Kevin Biestra

I guess I liked when the forum was renamed to Sam Bennett is 18 Talk.

The legend Tom Larscheid got fired after 30 years or whatever for criticizing the team...by a GM who was shortly fired thereafter himself. Controlling the message should be an obsession for the likes of Stalin and Pol Pot...not hockey teams.

Been some good talks. Glad you and a few others around these here parts felt like talking or hearing about Mel Bridgman, Richard Brodeur, Doug Lidster, Hakan Loob, Mike Liut, Dave Babych, John Tonelli and all those other old dogs. I guess 187 lb Enforcers knew what he was doing and left before the bar closed.

Yeah Clancy Brown and Martin Kove (the evil bastards from Highlander and The Karate Kid) are great guys.

Great movie. Henry Fonda tells some great stories about how he showed up trying to look all stereotypically gruff and scary and Leone was like no man...I want the camera to move in on you and the audience sees it was blue eyed Henry Fonda who just killed that whole family.

Maybe the best boxing I have seen in a movie to that point. You could tell he knew how to fight for real. Some of the hooks were kind of swatty but I think that was for Hollywood. Came across as a guy that had been there. The original Death Wish is a massively underrated film.

Charles Bronson was legit in the movies and in real life though.

The 70s brought in a sort of realism. Guys like Dustin Hoffman weren't smoothies or studs. They weren't off putting to see on screen but they were about vulnerability. As was the case with Pacino, Stallone and many others. Harrison Ford was something of a return to the Cary Grant or Gregory Peck type. John Wayne and Charlton Heston...their style of acting became mostly dated when the new breed came in. Not many actors of their approximate age were doing it as naturalistically as the new guys. Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Lee Strasberg... Heston and Wayne did have some good performances but something like the True Grit remake compared to the original kind of showed how acting had evolved. I would say only Robert Duvall in the original was on par with the performance in the remake.

That era...actors who established themselves in the 70s is a murderers' row that is like the Hawerchuk / Stastny / Savard / Coffey / Bourque talk of the 80s. Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Harvey Keitel, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, Michael Douglas, Alan Arkin, Christopher Walken, Donald Sutherland, Maximilian Schell, Martin Sheen, Anthony Hopkins, etc. Williams was a shade younger...kind of a half generation younger like Michelle Pfeiffer or Michael Keaton but going head to head with most of those actors at the height of their powers in the 80s and 90s.

Kurtenbach was the king of the late bloomers. Hit his stride for the first time at age 34 with the Canucks. Goes to show some guys just need the opportunity to be the man.

Ron Delorme, Mel Bridgman, Craig Coxe, Ron Stern, Jerry Korab, Shawn Antoski...

Canucks had the toughest regulars of all time and the toughest cups of coffee (Glen Cochrane, Randy Holt, Troy Crowder...).

Man Billy Smith was a hell of a goalie but I still get a little mad when I think of him slashing Smyl in the face for no reason near the end of game 4 of the 82 final just for the damn hell of it.

I hope so but Alain Vigneault was a hell of a tough player. Known as Bam Bam in his playing days. And it was under his watch that everybody sat around and let Brad Marchand slap Daniel Sedin around like a speed bag. I think Tocchet will have them playing close to as tough as they can though.

Yeah but if he was taller he would be at least a two star Admiral by now.

Yeah I was not happy with AV for all the healthy scratches. I still think Trevor had a year left in him after that as a role player. At one point Linden had been scratched 8 games in a row or something and the reporters were asking him about it. He was being pushed to the limits of his diplomacy. "Yep, ready to go." (ready to go on the ice and play) He was still the team's best penalty killer in his last season. Hands and legs start to go but brains don't at that age.

I'd be down for that but I'm sentimental. I liked it when Harold Snepsts came back home around 1988...and then the Canucks cut him loose again when he still had a couple years of decent NHL hockey in him. Should have been a thousand games in the Canucks colors. Anyway it would be nice to see an Edler return. Not just one of those silly "nominal contract for one day" to retire when it's already over. I watched Linden and Smyl get healthy scratched in droves at the end so I can handle it if Edler just plays 40 games or whatever.

Canadiens have legends in net going all the way back to the inception of the NHL and the invention of masks. Honestly it's the complete opposite of the goalie graveyard when guys like Rick Wamsley and Denis Herron and Michel Larocque don't even get on the radar. They would probably be around our fifth best ever. Never mind Charlie Hodge who we did have for a season. He'd probably be in the ROH if he'd done in Vancouver what he did in Montreal. In Montreal...Charlie who?

Is that 2x Canucks season MVP Cesare Maniago?

It was impressive how slow and steady won the race for Ray Bourque over Paul Coffey in the end though. As of 1990 or so it was just assumed that Bourque could never catch up to Coffey...but he was consistent as hell right up to the end while Paul Coffey aged like a normal human.

Looks like 8 I think for Gary Smith as well including WHA. As to the Canucks goalie graveyard years...where good goalies went to die. For the first decade it was a goalie carousel until King Richard. Then right to Kirk McLean without missing a beat and then just an absolute circus until Luongo.

Eight teams for Burke. Offhand I can't think of anyone who has him beat.

Yeah those Islanders reminded me of the 1988 Devils with Sean Burke and Patrik Sundstrom. Damn fine run to the semifinal by an underdog. And a last hurrah for the old warhorse Bob Sauve in net as well. Seemed like all the old veteran workman goalies went to the Devils to ride off into the sunset in the 80s. Ron Low, Glenn Resch, Bob Sauve, Phil Myre.

Yeah those 1993 playoffs were the high point of Ray Ferraro's career too. 18 games for the Islanders in the playoffs...13 goals and 20 points. By far the best payer on the team in those playoffs.