on TV does not do it justice at all. The spills are spectacular. The passing moves thrilling. The race strategy is infinitely fascinating and quite easy to pick up. Plus we now know why Apolo Anton Ohno is not just a dance star. His 1000m semifinal heat was a thing of beauty. Unluckily he slipped in the Final and missed the medal podium, but he was well worth the $20 admission alone for the buzz he creates anytime he slips, or literally does slip, on those blades.


No signs of Skinny Minnie Miller

After the individual 500m and 1000m men's and women's events wrapped up we got the 3000m and 5000m relays. Now prior to these events, I was anticipating this to be Skinny Minnie Miller roller derby on ice but sadly, especially the 5000m race, they are far far too long. Lap after lap of NASCAR-like redundancy with virtually no jostling for position (basically similar to your average NHL regular season game). Nothing really much happens until the last five laps (so similar to the last five minutes of every NBA game). So even the intense Korean fans were heading for the exits early and not sticking around for the relays to be done.

The relays do have some strong points despite no baton handoffs as the skaters next in line build up speed in the inner oval. They then cut in like experienced drivers (Vancouverite road warriors take note), zip onto the track and are pushed forward by their teammate. Yes, hands on butt and a firm shove is the "handoff" method from skater to skater for the relays.

Speaking of derrieres, those of you who are fans of the big cabooses, you are definitely in for quite the view on some of these physical specimens in their tight body-fitting lycra. Add to that the skaters' Devo meets the Great Gazoo yellow helmets with numbering on them in the high hundreds (due obviously to the many retired numbers in short track speed skating) and it's a full-on futuristic fashion show as envisioned by Judy Jetson.

As far as the overall look of the event, it takes your eyes and mind some adjusting to see a hockey rink ice surface looking pure white with a powder blue center. Then in the middle of the powder blue "infield" oval are three people on speed skates wearing suits! They looked like they fell from a surrealist painting by Rene Magritte and started channeling this famous reverend on skates. These "suits" are the track officials who watch for "impeding" infractions which means a disqualification and the long skate of shame to the exit.

Hall monitors keep a close watch on the skaters

There are also a couple of blue helmeted rink staff (possibly UN peacekeepers?) who skate around adjusting the small cones that mark the track's curved ends. They also pour buckets of water on the ice surface to resurface the ice between heats. Then there's the exterminators who debug the ice or spray for ice weevils...well, I'm not sure what they do and you'd think they'd be wearing helmets, but they prefer the Craig MacTavish look.


The exterminator also shows up to spray for ice bugs

It's all very hands-on low-tech which was gave the whole thing a feeling of a cozy local track meet more than some big bucks World Cup sporting event.

The Zamboni (also pure white with no advertising at all on it) comes out between quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals to do a more thorough ice resurfacing job. That makes for a nice break for fans to catch their breath and grab some drinks and snacks (cash only!).

Don't get the wrong impression on the advertising. It's there as the padded boards (why doesn't hockey do this as you'd still get great collisions especially the bouncing off the boards without the injuries) are covered in ads and run the gamut from Samsung to Cheerios (the "Mad Men" of today are geniuses--"Oval-shaped tracks are THE place to sell your oval-shaped cereal!").

Between sessions there is some serious DJing going on with no BTO, no '70s rock and no country music for old men (OK, one "Cotton-Eyed Joe" tune made it in but that's more novelty hit than real country). That's right--tunes from today! The DJ even managed a tremendous melding of Oasis and Green Day on one mix that truly made the night. Very disconcerting (in a good way) to go to sporting event and not have my ears bleeding from outdated stadium rock (Canucks management take note...U2's "Where The Streets Have No Name" was a hit in 1987...I'll repeat that for those who missed that...19 and 87.)

The entrances and exits of the skaters are also very disconcerting. All skaters enter at one end of the rink and after their race exit at the other end. They also never take their skate guards off until stepping onto the ice. Vice versa going off. (That was just for those of you scoring at home.)

The race start though is the most, shall I say, creepy, but in a funny way. The starter gets on the mic and says, "Go to the start" in some vague Eastern European accent that sounds like Dracula as done by SCTV's Count Floyd that you half expect a trapdoor to open up in the ice if the skaters did not obey this order. I also guarantee you will be mimicking his catchphrase before every race and annoying your friends for the next week with your best impersonation of same.


Go to the Start...it's scary, kids!

Having said that, here are a few things VANOC needs to work on:
1. Have all concession stands accept credit cards. Come on, it's 2008!
2. Get better food. The whole hot dog and peanuts thing is fine at a Vancouver Giants hockey game and White Spot is decent, but the sport is dominated by Koreans! Let's get some Korean BBQ stands set up and show Canadians how meat really tastes when it's sliced thin and cooked properly. Who doesn't love the smell of kimchi in the morning? Smells like victory!
3. Use the scoreboard better. Put the skaters names, numbers, info and times up.
4. Sitting between an Austrian and a Korean at this event I got the question from both sides: "What is up with the French?" As the race goes along you get the play-by-play over the PA mainly in the language of Guy Lafleur. Not sure how many French speakers were in the crowd, but there were a few French-Canadian skaters. Plus Guy threw in some brief token English in his manic play-by-play, but it was pretty much French front and centre ice. The signage and posters for the event were advertised locally all in English, just in case you were wondering. But to answer my international friends' query in my best franglais--"Je ne sais pas mais c'est possible que Vancouver est un "world-class" ville. French is classy ergo the francais-a-go-go, n'est-ce que pas?"

Whatever the hiccups, VANOC just make sure you do one thing: It's all about the buzz at the venues so fill the stands at every event with Koreans. Trust me. That's the key to hosting a successful Olympics.