What Is This Team's Identity?

I am now 3-0 on the season for games attended in person and in all three games (vs. the New York Rangers, Los Angeles Kings and last night the Atlanta Thrashers) the Canucks have scored four goals in each game. So, if the team needs scoring, just call me. I definitely am contributing to the crowd mojo for more offence.

Having said that this is a hard team to figure out. The Canucks do a lot of things well. They score (ranking 6th in the NHL), they defend well (7th in goals against), the powerplay is terrific (4th overall) but their achilles heel reared its ugly head at times in this game. That weakness is the propensity for taking bad penalties (the most recent culprit seems to be Mikael Samuelsson) and terrible penalty killing (5th worst in the NHL) is a very bad sign. The teams, namely San Jose and Chicago, that the Nux'll have to beat to get out of the West just destroy teams who take dumb penalties.

The Canucks also tend to take their cue from the Sedins and think they need to pass the puck into the net. Mason Raymond, would you please just shoot the puck. At least Ryan Kesler seems to have gotten his game back on song and is getting loads of chances. He just needs to stop shooting like a Trevor Linden. Lift the puck and put it on net. It isn't rocket science.

Atlanta, on the other hand, are an entertaining team in so many ways. They have high comedy in nets with Ondrej Pavelec a cross between Doug Favell. Pete Peeters and Dominik Hasek. In the first period he put two pucks into his own net with lazy efforts on pucks he had actually stopped. In the third he was all over the net like a Gumby and kept the Thrashers in the game.

Obviously, playing last night in Calgary meant the Nux lucked out in getting a tired team. In the first period, though, the Thrash were buzzing especially Ilya Kovalchuk. This is a guy you just have to love. He is always ready to unload that shot of his, has great moves and is a wood chopper on the level of Steve Yzerman in his prime. Kovalchuk got in a chopping war with Kesler and even slashed Steve Bernier right across the chest at the buzzer as the teams were headed off the ice. I'm sure the tree huggers will whine but Bobby Clarke would have been proud.

Local Vancouver product Evander Kane had a couple of great chances one of which went to video review but he came up empty on the scoresheet. He also got into Kesler's kitchen (what is it with Kesler and whatever it is I like the Linesman rat-like hate teams have for him).

Then there's the sleeping (or comatose) giants on the Thrash. Example one is Nik "no intensity" Antropov. You can definitely see why Toronto lost its patience with this guy. He may put up the points but he should be far harder on the puck. In fact, he looks like an Eric Lindros but palys nothing like him.

Pavel Kubina just looks like a fat Willie Huber now. He's slow. he's not physical. He's has that shot which he never really got off all game.

Then there's 6' 7" 245 lb. Boris Valabik who is a monster and got into a fight in which 5' 11" 190 lb. Rick Rypien TKO-ed, if you can believe that. (The kid next to me kept yelling "in the ass" during the fight. Is this some new UFC fighting technique I don't know about. I know UFC has plenty of guy-on-guy action but this gives a whole new meaning to a low blow.)

Which brings me to the single thing you do notice about the Canucks--they aren't very big nor physical enough. Sure they have a bunch of defensemen over 6' 2" but none you'd really say make other teams' forwards pay. This is fine when they play a softer team like Atlanta but it will be interesting come playoff time. All due respect to the D-corps but other than Shane O'Brien and the one Willie Mitchell hit on Blackhawks' Jonathan Toews, the Canucks lack that scary Zdeno Chara/Chris Pronger edge (sorry, Kevin Bieksa but taking dumb penalties does not scare opponents).

Lastly, a disturbing fan trend started up. Now after each Nux goal a "woo" sound is played over the PA. Throughout the game fans started randomly making this sound, but it comes across more like crazed bird noises. I half expected Tippi Hedren to come running down the aisle screaming with a crow in her hair. Just go to a game and listen. It's like seagulls trying to communicate over English Bay.

Thank, Morneau, There's Still Radio!

If any of you are baseball fans you'll know exactly what I'm talking about from the headline above. Yesterday was probably one of the most thrilling MLB one-game playoff games ever but here in B.C. did we get to see it?

