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Time: Nine thirty-four am, Wednesday October 20th Place: Water cooler, downtown Vancouver "Did you see what Rick Rypien did last night?" "Yeah." "What did you think?" "I wish he knocked that guy out." "Really?" "Yeah really. That guy was a stupid idiot!" "So, do you think he should get suspended?" "No! I think he should get bumped up to the first line." There you have it, a real factitious conversation. Seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up. Ok, here it is. Have you ever been watching a Canucks game—or any game for that matter—and a good call against your team is made. You, being a lover of the game, think to yourself 'good call, the ref got that one right,' however, you can't even hear yourself think that, because the sound of your fellow fans showering endless criticism and protests long into the annoying commercial break drown the voice inside your head out? I mean, it's so bad it makes you wish you could hear what those dumb monkeys in that commercial were thinking, instead of your fellow fans? If this hasn't happened to you, then you might one of the people I am addressing. Common sense, common sense people, needs to be applied to the festering wound of homeristic (not officially a word yet, but give it time) tendencies that seem to blind even some of the best of hockey fans, causing them to yell at televisions (the ref can't hear you by the way) and make silly statements at the expense of other people's sanity. So, for those of you loudly stating that the suspension is too severe, let's take a moment, if you will, to imagine a world where the defendant, I mean, Mr. Rypien's actions are not a six game suspension worthy incident, but rather just the norm of professional hockey. Here's the scene, quiet on the set. You, loyal Canucks fan are watching the blue and green home team beating up on the opposition team five-to-one on drizzly Vancouver winter's night. What's that? A scuffle breaking out on the ice! You and your good buddy—both clad in expensive Canucks jerseys—rise from your row five, two hundred something dollar seats to get a better look at the action. The two of you cheer and spill some of that eight dollar a plastic cup beer as the players exchange a few blows. But what's that? The Canuck player took an extra shot to the head while he was tied up by the linesman! Well, seeing how the two of you are conveniently seated behind the opposition's players bench, and you were already getting yourself primed to go stand in line for more beer anyway, why not take a trip a few rows down to go stand at the side of the opposition's tunnel and throw a few healthy verbal jabs at the dirty goon as he comes off the ice. This is a good idea you think; you'll make a few other fans in the millionaire section laugh, maybe get a couple of high fives and you'll finally have something to talk about at work that doesn't involve you boring your subordinates to death. So there you are, at the side of the tunnel as the opposing player is making his way past you. You call him a wimp or something unoriginal like that, because it's your first time heckling and that's the best you can come up. Suddenly though, he looks at you. He being the large man with muscles in sizes and shapes you yourself are not very familiar with. The man stares at you not with the defeated gaze that the caged tiger at the zoo gave you the other month when you stood at an arm's length away and taunted it, but rather with the look that's probably something closer to malicious joy. It's then the six foot four NHL player reaches up and grabs you by the Orca, at that point, you'll start to feel a bit of urine trickle down your leg. Don't worry about it though, that can at least come out in the wash. It's the blood stains that will be a bit more difficult—those will require soaking. With your life flashing before your eyes you decide not to go down without a fight and take a weak swing at the man who essentially gets paid to fight. Don't look now, but the rest of his teammates are now coming over the glass to defend him. Whoa. This went bad in a hurry. Once the game has been called because of too much tear gas in the stadium from the riot squad that have been called in to settle this thing down, you can begin your search for a late night dentist, sorry I'm getting ahead of myself, you start that search after getting stitched up while giving your statement to the police. What comes next? Well, once you've located the biggest neck brace on the market, it's time for you and everyone else involved to shop around the yellow pages and sort though the endless ads of sleazy looking lawyers. Days later, you'll turn on your television to discover that another game ending brawl broke out in Philadelphia (where else?), then Tampa Bay. Soon it's being reported that the season will now have to be called because players, coaches and owners are too busy dealing with lawsuits and have no time to dedicate to the game anymore. As I hope you've picked up on this already, it's the fans—and our money—that drives this machine. Without us safe and sound sitting in the stands, there is no NHL as we know it. The NHL can simply not afford to have a product that puts the fans at risk of physical danger by players arbitrarily deciding to reach up into the stands and attacking people (that job's been already been reserved for crazy hockey parents to carry out with each other at bantam games). If incidents like this are to be treated by the NHL brass with the same blasé attitude that blindside hits are (e.g. Chicago's Niklas Hjalmarsson's recent two game suspension) then hockey will be going down a fast road to becoming something closer to...to...I was going to say wrestling, but then I remembered that wrestlers don't even attack fans. Bottom line is there needs to be order in this game. Do you remember bench clearing brawls? Hardly right. Why is that? Because they don't happen anymore—if you leave the bench it's an automatic ten game suspension, that's why. It seemed a bit harsh at the time as does this (amazingly) to some, but as much as we'd like to think otherwise, bench fights are not going to put fans in the seats and that is what the NHL is in the business of doing—along with selling us puck shaped foam headgear, pink jerseys for our girlfriends and most anything else they can dream up. So in the unlikely event that another player would consider jumping a fan in the future, it's safe to say that the exposure that this incident caused and the suspension doled out are a very strong deterrent. I love what the Ripper brings to the ice. He made a bad decision for a split second in rush of adrenaline, but he pulled himself back a split second later and we must give him credit for that. I wish it didn't have to happen to a player on our team, but seeing how it did, we need to accept it as a good one and remember that if this happened to a player on another team we'd probably be screaming at our television that six games wasn't anywhere near enough.

