<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2008/09/henderson_head.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">It was a night of opposites, when Def (and apparently dumb) Leppard managed to place the mighty Stanley Cup upside down (the only crime that will still get you executed in Canada) and when the Canucks put together a classy and touching tribute to a young defenseman lost far too soon, then went out and got a fantastic victory
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">Bugs Bunny: “We’re foundering fast. Oh no! The Captain goes down with his ship.” Yosemite Sam: “I resign. You’re Captain” Bugs: “No, you’re Captain” Sam: “I’m Captain and I say you’re Captain, Captain” And just last week I was feeling like the good ship Canuck was going to make it past the tricky shoals. Now I’m wo
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2008/09/henderson_head.jpg align=left hspace=4>The Canucks are 2 and 0! Can a rain of toads be far behind? Or maybe we should just give in to the sweet insanity – could you safely run the parade down Robson Street? After a summer of handwringing, despair, and battening down the hatches of the good ship Canucklehead, fearful of the tsunami of team awfulness surging towards u
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>When it comes to the (less than) graceful retirement of athletes, I’m beginning to think we should institute a “Logan’s Run” policy. I realize that today’s very fit players can stay in the game longer than their brethren of yore. But no matter how hard you work out in the summer, you cannot stop time. And just because you
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>It sounds like a joke - how many Newfies does it take to hoist the Stanley Cup? Apparently, just one, but you have to imagine that the hands of every citizen of Newfoundland were stretching out across the kilometers last night, to help local lad Dan Cleary lift that most precious of sports trophies. And frankly, you have t
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>I wish I had interviewed Luc Bourdon. I never got the chance. We were never in the room at the same time. I did pass Luc on Burrard Street late in the season and, as always when I’m standing next to an NHL defenceman, I marveled at how huge, solid and powerful he looked. And how boyish. “Such a sweet baby face”, I thoug
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>This may be my last chance, so I’d like to give my own shout out to my beloved skilled guy. <br><br> I never really understand why people spend so much time insulting Markus Naslund for what he is not, instead of celebrating what he is and has been to this city and this team. Big guys who waste their natural asse
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>I have done everything in my power to help the team. I have made a wish at the fountain in front of the Aquarium, worn my lucky leopard-print bra on game days, wrapped myself in my Canucks blanket and surrounded myself and the television with all manner of team paraphernalia. Which makes me just one “arf” short of barking ma
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>I’m going to suggest that everyone take a pill. Considering the level of utter hysteria that must be building out there in the streets, on the call-in shows and in the media, I am recommending it be prescribed in jumbo-sized suppository form. Yesterday I was in the middle of a run when I got caught in that spectacular hailst
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>There were things to enjoy in the Canucks’ victory over the Stars on the weekend: the nine point performance of the Markus-Mo-Matt line; Willie “Timex” Mitchell – he takes a licking and keeps on ticking – battling and bleeding profusely enough to warrant admiration from Don Cherry; the crabby, frustrated expression on Marty Tu
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>I would never count myself among the fans of Dan Cloutier, that legion of dewy-eyed babes, but I didn’t despise him with a passion either. I always thought he managed quite admirably during the regular season, considering how often his teammates, caught pinching up on the play, abandoned their hapless netminder to three-on-tw
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>Memo to Vancouver hockey fans: stop listening to panicky poultry. Chicken Little had it wrong – the sky is staying put. Ha - I wonder if the Nashville Tennessean newspaper has a cover story this morning promoting public self-immolation for disconsolate Predators fans? For those of you hysterically proclaiming that, withou
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>Okay. I confess that I do bring a slightly masculine edge to my girlie pursuits. I am quite possibly the only woman with a guilty addiction to “MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives” who gets annoyed with the inaccuracies in the hockey aspects of the show. Conversely, I also view sports through a female gaze. So I have to a
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>Yeesh. Pity the poor ticketholders who witnessed the Canucks on Saturday night, looking more snowed under by Avalanche conditions than the Coquihalla Highway. It was beginning to feel like an Old Yeller moment, where the kindest thing might be to take the team out behind the barn and put them and us out of our collective mis
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>The sand on Waimea Bay beach is the colour of cornmeal and the dramatic North Shore waves crash and froth over it like so much macchiato foam. But even a week in Hawaii with a frosty girl drink in hand can’t prevent a gal’s brain from turning to the great frozen game. I have to say, it is much easier to pick up the hockey sc
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>“Losing is a disease…as contagious as bubonic plague.” The Natural About now we need Roy Hobbs (with a talented, aging Swede named Mats or Peter standing in for Robert Redford) to leap over the boards clutching “Wonderboy”, his lightning-bolt-emblazoned stick, to save the day, the season, and the team. Yes indeed, if life w
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>Last weekend, for a change of pace, I watched a couple of periods of the Detroit/Ottawa game. In some ways it was like travelling to a different country – things looked vaguely familiar but oh so different. There was almost no back or forechecking – the top lines rarely went anywhere near the boards, and certainly would not
<table width=80% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>For those of us who agonized through the Stanley Cup final in 1982, a visit from the Islanders always provides a small jolt of nostalgic emotion. The 2008 version of the old foe could really use a little help from Mike Bossy. Now, I just loved the first period last night, and obviously, so did the Canucks. But, they are sti
<table width=90% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>Much like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in that white hot courtyard in Bolivia, the Canucks suck at shootouts. This year, anyway - last year they were better. They also seemed to turn it up a notch in the overtime period last season, ending the contest before it even got to a shootout. I also think other factors, like
<table width=90% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>Well, that was a pretty darn entertaining slice of history, wasn’t it? Maybe now the schedule makers will see the value of allowing the Canucks to participate in the occasional Saturday night game. Despite the loss, it was an absolute value-for-money experience. I left GM Place with the same feeling of giddiness that usuall
<table width=85% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>Orcas are usually ferocious predators, leaping onto the ice to make a meal of unwary flightless birds. I hope this biological imperative holds true on Hockey Night in Canada. It appears to be up to the Canucks to be the standard bearer for Western Canada tomorrow night, as both Edmonton and Calgary have fallen dazed and blee
<table width=90% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>I think I owe Ryan Kesler an apology. I have been a little sarcastic about his abilities over the last couple of years. Turns out hockey players, like children, will insist on developing in their own time. Now, Kess has been under a great deal of pressure since he was wooed by Philadelphia and given such an impressive contr
<table width=90% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>The big guy has returned. No, I’m not referring to the Santa Claus Parade. We are unlikely to get a jolly ho-ho-ho out of Todd Bertuzzi. I must admit, old number 44 would be on the list of my all-time favourite Canucks. I am certainly not sorry about the move that sent him away and brought Roberto to us, but I supported To
<table width=90% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>Jiminy Jillikers Radioactive Man! What are they putting in the Gatorade over at GM Place? Who among us would have imagined that the way to add offence was to subtract defence? Go figure, Pythagoras. Yesterday, right next door, our local, solid-from-top-to-bottom football team should have won but couldn’t. Meanwhile, str
<table width=90% align=center border=0><tr><td><img src=http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/henderson_headshot.jpg align=left hspace=4>Phew. After the Canucks secured seven out of a possible eight points in the last week and a half, things are looking a little brighter. Passing is crisp, the stickwork is excellent, defensive systems are being deployed properly and Roberto rocks. We still can’t win faceoffs and scoring is still a rarity, but at least these