Well, it was not on Sportnet Pacific but it was on Sportsnet West...well, at least until 6 p.m. Then the screen went blank. That's because from 6 p.m. Sportsnet West switched to its scheduled broadcast of the Habnots-Lames game. Not that it mattered either way here because, as you know, all NHL hockey games broadcast on Sportsnet channels other than Pacific are blacked out.

Now you'd think since we were in extra innings of a winner-gets-in-the playoffs, loser-goes-home scenario that the game would flip to either Sportsnet Pacific or Ontario (Shaw in their infinite wisdom has axed Sportsnet East off its broadcast band so that was not an option) but nooooooooo!

On Pacific we got McCown's show (something anyone could download later and listen to as a podcast as do we really need to watch radio on TV while the possible last game in the Metrodump was going on?) or on Ontario we got that non-sport called poker or was it ultimate fighting...probably ultimate poker fighting.

My question is: How difficult is it to run a 24-hour sports channel?

Here's what you do: You show sports 24 hours a day. Not highlight shows. Not radio on TV. Not poker. Not MMA. Games. Actual games. This means games until their conclusion (unless you live/lived in Japan meaning until 8:54 pm). And, if a baseball playoff game (it was actually Game 163 of the regular season for each team but let's not get too technical) they cut into some meaningless (sorry, the truth hurts when you have 16 teams in the playoffs out of 30) regular season hockey game, so be it. At the very least replay the game through the graveyard hours so those of us who'd even like to tape it and watch after the fact.

Speaking of which, Sportsnet, how about from the hours of midnight to maybe 6 or 7 a.m. instead of looping Sportsnet Connected endlessly, why not replay the games you showed that day...or even better yet replay the best games of the night before so insomniacs (and taping fiends) could watch something at least somewhat less talking heads. Even as a hockey fan who thinks the regular season is really only there for hockey pools, I'd love to have seen a replay of the Flyers 6-5 OT win over the Caps from last night. Snag the replay rights off TSN or Versus and make us actual sports fans happy for once.

Anyway, thank, Harmon Killebrew, the TEAM was broadcasting the game on the radio, and anyone out here on the Left Coast could listen to the conclusion of one wild game as the Twinkies came out on top of this battle royale with the Tigers.

Your Twins Are Still Alive, Harmon!

Oh, and by the way, given Shaw is broadcasting NHL Centre Ice free through Oct. 24, the Habs-Lames game was on anyway so what good did blacking the screen out do here in B.C?
So thank you, Sportsnet, for the non-coverage of the end of, what may go down as, maybe the greatest one-game "playoff" in MLB history.

Two Down, 80 More To Go!

I'm sure there are thousands falling off the Canuck bandwagon after an 0W-2L start coming off an undefeated (in regulation time) pre-season.

One thing we have learned is no matter how hard Roberto Luongo practices, it's like some well-worn 2nd-round draft cliche, he just cannot play well in October. Hopefully, Coach Vigneault realizes this and now is the time to get Andrew Raycroft in some games. Not only do the Canucks really have nothing really to lose doing this in October, but Luongo will be fresher come the real season in April. Then again maybe Bingo Bango Bongo needs to work up a good sweat in October. Whatever the case, in the long haul, I doubt a poor October will wreck the team's playoff chances. We've been through these middling Octobers before with the man now signed for 12 more years during playoff years (5W 5L last season and 7W 6L in '06/07)

Then again the team is on pace to go 0-24 vs. the rest of its division. Despite the hype over Calgary's much vaunted defence, that team still looks incredibly weak defensively (last season they gave up an average of 29 shots per 60 mins....the first two games they are on a whopping 38 shots against per game and have to thank Kipper they are 2W-0L so far). We'll see how long before Brent Sutter's vulcan ears prick up and he whips this team into shape.

The Avs with the retirement of Joe Sakic were supposedly the weak link in the Northwest Division chain but rookie Matt Duchene looks like a faster Doug Gilmour/Bobby Clarke, Paul Stastny (and his Yzerman-ish missing tooth!) is back healthy and the Polish Sausage is on the cusp of being an offensive force.

Wotjek Wolski working out in the off-season

Leaving Minnesota and Edmonton both of which the Canucks see this first month so we'll also see how the Canucks shape up vis a vis their divisional opponents.