Curmudgeon

Back in the 1960s, Gordie Howe worked in the summers for Eaton's department stores as a goodwill ambassador and would come out to Vancouver for a fan session and an autograph set up. One year he was going to be speaking at Exhibition Gardens, and my dad took me. Before the event started I wandered down to the concourse near the front door, when in walks the man himself, striding casually down the hallway. I fell in step beside him and just stared up at him like he was a God. He looked down and smiled and said, "How you doing, son?" Gordie Howe talked to me. I walked with him for all of thirty seconds, but I still remember his face, his smile, his kind words, and his wrists that look liked thighs. 

One other Gordie Story: Around the same time, there was a promotion by Red Kettle soups where if you sent them like $2.00 and three soup labels, you would get a slim, hardcover volume called Hockey, Here's Howe. On the cover was a painting of Gordie playing on the ice with his two small kids, Mark and Marty. Anyway, I took the book with me to the autograph session at Eaton's where I stood in line for at least an hour. Howe was famous for taking time with everyone who wanted an autograph. I had even brought a pen with me, but he had a precursor to a Sharpie and said it would last longer. He was right. I still have that autographed book and the signature is as sharp now as it was then and, unlike modern athlete's chicken scratches that are completely illegible, Howe's signature was clear and readable and written with obvious care.

I never access the forums through the main website. Years ago I bookmarked https://forum.canucks.com/

So I always have the link accessible from my desktop.

People have been posting to the forums all day, so it isn't dead. Just hiding?

I wasn't aware that the website had changed.

Why stop at Jack White and Jack Black? How about adding a chorus of Pink, David Gray, Simply Red, the Rev. Al Green and a hologram of James Brown, with percussion by Blue Man Group recorded live in a Yellow Submarine that has submerged to get out of the Purple Rain?

Yes, I have too much time on my hands....

Think it through, folks. If all of a sudden there were no restrictions on use of performance enhancing substances, then:

- Every player would be jacked, because everybody else is. There would be no such thing as a player who opts to not take steroids, because he/she wouldn't be good enough to compete with those who are jacked.

- Games, and whole seasons, would be a race not of the most gifted athletes, but of the team with the best pharmaceuticals. Doesn't seem like sports to me; more like science.

- There are serious health risks to athletes using performance enhancing substances that can, in some cases, prove fatal. Would Pfizer get his name on the Stanley Cup? Do we want to coax athletes into putting their long term health at risk for our amusement and entertainment? I'd say no.

- The universal use of performance enhancing substances calls into question the very nature of sport. Should it be a spirited contest between well-conditioned athletes, or should it be reduced to who's got the best juice? Once the juice is introduced it is no longer sport as we know it. And yes, I am aware that some players might be quietly using something, but I'd say most aren't.

Allvin has already signed Nikita Tolopilo and Zach Sawchenko to fill out the goaltending roster of Demko, Martin and Silovs. And it isn't like they bought these new guys off Amazon; they were scouted and evaluated and then signed. Why do you need more than that?

I wouldn't rush into getting a guy like that. Podkolzin may be that guy and if Klimovich has a breakout year in Abbotsford, he might be that guy, too. He is just 20 and already has two years of AHL experience behind him. I like what he brings and see him having an increasing role in Abbotsford.

Watched the entire opening ceremonies of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics at Moose McGillicuddy's in Lahaina. Went into the place at 4:30 pm and left at 2:00 am. Great food, great band. With my luck I had the only room in Lahaina that was spinning all night. Lahaina had a really friendly vibe then; don't know what it's like now, but back then when I told a barber in Waikiki that my wife and i were going to Maui she repllied, "Maui? That's for newlyweds and nearly deads." Unless you golf, I tend to agree.

Ha, ha, ha. I can't, but Google can. But whenever I don't know the answer, I don't use Google to look it up. So, I only go with what I am pretty sure I know. I think know that Conacher was named best athlete of the half-century (1900-1950), and I think he might have played for the football Argonauts.

Big Train? Well before my time, but Lionel Conacher?

Larry Popein. Played for the Rangers for seven years and then for the Canucks for the rest of his career. Great skater.