As we head towards Thursday night's match up between Boston and Pittsburgh I think we should talk about what's on everyone's mind—who's going to try to pummel Cookie into crumble? It's thrilling isn't it? Will it be Lucic or Thornton? Or maybe, oh oh, this is exciting, maybe Chara will come to defend Savard's honour and jackhammer the Cooker straight down into the ice. Yeah! It's actually very sad. As I've been listening to the cries of retribution from media and fans from around the league I cannot help but be brought back to a game that Cooke was involved in years ago as a Canuck, a game that will forever be remembered as the "Bertuzzi incident" The similarities between the two are striking: a lesser player goes after the opposing team's star who's in a very vulnerable position and takes advantage of them...star player knocked out of game and future games with concussion...no suspension or penalty on the play...fans and media scream for blood...big time hype leading up to the rematch...the chances of a bloodbath—certain. Here we are, one day away from the next main event and Boston fans (and Cooke haters) here's some advice for you all—careful what you wish for. Before I go any further let me explain how I feel about Matt Cooke: I'm glad he is no longer a Canuck. For his whole career he's played a coward's game and then let his teammates step in to take the punches for him. The lowlight reel of him on coach's corner this weekend was embarrassing to watch, even more so that he was in a Canucks uniform for most of the scenes. I don't like the way he plays and was very disappointed to see him win a Stanley cup; I don't think he deserved it. Cooke's hit on Savard was dangerous, I think he knew what he was doing and he should have been suspended for it. However, despite all of this, I don't want to see him on the receiving end of retribution on Thursday. Why? I think back to how I felt about Steve Moore days before the rematch and this was me—screaming for blood—literally. I felt the sight of Steve Moore dripping blood from his face was absolutely necessary to avenge what he did to Markus Naslund. It needed to happen. It had to happen. There was no talking me and a large percentage of Vancouver fans out of it because as true fans know—that's hockey—you do something bad to another player and you'd better bring along enough of your blood type for the transfusion you'll need after the next game. Right? Well I certainly don't feel that way anymore. I and a lot of other people got exactly what we wanted that night; it's just afterwards we failed to admit it. Conveniently, most of the fans forgot that we really did want to see Moore get hurt, then turned on Todd Bertuzzi and said "well...gosh, I didn't REALLY want to see someone get hurt that bad. I just wanted payback and a little blood. Todd took it too far. He's a monster!" We were cheering as Bertuzzi gabbed Moore from behind, but when he had to be taken off on a stretcher, we disavowed any responsible for our desire to see Steve Moore hurt, proclaimed Todd to be a demon and stood as far back as we could and pointed our accusing fingers towards him. Nothing good came out of that night for anyone involved. Steve Moore, Todd Bertuzzi, Canucks fans, fans of the game, everyone lost that night. I felt awful about what happened, but if I'm honest with myself, it's truly what I wanted to see, because I wanted blood. For those of you who feel like on ice justice needs to be served, it's important to remember that as we've seen from Matt Cooke's actions, it doesn't take much to severely injure another player and put him out of the game for a long time. No one has died on NHL ice yet as a result of game time violence, but if the fans and the media continue to place expectations on the players that something BIG has to go down after a dirty play, then it only a matter of time until a player takes things farther than they intended and we're all left wondering how could this have happened. Most everyone will say "nobody's going to kill him, just rough him up a little." Well I'm sure no one could have predicted the aftermath of the Colorado/Vancouver game. A player's career came to an end that night and the other main player involved would have to live through an incredibly difficult period of time as a result of his actions and it would come to define him for the rest of his declining career. I don't know what the league was thinking on this one by not handing out a suspension—they handled things about as successfully as Dan Cloutier trying to stop a beach ball—they should have done the right thing now and changed the rule book later. It's too late to go back and change that, but what's not too late is to change our attitudes. Let the players sort it out for themselves the way they want too without all the pressure from fans and media who can sit back and watch from the safety of our armchairs and cheer for all sorts of disturbing possibilities.

