Wednesday » October 8 » 2008

Canadian fans faithful through Cup drought

Cam Cole
Vancouver Sun

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Brian Burke. general manager of the Anaheim Ducks, says Canadian hockey fans and media don't have the patience for five-year plans when it comes to their teams.
CREDIT: Lisa Blumenfeld, Getty Images, File
Brian Burke. general manager of the Anaheim Ducks, says Canadian hockey fans and media don't have the patience for five-year plans when it comes to their teams.

Not to pre-empt the National Hockey League's 2008-09 advertising campaign -- Is This The Year? -- but can we hear an "Amen" from the six Canadian franchises, which are about to bark up that tree for the 15th straight October?

Even if you write off the lockout season, 2004-05, as a non-starter, it still counts as a year in which Stanley didn't come home. The time didn't just disappear. It passed, along with the 14 others since the Montreal Canadiens won 11 of their 16 games in overtime en route to the 1993 Cup.

Four Canadian teams have got to the brink -- the 1994 Canucks and the 2004 Flames, pre-lockout; the Oilers and Senators in the first two years of the salary cap -- and hundreds of players carrying Canadian birth certificates have hoisted the chalice while playing for U.S.-based clubs in the interim.

So the question is not "Why aren't we better?"

We're good. We just don't represent well.

We'd love to leave the Toronto Maple Leafs and their permanently dysfunctional ownership-management relationship out of the discussion. The whole world knows why the Leafs never succeed except at the bank -- even ownership must know -- but while their fans would kind of like to win, the Leafs' owners have other priorities.

They are the only Canadian team that hasn't made it to the Cup final in the past 15 years (or 40), and are the objects of much well-deserved derision.

They also may be, alas, as good an example as any, of the No.1 impediment to Canadian-based hockey clubs winning the ultimate prize.

In good times -- and in the Leafs' case, the times don't have to be all that good -- they are fawned over, pampered, put on a pedestal, and pursued everywhere by fans and autograph seekers. In not-so-good times, they are psycho-analyzed, lampooned, spied upon, and excoriated for their shortcomings.

Why don't teams from Canadian cities win more often, when we care so very much?

Because we care so very much.

Why don't more big-name free agents want to play in Canadian cities? Because we strangle them with our passion, cover their every twitch and mis-step, examine their private lives, call in to talk shows to discuss ad nauseam every minute happening in their season.

To this day, the best supporting argument to the theory that we love our teams to death, which has appeared in this space before, came from the man who, ironically, now coaches the Maple Leafs: Ron Wilson.

Two years ago, when Edmonton was on a tear and headed for a Stanley Cup meeting with the Carolina Hurricanes, Wilson's San Jose Sharks were one of the Oilers' Western victims. One afternoon, anticipating the ear-splitting din that no doubt would greet the hometown Oilers that evening, he put his finger on the double-edged sword.

"Anywhere in Canada you go, it's a bit different," Wilson said. "But I think that sometimes can be very burdensome, to have that kind of scrutiny.

"How many Canadian teams have won the Stanley Cup in the last 10 years, since the media [explosion]? I played in Toronto early in my career, and that was kind of like San Jose is now. You had two beat writers, a couple of columnists, and one camera -- and only in the last 10 years has it gotten to this craziness.

"I think it's difficult to play in that environment, especially if it slides a little bit. Everybody has an opinion, and it's heard now, and you can't get away from it. I mean where we are, and where the Ducks are, if you have a bad couple of games you can get out of that quickly. Here, you can run, I suppose, but you can't hide, ever.

"And whether you think that's good or bad, I don't think it's all that good, myself, to have that kind of scrutiny, especially if you're a younger team."

The Ducks were another casualty of that playoff run, and GM Brian Burke knew there was truth in what Wilson said.

"I love Canada, I loved being a GM there, I love the atmosphere and how much people care," said the former Canucks boss, whose team would win a Stanley Cup a year later, "but I'll tell you what: if you're a GM in Canada, you can forget having a five-year plan. The only plan the fans and media there are interested in is the RFN plan."

RFN? Right F---ing Now.

In the States, with the newspaper industry in free-fall and reporting staffs being stripped to the bone, the hockey beat is among the first to be sacrificed. Which means that as thin a slice of newspaper space as hockey used to get, it's a whole lot thinner now. In many markets, hockey is a "starter" beat for interns or fresh-from-journalism-school kids, so the level of analysis is understandably superficial, and TV reporting on hockey has to fit into such a tiny hole, it barely scratches the surface.

The newspaper business isn't any healthier here, the difference being that papers in Canada will cut anything BUT hockey coverage, because survey after survey of readership tastes keep coming back with the same results: give us more hockey, we'll live without the rest. And radio and television have all kinds of time, and staff, to devote to hockey.

So if anything, the disparity between the amount of external pressure exerted on an NHL franchise in Canada, compared with its American equivalent, is only growing larger.

Absent the heavy, everyday scrutiny and relentless demand for results, a player can work his way through a slump without being pilloried in the U.S., a coach can survive a losing streak, a smart hockey man can take his time, make a studied plan and stick to it until his team is built.

