<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, stripped of veterans and playing with a number of baby-faced defencemen so wet behind the ears that their heads should have been encased in blocks of ice by the end of the game, the hockey squad triumphed.

The team that can’t score has ten goals in two games. I know it was chillier this morning but has Hell actually frozen over? Is Satan flying down the wing making tape-to-tape passes? Because the Canucks sure are. Last night, post game, John Garrett suggested that the Sedins had finally gotten Nazzy to play their style.

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I think it’s the reverse – Markus has coaxed the Twins into his more freewheeling world. Or maybe it’s a combination of both. The redheads are making spectacular moves in front of the net, not just behind it, and the Captain is also skating into the dirty areas to clean up the garbage. He was certainly looking like Classic Naslund last night, zipping around, hypnotizing the opposition.

And I know we turned the clocks back a couple of weeks ago, but did we turn them back to the early 1990s? Because it was vintage Trevor Linden scoring his first goal of the season against Minnesota.

It’s all enough to make your heart positively sing. I know I have previously moaned about the current schedule, but, considering that we have yet to lose to a Northwest Division opponent in regulation time, I guess I wouldn’t mind if we played nobody else for the rest of the season.

And lastly, I admired the restraint shown by Dave Nonis and Mattias Ohlund when answering questions regarding the latter’s four game suspension for slashing Mikko Koivu. I wish Matty had shown the same restraint in responding to an elbow to the head, but I understand that, as they say, in the heat of battle sometimes restraint is not an option.

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I must say, four games seems a little severe to this viewer who has witnessed infinitely worse whacks over the years that raised nary an eyebrow. Last week we were treated to Mark “The Blubbering Mess” Messier being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Old Moose was hardly known for his gentlemanly use of the stick during his playing days.

The Hall is, in fact, littered with lads who used their lumber like axes. But, I’m all for issuing suspensions for two-handed swings of the stick and for shots to the head. I’ve always hated those things. But I would like the suspensions to be equitable, whether you play for the Toronto Maple Leafs, the New York Rangers or the Vancouver Canucks; whether you are a superstar or a rookie nobody. Frankly, I don’t think we are quite there yet.

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