Quick! Someone hire me a proof-reader! Thanks for pointing out all the mistakes everyone...geez, I can't believe it. Spelling is clearly not my strong point. You'll be surprised (and possibly shocked) to know that English is actually my first and only language. Yikes! I know.

Holy Smokes!!!What an oversight on my part. Thanks for pointing that out and great to hear that there's another Sundstrom fan out there.

As Henrik Sedin approaches the single season record for most points in a season by a Vancouver Canucks center, I think it's time we took a look back—way back—at the player who currently holds that record. If you don't know who it is off the top of your head, I can assure you you're not alone, but why not try taking a guess? You're first guess might be a guy by the name Trevor Linden, who you might remember, had a few good years as a Canuck. If you guessed him, you would be wrong. Maybe it was Thomas Gradin then? A lot of fans regard him as not just one of the best centers the Canucks have had, but one of the best Canucks of all time. But sorry no, it wasn't him either. That's because twenty-six years ago a forgotten Swede by the name Patrik Sundstrom shook off any notion of a sophomore slump and put in one of the best performances by a Canuck—ever. It was so good in fact that while it held up over the years against previously mentioned centers, it has also stood the test of time against players like Cliff Ronning, Brendan Morrison and up until now, Henrik Sedin, who's having a career year and looking to be a candidate for MVP—not just for the team though, but for the entire league. Patrik Sundstrom was taken 175th overall in the 1980 entry draft. He led his country to gold at the World Junior championship in 1981 was named best forward of the tournament and joined the Canucks for his rookie season in the 82-83 campaign, the year following Vancouver's first run to the cup. Although expectations were never that high, he quickly changed that by maturing into a natural scorer and passer. He was also a defensive specialist; in an age where shot blocking by skilled forwards was the exception, not the rule, Sundstrom was one of the best. Here's a look at some of his accomplishments as a Canuck. He became third player in NHL history to have six assists in a road game while playing for Vancouver on Feb. 29, 1984. That night still stands as a Canucks record with most points scored in one game, seven (1G, 6A). He shares the record for most goals by a Canuck center in one season with 38 His 91 points that season is ranked sixth among all-time Canucks single season point totals for any positions. Only Pavel Bure, Todd Burtuzzi, Markus Naslund and Alexander Mogliny had more points in one season than Patrik Sundstrom did, and while all those names are surly memorable to Canucks fans, somehow Sundstrom's name seems to have faded away. I know what you're thinking 'big deal, one season doesn't mean anything. Anyone can have one good season.' I agree with you, but out of all the players who have ever suited up as a Canuck for a minimum of 300 games, Sundstrom has the third best points per game average, behind only Pavel Bure and Alexander Mogilny. His time as a Canuck came to an end when the man from Skelleftea, Sweden was traded by Vancouver to New Jersey in exchange for Kirk McLean, Greg Adams and on September 10, 1987. A traded that was soon widely regarded as the best trade Vancouver ever made, (until Alex Stojanov was sent to Pittsburgh for Markus Naslund) the Canucks received B.C. native Adams, a key player in the 1994 for run to the cup and Captain Kirk. Without these two, there would have been no run at all. Sundstrom went on to be an impact player for the Devils but suffered multiple injuries that shorten his NHL carrer, but not before recording the most points in a playoff game with eight. A record since tied by Mario Lemieux. On a team with a history of great Swedish players, Patrik Sundstrom has never been given the credit he deserves. So with a few more games to go before the record he achieved in his second year will finally be broken by a player in his tenth, and by a player who is also likely to surpass Markus Nasland in all time points as a Canuck (if he and his brother spend the last four years of their contact here) let's take note that, this is the calibre of player and the type of season it took to beat his record. Here's to Patrik Sundstrom, the best number 17 in Canucks history, let's make sure he's not forgotten.