viking mama

LOL. Yah! I see what ya did there & I am a little partial to seafood..& pickled herring! And, I do see that this season’s Fin is missing a little bit of his usual personality & pizazz.

Fin is my favorite NHL mascot, fins down! His holiday wardrobe & family of side-kick characters alone will entertain me game in & game out! Cheers & good to see ya Fin!

Is he able to get in any rhythm out there? Greener knows what he has & could be sitting him a bit. I haven’t noticed him, either. He is rostered here, right?

^Hell! Can you imagine what Sutherland, O’Halloran & O’Rourke will do with this increased emphasis on what was already a discretionary call? They will be exploiting it richly with their customary bias, no doubt.

LOL It is weird having the period (2) & partial score side by side like that. Looks like it’s period (1) score (3) (2). Put the game clock on the other side or something?

Brutal reffing! Could or should have been an even up call if ya even go there. Ref doesn’t call anything, lookin’ straight at a cross-checking fray signalling he’s letting things go to Bo. Then Bo does the ‘allowable’ and… nope! I’m changing the standard for YOU! Inept & waffling standards will undoubtably continue for yet another season, folks!

Hey! Don’t diss Abbotsford. And, isn’t it known as the berry-basket of British Columbia?

Ive got bacon-flavoured cotton candy sittin’ here on a shelf & ready to try. Good idea…or no?

Face-palming over all this Hamonic news. How high maintenance can one hockey player get? Gheeez.

Toting a twig like Willie Mitchell used to use, too! Nice omen!

I will believe that they’re serious about calling cross-checks, when I see it in the regular season & play-offs…

Miller-time! Another gritty goal.

Highway 1 nightmare today kept everyone but immediate locals away. Some struggling in late perhaps? School, dance, karate, kids hockey is all just starting up. Not a weekend game here, with sky train access. At the mercy of Hwy 1,..that’s how the Baby Canucks fans will have to roll on weekdays,

Worries over the ‘defence’ is giving me a panic attack. But, yah I we’re going to love having Garland & Podkolzin. Nice zinger on Ritchie there, Podz!

OEL & Conor Garland looking sharp early! Feeling slap-happy right now!

The forwards group will be just fine, and they will evolve together well, as the season shakes out & goes along. My five-alarm fire-sirens are going off in a serious cry to help solve this team’s D problems, tho.

Yup. Mark Messier spent far more time outside of our fair city than in it, when he was this team’s - Captain. He narcissistically usurpped the captaincy here, instead of declining it. He could have more graciously earned a proper place among the leadership group, by demonstrating loyalty & accomplishing some “newer” deeds among them. He elected to divide & core-bust. As a NYRanger, and after a heart-wrenchingly bitter 1994 SCFinal vs our valiant Canucks, all that his new teammates likely saw or remembered of him was the deplorable “dishonour” of league-enabled cheating! This protection-from-accountability-perk wasn’t offered or available to just anyone, so who wanted to risk following or emulating stuff like that? Playing the game the right way, should mean something & be far more appreciated. For captains like Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, Trevor Linden, Mike Modano & Jarome Iginla - it did, and it was their moral cross to bear with integrity, win or lose. I thank them all for being sports legends that I can whole-heartily respect, as a result. I also wonder if Messier made many if any local hospital visits? Community sightings were extremely rare. How many local PR-events did he attend on behalf of his new team? All of the things that former Canucks’ GM Pat Quinn & others seemed to value in collective team or community leadership, were lacking or remained few & far between for Mark Messier while he was here in VanCity. Sure - Messier partnered-up with Bauer & the NHL to giveaway helmets to kids, but he was also paid handsomely for what was a PR-stunt to cultivate customer-loyalty to the brand of helmet he endorsed, for a profit…because if Messier is anything, he’s mercenary. Leaders should lead by example they say! Well,…where, when, with whom, how well & how often they lead are also very important details to rank & assess, also.

