I'm A Nice Guy! Retire My Jersey Number!

I'm sure those of you who live outside the Vancouver Canucks' realm are baffled as to why Markus Naslund got his jersey retired.

Let me explain to you what Vancouver Canuck hockey fans are all about since the late '90s. Think Tarrana Make Belief fans only the West Coast version of such. There has been such little
on-ice success (just two trips to the Finals in 40 seasons) that any player who hangs around long enough, well, they get as overrated as Wendel Clark is in the Centre of the Universe. These are the same fans who think that the current team, without a Norris Trophy level defenceman, is a Stanley Cup contender. Just leave them be in their Luuuuongo world. For the rest of you confused about the Canucks way of doing things, read on.

Almost irregardless of what a Canuck does on the ice, if he's a nice guy, plays most of his career in Vancouver, does charity work in the community and is the captain, odds are he'll get his jersey retired here. To wit, the three retired numbers of Stan Smyl, Trevor Linden and now Markus Naslund. (I would add you could also die suddenly but Wayne Maki's number 11 was unretired so Mark Messier could make a bucketload of dough here . . . so I guess Luc Bourdon is out of luck.)

Stan "the Steamer" Smyl was a honest, workmanlike winger in the '80s who had a terrific junior career going to three Memorial Cups and winning two with the New Westminster Bruins. He was the Canuck captain chipping in 18 points in 17 playoff games on the very lucky (assist to the LA Kings' Miracle on Manchester eliminating the Air Hockey Oilers to clear the track, Eddie Shack) '82 Cup Final run. Upon his retirement he was the Canuck leader in career goals and points (it also helped he played five more seasons as a Canuck than his centerman for most of those seasons, the vastly underrated Thomas Gradin).
Yet he had just three 30-goal seasons and only two point plus per game seasons in a 13-season career that spanned the goal-glut '80s.

Trevor Linden--oh, where do we begin? Another terrific junior star helping the Medicine Hat Tigers to two Memorial Cup titles. He also captained the Canucks to the '94 Final, but it's his nice guy (and the good looks) in the community that wins people's hearts here. It sure isn't his play on the ice that can possibly be the reason he's so beloved as what were people watching from 2001 onwards? Linden is probably the biggest enigma in Canuck history. Weirdly, few people have ever bothered to investigate how a player who looked like the second coming of Cam Neely (well, maybe a slightly lesser version of such) through the first half of his career turned suddenly from age 26 to a player with hands of stone.
Six of his first eight seasons he cracked the 30-goal mark (even in the strike season of '94/5 he was on a 30-goal pace so technically seven out of eight). He had 80 points in 79 Canuck playoff games in that first half of his career. The following 11 seasons he never even hit the 20-goal mark in any season. Forget even looking at his playoff scoring record as a third liner over those seasons. But, boy, he's a great guy in the community. Big kudos for that!

Markus Naslund follows pretty much the same pattern. He, along with a true hockey great in Peter Forsberg, helped Modo to two junior hockey championships in Sweden. In his first nine full seasons in a Canuck uniform, Nazzy three times cracked the 40-goal mark and three-times the 30-goal mark. Many suggested he mailed it in his last two seasons averaging 58 points a season. I'd argue he mailed it in much earlier as he was an incredibly poor playoff performer. Maybe it was his milquetoast style or just his lack of fire, but Naslund had just 33 points in 45 career playoff games with the Canucks. He had two decent playoff years but neither amounted to much as in his time in Vancouver, the team lost in the first round three times and the second round twice (once after holding a 3 games to 1 lead on the Minnesota Wild).

Apparently, Markus also "mentored" the Sedins. Well, maybe that explains the twins taking ages to finally become superstars at age 30 (how old was Sidney Crosby again when he first led the league in points?) and so far that lack of any discernible playoff success mirrors Naslund's career.

Now if you were the most exciting player in Canuck history (and arguably up there as the only player in the '90s who had you on the edge of your seat like Alexander Ovechkin does now) who averaged the most goals and points per game in Canuck history and should have been in the Hockey Hall of Fame by now BUT demanded a trade out of Vancouver...well, you may never get your jersey retired. His nickname alone--the Russian Rocket--is deserving of a banner on its own as one of the coolest in NHL history. What better describes his mad dash rushes up the ice.
Sadly, management and ownership of the Vancouver Canucks hold grudges and act like jilted lovers.

Those of us who are a little more savvy hockey-wise know what Canuck stands head and shoulders above the three amigos whose jersey numbers hang from the rafters of Rogers Arena.

Your honor, I ask you: "Does Markus Naslund have a top ten on You Tube? Do people write songs about the man Sweden dropped from their national team?" I rest my case here and here. Ladies, gentlemen, children, aliens from other planets and small animals, I present the one and only--Pavel Bure.

From Russia With Bags O' Goals

The Fallen King

Although the Bruce McNall's autobiography came out in 2003, it's been good summer reading especially given the state of the NHL today.

Reading it you're first blown away by how McNall was able to go years on end playing one bank loan off against another; all of this done well before his purchase of the Los Angeles Kings. OK, so he wasn't caught, tried and convicted until even more years passed and he fooled many others but it goes to show just how little the NHL digs into owners' backgrounds. The other owners even ended up making McNall chairman of the board of governors! It was during this time that McNall looked at the NBA as the model to follow which led to a failed attempt to get David Stern to replace Gil Stein before settling on Gary Bettman from the NBA offices.

