<table width=75% align=center><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" style="float: left; padding-right: 4px;">Whenever someone finds out I work for the Vancouver Canucks and get to go into the press box – which is fairly often since I shout it from the roof-tops – the first question is invariably the same: is Farhan Lalji really a robot sent back through time to destroy life as we know it? Yes. Yes he is. The second question i
<table width=75% align=center><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" style="float: left; padding-right: 4px;">Sometimes The Best Trades Are The Ones You Don’t Make It was hard not to chuckle as Pierre McGuire said it. The Vancouver Canucks were the losers at this year’s trade deadline? Reallllly? Well, Pierre is a gifted hockey analyst. Sure, the sheer volume of his commentary is enough to set off all the car alarms within an
<table width=75% align=center><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" style="float: left; padding-right: 4px;">How quickly things can change... Roberto Luongo had just stopped Mike Modano in the shootout. Trevor Linden strolled towards centre ice with a chance to win the game for Vancouver. Canucks fans couldn’t have planned it any better; they were sitting on top of the world. Here was Vancouver’s resident penalty shot expe
<table width=75% align=center><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" style="float: left; padding-right: 4px;">With all due respect to Adriana Lima, she’s got nothing on this Canucks team. Lima, of course, is the international supermodel best known for her work with Victoria’s Secret. A simple Flickr search of her name produces hundreds of images of the scantily-clad Brazilian bombshell, not to mention a heart attack for whoever
<table width=75% align=center><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" style="float: left; padding-right: 4px;">While watching the Markus Naslund 1,000 game hoopla last week, I got to thinking: is it weird that the Canucks presented Markus with flowers before the LA game? Is he a big flower enthusiast? Are hockey players routinely given flowers for reaching milestones? The one time I needed Scott Oake to provide me with some clari
<table width=75% align=center><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" style="float: left; padding-right: 4px;">Imagine. You’re at General Motors Place and it’s the final regular season home game for the 2007-08 Vancouver Canucks. The hated Calgary Flames are in town (just in case you’re wondering what that smell is). It can all mean only one thing: it’s team awards time! Willie Mitchell wins the Babe Pratt for best defenseman.
<table width=75% align=center><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" style="float: left; padding-right: 4px;">The holiday season is once again upon us. While we Vancouverites do a tremendous job of supporting the food banks and the children’s charities and the homeless shelters this time of year, there is one group we’re letting down: professional hockey players. Now I know what you’re going to say. “Dude, what are you talkin
<table width=85%><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">I’ll just go ahead and say it: I don’t understand all the fuss about Sidney Crosby coming to Vancouver. I don’t understand why some tickets for Saturday’s game are going for $600+ on Craigslist. I don’t understand why we’ve had to endure wall-to-wall Sidney coverage ever since the Penguins touched down in Alberta. And I don’t understand why th
<table width=100%><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">Some quick thoughts after the game of the season (so far): 1) Upon leaving GM Place, I raced home to re-watch the game on television, eager to see what the TSN panel said about the Pronger cross-check. I was quite disappointed, to say the least, with what I saw. For all the rants we’ve been forced to endure from the TSN talking-heads about how
<table width=100%><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">If there’s one lesson to be learned by Canucks fans after Leafs Nation suffered a collective coronary earlier this week, it’s this: making panic trades with your good, young goaltending prospects will only come back to haunt you. Tuukka Rask, a former first-round pick of God’s Team, was shipped off to Boston in June 2006 for Andrew Raycroft. The
<table width=100%><tr><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">Run for your lives! Randy Myers is coming into the game! That was the reaction of many Toronto Blue Jays fans during the 1998 MLB season. The Jays had acquired Myers by signing the free agent reliever to a three-year, $18 million contract the previous winter. It was during a weird phase for Toronto, in which the Jays organization deluded itself
<table><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">It’s only fitting that the next game for the slumping Vancouver Canucks comes against the much-hated Calgary Flames. After all, these Canucks are the Calgary Flames. Now quit vomiting for a second and hear me out. This Vancouver team is built around tremendous goaltending, strong defense, and has a great deal of difficulty putting the puck in the net. Sound fam
<table><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">I guess it turns out FOX was just ahead of its time. In 1996, the network, which then carried NHL action in the US, introduced a glowing puck for its television broadcasts. Called “FoxTrax” by company executives and “What the hell is that?” by everyone else, the puck emitted a blue on-screen glow when it was controlled and a red streak when it was shot faster than 70
<table><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">I really dislike Jerry Maguire. It’s 40 minutes too long. It disguises itself as a sports movie when it’s actually a love story. And it’s forever cursed Western society with, “You had me at ‘hello.’” So imagine my dismay now that I find myself taking a page straight out of Jerry’s handbook. In the film’s opening minutes, Maguire has a vision. Tired of the cut-thro
<table><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">Microsoft had just released the original Xbox. Nintendo had followed a few days later and launched its Gamecube. And after a 28-game stint as a Washington Capital, Trevor Linden had barely rejoined the Vancouver Canucks. Yes, a lot has changed since the Philadelphia Flyers last visited General Motors Place on December 31st, 2001. Thankfully, even more is about to.
<table width=90% align=center><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4"> “8,500 fans? For the jersey launch?”<bR><br> That was my reaction on August 29th when I learned just how many spectators had poured into GM Place to watch the Vancouver Canucks unveil their new uniforms. <br><br> The startled tone in my voice wasn’t there because I was surprised so many fans would go to a Canucks-themed
<table><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">7:01: Dan Murphy smashes the record for quickest mistake by a Canucks broadcaster to start the year when, just one minute into the season-opening telecast, he declares, “It has been 154 days – not that we’re counting or anything – since the Canucks last played a meaningful game, a 2-1 overtime loss to the Sharks which knocked Vancouver out of the playoffs.” That Vancouv
<table><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">Roberto, Roberto, Roberto. Now you’ve really gone and done it. Remember that scene in Jurassic Park? You know, the one where the cup of water starts to shake, letting everyone know that a hulking dinosaur is on the way? Well, a lot of cups must be shaking in the NHL’s head office this week. The source? Twenty-nine general managers stampeding to the commissioner’s si
<table><td><img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2007/09/sunny_blog.jpg" align="left" hspace="4">TV is back. After the worst summer lineup in recent memory, this week’s returns of Heroes and House couldn’t have come any sooner for fans of the small-screen. Unfortunately for me, my PVR didn’t record either one. Power outage? Nah. Cable glitch? Not quite. No, my PVR didn’t record anything because it’s still stuffed full with last season’s Canucks games. <a h