No such luxuries are available in Canada.

So the brain drain of managing and coaching talent heads south, to gentler climes. And the most sought-after free agents don't want to sign up for the kind of relentless attention they get up here.

The exchange rate on the dollar may be getting us closer, but as for the hockey talent that could put us over the top....

"I mean, hockey is not a sport in Canada. Everyone knows that. It's a religion," Burke said during his team's 2007 Stanley Cup victory over the Senators -- the end a playoff run greatly aided by Chris Pronger, who abandoned Edmonton after the previous season because he'd had his fill of scrutiny.

"Does it put more pressure on Ottawa? I don't know."

He knows, all right.

Is This The Year? Could be ... if the Detroit Red Wings join the Continental Hockey League.

ccole@vancouversun.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Pretty good articles. But what caught my attention the most was that the world's population grew that much in such a short time. Current world population is estimated at 6.8 billion right now. So just 60 years ago, there was only 2.3 billion... that's a big jump.

Don't think the Wild would trade Gabby to the Nucks, let alone any other team in the division

But he's a free agent next season so lets hope

Yeah if you notice, about every 2nd page in this thread is a new player who should be traded/ waived etc.


A few days ago it was Bieksa, now it's Pyatt.

during the season i bet theres going to be a "trade the sedins" page

Well peopel wanted Bieksa gone because he has good value, and it's apparent Ohlund isn't going, and Salo is needed for slapshots at the blue line.
People want Pyatt gone because he's simply not very useful. He doesn't have too much value, but I think he can be replaced with other players.

We all want them gone for different reasons.

i would like to see canucks make a 2 for 1 or even 3 for 1 deal right now.

we have too many 3rd line guys on the team. got to make some room for these young players to grow

pettinger is like a pyatt.


how come we only have 9 mil? i thought we had 20??

At the beginning we might have had 20 but we have 9 after all the spending this summer.

oh yea i thought we had 20 mil after signing demitra, etc lol

Pyatt was drafted 12th overall in the 99 draft where Sedins went 2-3 lol

Sedins btw are the top producers within the top 200 picks of that year

season starts tomorrow and I have MT's coming up

haha gonna be tough couple weeks

It's true we seem to have a surplus of mediocre 2nd/3rd liners....but they're not completely worthless. I"m sure a package of Bieksa/Pyatt/Pettenger....ie. a top-4 d-man, and two average 3rd liners, would be enough for a decent ~30+ goal 2nd liner to play with Demitra and Raymond. Hell, there was a rumor of Bieksa straight up for Marc Savard (who Canucks fans would HATE, unfortunately), so maybe it wouldnt even take that much.

you can't trade 5 kimchi dishes for steak

but u can trade PHo for udon

Marc Savard?
Isn't that guy like a superstar?
Who would trade him for Bieksa straight up?? D:

If Boston is willing to make that trade, I'd be on board. Most people thought that he was riding Kovalchuk's coat tails but he's proven himself by playing with dick all in Boston and still being in the tops for assists. He was third in assists for the last two seasons in Boston playing with scrubs like Marco Sturm and Chuck Kobasew. He's just barely behind Thornton and Datsyuk last year. Therefore, we can only conclude that he's a player that makes those around him better and doesn't need first line guys to put up first line stats.

My only knock is that he's 31 and not exactly the biggest dude around at 5-10, 195-ish pounds.

Get him here and we could move Demitra back to wing on our second line. A line of Demitra/Savard/Raymond would destroy.

wait a sec, nhlnumbers says boston's 3M over the cap.. doesn't the season start thursday.. that's today??

I think waiving Peter Schaefer put them under the cap. As long as he begins the season in the minors and stays there, he doesn't count against the cap. I think that's how it works.

But the current CBA is so full of loopholes and convoluted bullshit that it's impossible to really understand.

Oh yea forgot about Ohlund. He was on the RS trading block last page.

Bieksa is probably worth some value cuz he is a valuable asset to the Canucks. So why trade him? He is young and has a lot of potential.

And so is Pyatt. Why don't you give them more time to develop.

Pyatt has been playing with the twins the past 2 seasons and he has respectable numbers, but not great numbers. Pyatt's problem is he hasn't developed into the player the Canuck's thought he would. They figure he would turn into another power forward like Cam Neeley and Burtuzzi but it never happened.
Guess he doesn't want to hurt that pretty face of his. :confused:

that reminds me of when pyatt got the puck in the face last year and needed like 25 stitches. he was actually playing really good at the time too, if i remember.

population rises exponentially... the more people there are on the planet that are having sex, the more likely the world's population is to grow.


it was a great article, though.

How do you think San Jose got Thornton? They traded him for Sturm, Primeau, and Stuart. Thornton is a steak, the others, not so much.

Teams have a need to bolster their 2nd/3rd lines as well as their defense, so trades for top-2 line players arent always one for one deals. And its not like Bieksa/Pyatt/Pettinger are chopped liver, and Savard is certainly no Thornton.

shanny is like the ex gf that wouldnt leave
http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/ho...ot_immine.html