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A Night in the Box - MAR.07.08


Sunny Dhillon

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<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 is just as frequent. “Dude, what’s it like in the press box?” Generally, I make something up about how Dave Nonis and I spend all three periods creating outlandish trade proposals and then post them on the Canucks.com forums just to irritate Vancouver fans. But I suppose it wouldn’t kill me to answer the question honestly… unless it somehow does… which would suck.

Members of the media enter GM Place through a security checkpoint. I’m not sure if I’m really allowed to say much more about it than that. Those who make it past the Rancor get in, those who don’t get… eaten? Is that what the Rancor does? Yeah, let’s go with that.

From there, the media-only privileges really start to kick in. We have our own express elevator that takes us to and from the press box. Of course, when this elevator breaks down – as it did after Thursday night’s game against Nashville – reaching the players is virtually impossible. Which is why I’m all but convinced those wire-cutters in Markus Naslund’s locker had something to do with it.

When the elevator doors open on the press box level, there’s a stack of documents waiting nearby. These documents include statistics on the upcoming game, statistics on the entire league and statistics on how many Vancouver media members Rancor has eaten both that night and lifetime. Huh, I’d always wondered what happened to John Conners.

You might have already heard of the next element: the seat list. Designed to simply alert those in the press box as to which chair is theirs, the seat list is a fixture on sports talk radio and the Interweb because it also details how many scouts are in attendance and from which team. For Thursday’s game, former Canucks head coach Bob McCammon and former Los Angeles King Pat Conacher were both on hand, as were a couple of scouts from Tampa Bay. I guess it’s safe to assume the T-Bay guys were looking at Luc Bourdon with the same lustful “What were we thinking when we missed the boat on that?” gaze that Tyra Banks gets from the male classmates who picked on her for being too tall. “What’s that? We had it wrong on the package for the 1-4-0 Mike Smith, the shootout specialist, and the 31-year old grinder? You don’t say?”

One of the biggest press box perks – at least in theory – is the $10 buffet. The reason I put a minor asterisk on that is because I always get a pat on the back from one of the guys when I eat the White Spot burgers instead. In fact, one of the scouts told me that GM Place has the worst cuisine of any press box in the entire league (MSG evidently has the best). And, of course, because I just shared that tidbit with you, my next buffet entrée is sure to be Chicken a la Spit.

But all is not lost on the food front. In the press box, we also have an unlimited supply of free popcorn. At least I think it’s free. Now that you mention it, no one’s ever really told me that for sure. I kind of just take it and walk away. To go with the popcorn is presumably-free soda, coffee, and water. And if you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, Sunny must have considered putting all that stuff into his pockets and then selling it on the 300 level,” then you’ve got me pretty well figured out. But apparently – and this was as much a shock to me as anyone else – consumers don’t want to buy popcorn out of my pockets. Weird, huh?

Once the feeding frenzy is over, it’s time to get to work. And no stint in the Canucks press box is complete without someone opening up their computer and complaining about the lack of Wi-Fi. That’s right, GM Place requires an actual LAN connection. This once led to Pierre LeBrun asking if he could borrow my Ethernet cord when I was done with it. I don’t really remember much else about that night because Nick Kypreos was sitting next to Pierre and all the fumes from the fifth circle of hell were making me incredibly dizzy.

The view from the press box, at least in my eyes, is unparalleled. There are some who like to be as close to the ice as possible and that’s fine. But the overhead perspective allows you to see everything, often before it even unfolds. Yeah, you heard me: the press box lets you see into the future. How else do you think we can tell when a Sedin is about to take a penalty in the offensive zone? By simply guessing because it happens all the time? Pssh.

Of course, if the future-watch is too stressful and you miss something, there’s no need to fret. Televisions mounted above the press box replay the action far more often than the jumbotron does. And a special PA announcer relays all the critical events to us a second time, usually a couple of minutes after John Ashbridge makes the original announcement. Now, before you ask, no, there isn’t someone who’s paid to help us go potty. He’s actually a volunteer.

Speaking of which, there’s one bathroom per gender in the press box. The men’s consists of one stall and one urinal. The women’s consists of… yeah right, I ain’t going out like dat. The men’s room is particularly busy during intermissions, as all the male media members race to get the lint off of their corduroy blazers.

By this point, you might be thinking we’re pretty spoiled in the press box, and I haven’t even mentioned our very own 50/50 ticket sellers and dudes who hand out newly updated stats sheets between periods. But it’s certainly not all good news. For example, Fin’s t-shirt cannon can’t possibly generate enough height to reach the press box. There’s the already-mentioned lack of Wi-Fi. And there’s also… hmm… it’s a little cold sometimes?

Being in the press box truly is an experience unlike any other. Everything a person could want and need is readily available. In fact, we’re so ridiculously pampered that it’s a little embarrassing to talk about.

Hmm. I think I’ll stick with the making-up-trade-rumours-with-Nonis story from now on.

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Hmm I was just thinking the exact opposite. I suppose if I wanted to analyse the game it would be plum but I like to be close to the ice and down with the people. Sitting in the same section is like grabbing the same piece of real estate at 3rd beach; it becomes a temporary home and familiar neighbourhood. Besides, who wants to watch a fight from down the block? :P

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