Messier was a vastly over-rated league-enabled head-hunter. He had the deplorable on-ice habit of disrespecting human dignity, health & lives of his fellow union bros, which is a travesty to the oath of contract that he signed to obey & abide by league rules to conduct himself professionally while competing against others. That said, traditionalists running the league, especially owners in O-6 market places like NY & BOS, happily enabled & encouraged Messier’s liberties & on-ice vices. On-ice drama & violence can be easily misinterpreted for league purposes & sells tickets & merchandise in places that wish to hold the NHL apart from those other pro-sports leagues, where fighting & in-game violence are NOT tolerated & more heavily suspended. Does regularly crossing-the-line of fair-play, or endangering the personal safety of your fellow union bros, who’ve gifted him the privilege of playing versus them under qualified conditions - make Messier a very ‘good’ captain? Ha no! Does a guy who builds his career upon “flagrant elbows” & inexplicably unpenalized cheap-shots or dividing locker rooms make for a good NHL captain?! Hell no! Messier’s habits were so egregious NO Olympic team would select him, because they could not trust him to abide by international rules of hockey & personal conduct, on the ice. Messier playing style was suspendable to most IIHF officials, who take their governing rules seriously & receive personal-vetting for their biases, instead of being seeded into elimination games because of them, like the most powerful NHL owners manage to accomplish for their biggest games. Mark Messier was eventually considered even toxic to this newest generation of players. His offers to manage and/or mentor NHL teams have been shunned, spurned & turned down. However, Bettman & the league’s chief executive officers continually use him for propaganda & mixed-messaging purposes. The modern & farcically named Mark Messier “Leadership” Award was created to keep cheating, drama, vigilante-justice, violence, & cheap-shotting at the fore as laudable “leadership” tactics, despite the NHL’s best protestations & press-releases stating otherwise. ^Disgusting truth. I see Trumpism & Messier-worship in the same vain. Where’s the honour in toxic character flaws or unacknowledged vices? Neither of these popular persons, is the best role model or positive example of quality character or leadership. I certainly wouldn’t want them influencing the behaviour or decision-making of a child or any hockey-playing prospects, if luring the “best“ & the “brightest” athletes in the world to come to N.A. to play professionally at the “highest” possible skill level, is the NHL’s or NHLPA’s ultimate goal. Franchises or organizations who bind themselves to individuals like these, don’t always win & the price can be far costlier than dollars & cents.

Eberle? Giordano? Has the shine already gone off of these guys?

Lose the game, win the shoot-out! Works for me!! Welcome back, Jack!!!

Shoot-out for fun’s sake,…who do want to see go?

Local boy Cholowski, ex-Chilliwack Chief, 1st round pick by DET, 2 assists.

I hear ya!

Who else was battling for the rights to deploy Loui Erksson & at that money or term? The fact that big contracts were being awarded, does not justify Loui Ericksson being offered such a reward! Loui’s chumminess with Benning (BOS) as well as the Sedins (Team-Sweden), uber-tempted JB to over-sell LE’s worth & potential to the Aquilinis. He clearly over-paid the player & promised far more to the fans than LE could ever-possibly deliver. No other GMs were chomping at the bit to sign Loui Ericksson, at that kind of money & term. Loui was looking to avoid being bounced around, was already in decline, & simply hoped to resurrect his career & do special things upon reunification with the Sedins, which as we saw - never happened.

That was Nate Schmidt’s story here. What about the albatross Loui Ericksson contract, where arguably no other NHL team came within light years’s of offering him anything close to that. So much wasted-cap when this team was fairly tight-knit & starting to knock on the door of doing special things. There’s also the plague of Virtanen’s perpetual immaturity upon this team & that dressing room. How do you put heart into something without depth or train the brain of someone who refuses to learn or is unaccustomed to making the necessary sacrifices? Not properly vetting for maturity & intelligence are mistakes today’s NHL GMs should not be making. (Good luck to MTL’s Bergevin, in that too!) Throwing money & term at predictably more fragile & repeatedly-concussed players, did not work out that well, either (Ferland, Baertschi). Mistakes are piling-up & beginning to out-weigh his scores. I’m not the only fan craving more competent cap management, better over-all communications with veteran players & meticulous vetting of those players whom he procures. Without vastly-improved results this season, the Aquilinis would be negligent to extend JB beyond his current term.