Anyway, you can read the book (Fun While It Lasted) for yourselves for all the details on not just McNall's NHL life, but some hockey-related nuggets are well worth repeating here. McNall was no hockey neophyte. He was a fan well before he purchased the team and often used to scoop the best seats off scalpers during the days of the Triple Crown Line.

The Wayne Gretzky trade at the time and even later people question exactly how much influence the Wayner had on engineering it. Now it really was something McNall planted in the mind of Edmonton Oilers' owner Peter Pocklington yet Gretzky did meet with McNall a few times well prior to the trade. McNall also openly to #99 himself had told him he wanted to trade for him.

Just prior to the trade going down, McNall told Wayne that if he really rather move to his childhood team, the Detroit Red Wings, the Kings would setp aside and let Wayne go there. That apparently was when Wayne made up his mind to trust McNall would have his interests at stake over the backstabbing that Wayne felt Peter Puck did to Gretzky's reputation.

When McNall and Wayne got together to negotiate a contract, Wayne said, "Just pay me what you think I'm worth." McNall figuring Gretzky was equal to the Los Angeles Lakers' Magic Johnson as far as the local sports market went offered Wayne the same $3 million a year Magic was earning. Wayne considered that too much and eventually McNall asked Wayne to write down a number he was comfortable earning. Wayne wrote down $1 million but McNall ended up making that $2 million a year which made him the highest paid NHLer at the time. McNall also guaranteed from then on that Gretzky would always be the highest paid player in the league so Wayne's contract would increase if another player's new deal was higher than his.

McNall also takes us behind the doors of league meetings with the most hilariously weird factoid to come out of that was Gil Stein's poetry. The NHL commissioner between the reigns of John Zeigler and Gary Bettman, Stein was mainly known as a sort of do-nothing commish. This passage sort of sums up what planet Stein was on:
"At every league meeting he [Stein] rose before the final gavel and recited an epic-length poem that recounted every thing we had accomplished with plenty of humor."

I guess you had to be there or maybe someone has recorded those Homeric poems on their Victorola for posterity.

Hockey-wise Maple Leaf fans recall the whole fuss over Wayne Gretzky high sticking Doug Gilmour in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals and not getting suspended. What is forgotten in all this are two significant previous incidents. In the '92/93 regular season Gilmour broke Gretzky's right wing linemate Tomas Sandstrom's arm with a slash. Then in Game 1 of the series, Marty McSorley put a well-placed elbow to Gilmour's jaw as retribution. The funny thing is after McNall mentions all this, he doesn't even mention the Game 6 incident between the Wayner and Dougie.

Lastly, when McNall's bail is set by a kind judge at a very low $100,000, ex-Kings' GM (and all-time great Kings goalie) Rogie Vachon posted bail in the form of his vacation home given McNall was so massively cash-poor he couldn't cover the bail amount.

The purchase of the Toronto Argonauts is also great food for the sports fan's plate. Those freaked out by the Buffalo Bills push to get regular seasons games played in T.O. and the possibility of the NFL moving in on the CFL Argos' market should know McNall had a similar idea. His purchase of the Argos was with an eye towards putting an NFL team in Toronto although it was kept very hush hush at the time.

Their signing of the college football star Raghib "the Rocket" Ismail made a big splash but wasn't revealed at the time was a secret arrangement that McNall made with the NFL Raiders' owner Al Davis. McNall figured they'd release Ismail after two years in the CFL looking at him only as a short-term fix to get the Argos into the Grey Cup and boost the value of the team. So the Raiders drafted Ismail realziing they wqere not going to sign him anyway comforatble in the knowledge that McNall would let him jump to the Raiders in two years' time.

Also, Ismail, although a pretty good player at the CFL level was a disaster as a PR guy. He was uncomfortable in front of the media and fans so endorsement deals and promo appearances were few and far between for the supposed star of the Argos.

All in all, the book comes across as a cautionary tale as it does go right into his jail term, years after being convicted on bank fraud charges among other things. From a sports perspective, though, McNall is so upfront about what goes on behind the scenes in not only the sports of hockey and football but also horse racing that this really is a must-read for anyone interested in that side of the business.

Kovalchuk Signs New Pact With The Devils

With the NHL striking down the historic(-ally stupid?) 17-year contract of famous man of the kilt Ilya Kovalchuk that New Jersey were using to circumvent the salary cap hits, general manager Lou Lemon-jello (no relation to this guy) has solved the problem.

When questioned by the Jersey Shore's Snooki, Lou explained his unique solution: "Since Kovalchuk's hero was the famous '70s Russian hockey star Valery Kharlamov he honors him by wearing the same #17 as the man whose ankle Bobby Clarke massaged in 1972 wore. This is why we decided on a 17-year deal to honor Ilya's honoring of Valery.

"I have since convinced Ilya to change his number to something that will work under the current CBA. We considered lowering it to maybe #15 but that's our new coach John MacLean's old number. Frankly, it would be wrong to involve Johnny in any of this for fear of a Commissioner C. Montgomery Bettman suspending him to start the season via the seldom used guilt by association clause.

To Newark . . . and beyond!

"After talking to our capologist, Ilya has agreed to wear the symbol for infinity rather than the #17. This solves all problems over his contract. Whatever amount we pay him in any given year, division by infinity results simply in an unknown number. That way the Devils take no cap hit at all, and we also can pay him out until infinity. Plus imagine the 'new' jersey sales. It would almost be as good as getting Miroslav Satan to sign with us. "

Next week, Lou Lemon-jello solves the ongoing conflict in Central Africa via his new math.