As of August 7th, 68 days until Edmonton is at Vancouver to kick off the season.

Awesome work, Hip. Thanks for the effort.

Lockwood signed a two-way contract. I'm pretty sure he'll play in the AHL, but if he makes the NHL team, he'd be no better than a fourth line winger on a checking line. Hardly dynamic.

No. You are thinking of Kent Hughes. Jim Hughes is Quinn's father.

Mom, Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, was a field lacrosse, soccer and hockey star at the University of New Hampshire and  played on the US Women's hockey team, winning silver at the 1992 Olympics and being named to the all-star team at those same Olympics. She was named to the U of NH's Hall of Fame in 2012. She is apparently the one who taught the boys to skate. 

My doctor, who was feeling overworked, took on another doctor to help with the workload. She's very nice, but I have sweaters older than her and she does NOT understand seniors. At all. So I tend to avoid going to the doctor because she never has the right answer and she doesn't realize that after a lifetime of living in my body, I have a pretty fair idea what works for me and what doesn't. I'd try to find another doctor, but when we moved here it took three years to even get a doctor, who then "retired", except he took on a job as a walk-in clinic doctor with no case files to keep and no office overhead and not having to pay a nurse/receptionist. He probably sees thirty patients a day and writes 30+ prescriptions. Guy is making a fortune. A doctor working the system. Who ever would have thought?

Slow Walkin' Walter, Fire Engine Guy.

I can't see Bieksa giving up a national gig to do regional games. And I doubt very much if Sportsnet/CBC would want to lose him. He's become the reason most people watch the intermission shows.

Can't remember if there is a Shopper's Drug Mart or a Save-On Foods  in Smithers, but if there is they usually carry a wide selection of magazines. I think in the past it has come out around the start of June. And like you, Joe, I look forward to it every year.

Could be. He's going into the final year before he becomes a UFA. I think that means they can begin negotiations after July 1st(?) on an extension. Matthews needs to decide if he wants to stay in Toronto or move on at the end of his deal. I think the Leafs will want to sign him, but the price has to be right. He could fetch a pretty good haul on the trade market and he does not have a no movement clause.

I know what long winters in the Bulkley Valley can be like, Joe, but I am glad you have CDCers to kid around with and enjoy Canucks hockey. You and I may be the only two guys around here who were big fans of the Western League Canucks, with the likes of Phil Maloney, Larry Popein, Billy McNeill, Andy Bathgate and Gilles Villemure. Even Don Cherry played a year or two years before the Canucks got into the NHL. Cherry was not a very good defencemen, by the way. Anway, Joe, there will be lots of Canucks news over the summer, and CDC will be in on all of it. So to out CDC Poster Emeritus, have a great summer, Joe!

When I was a kid in Vancouver there was an older, childless couple who used to sit on their screened porch on summer nights with no lights on. You could see their cigarettes in the dark. They would drink until they started to argue, then half the street would have to put up with two people calling each other every foul name they could think of at full volume. This would last until one of them got up and slammed the door behind them on their way in the house. Nobody ever talked about it and nobody ever called the police. Alcohol and anger are a bad mixture. Doesn't matter if it's 2023 or 1963, things haven't changed much.

Getting old isn't for wimps. How will you know when you are getting old? When you begin to worry that every ache and pain is only the beginning of some life threatening downward spiral into infirmity and death. You'll also feel old when young folks in stores, restaurants and other businesses think because you have grey hair and a few wrinkles, that you are somehow stupid and need to be told things in a way you'd tell a six-year old. Sometimes I just would like to say "Kid, I've forgotten sh** you don't even know yet."

I am thrilled with their performance in the last ten games. I hope they win them all and I don't even care about the draft. Whoever they take, short of lucking into the top one or two spots, won't help them for a couple of years anyway. Call me whatever you want, but I want my team to win every game and let the chips fall where they may.

Not a bad idea, Joe, unless there are better centres available when Vancouver picks. This year all the top ten to fifteen guys are forwards. The highest rated defencemen are Axel Sandin Pellikka (Sweden), David Reinbacher (Switzerland) and Lukas Dragicevic (Tri-Cities, WHL). All three are right shot defencemen.