And we're back.
Unless you were living under a rock during the Vancouver Canucks' run to the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, you might have noticed that the team was not exactly at the top of a lot of peoples' Christmas card lists. It wasn't just spurned opponents, either--although the likes of Jonathan Toews, Dave Bolland, Dan Boyle and Ben Eager had their share of beaking to do in the media. Players on teams who weren't even in the hunt for the grail were espousing their loathing for the Canucks.
It didn't end with the players--the media outlets mercilessly railed against the Canucks and their cheap shotting tactics. Ryan Kesler chicken-winging sticks, The Sedin Twins diving, Maxim Lapierre yapping or embellishing, Alexandre Burrows' famous instance of mistaking Patrice Bergeron's fingers for chicken fingers--all of this received premium play time amongst the press clippings of each game.
The comments ranged from the intelligent (they play with an edge and are difficult to play against) to the idiotic (anything Mike Milbury opened his trap to say).
But that was last year. To start this season, the Canucks were radically inconsistent. They would play one night looking like gangbusters, and the next night they could come out and lay an egg so profundly that I was starting to debate throwing them in the oven to cook for Thanksgiving. Suspiciously, the national press had virtually nothing to say about them while they struggled. That's all changed, now, thanks to a 9-1-0 run of sterling hockey that has seen the Canucks return to their high-flying, in your face brand of hockey.
It has not gone unnoticed by the media who, faced with a resurgent band of players, are now going out of their way once again to paint the Canucks as villains in every sense of the word. Watching Saturday night's contest on CBC between the Vancouver Canucks and the Ottawa Senators was painful on the ears at times. Listening to Jim Hughson call the play by play is always a treat, but he was paired with Gary Galley and Cassie Campbell--a duo that covers the Senators on a regular basis. To call their commentary biased would be generous, as it was legitimately far worse than that. But the real fun began with the intermission shows, Coach's Corner and the Satellite Hotstove.
Let me preface all of this by saying that when Don Cherry seems to come across as your voice of reason, you are in big, big trouble.
CBC seems to have adopted a "WWE"-style method of promoting storylines. The last time the Canucks and the Senators played on November 20, a non-incident occurred when Maxim Lapierre bodychecked Jesse Winchester into the bench door for the Canucks. Burrows had his hand on top of the door which--unfortunately, unluckily, and unintentionally--opened, depositing Winchester into the bench.
This non-incident received exactly nothing in terms of lip service amongst CBC's talking heads for nearly a month until game-day arrived. And then "latch-gate" or "gate-gate" was in full swing. Why? Well gee, those pesky Canuckleheads are 8-1-0 in their last few starts and looking like they might be able to dominate the league once more. Shall we take them down a peg?
Ron MacLean, he of noted attempted character assassinations on Alex Burrows in the past (followed by a boycott of CBC by the Canucks, followed by a private apology from CBC to the Canucks) can barely contain himself when he gets the chance to villify the Canucks, Burrows in particular. So when Don Cherry called him on it on live television, it was more than a little gratifying to watch MacLean grit his teeth, narrow his eyes, and to see that little vein on the side of his head sticking out as he restrained himself from strangling Cherry.
Cherry finished his heckling of MacLean by saying "the Canucks are going back to the Final, and you'll be in big trouble".
Mike Milbury (he of the famouse shoe-beating and worst-general-managing in history incidents) proceeded to detail a list of reasons why people hated the Vancouver Canucks later in the evening, listing their cheap shots and diving as being among the principle reasons. Putting aside the irony of a man who once climbed into the audience to beat a man with his own shoe accusing anyone of dirty play, I cannot for the life of me understand how this man has a job as an analyst. Watching Mike Milbury discuss hockey is fun in the same way that watching a dog chase its own tail is--he is so preposterously stupid that you can't help wondering what he is going to say next. Ask the good folks on Long Island what they think of his hockey knowledge.
To cut a long ramble short, the Vancouver Canucks are putting things back together and are starting to play like an elite team once more. This is making the rest of the hockey world stand up, take not, and go--"oh, yeah, THOSE guys--I hate them".
Well, it's time to Embrace the Hate, Canuck Nation. Not only does it make every victory all that much sweeter, but it means the team is doing something right if they can rack up the wins while making every other team in the league see red at the same time.
