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780 Canucks

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  1. Canucks fans and players put it all on the line for the Stanley Cup.
  2. In an attempt to get all Canuck fans off the couch and down to a local watering hole in Edmonton, I am calling for all Canuck fans located in the city of Edmonton to head to Hudsons Downtown location. 11248 104 Ave. As a loyal canuck fan and owner of the Edmonton Canuck Truck, that is where I will be tonight and hoping others will join in the festivities for GAME 6 against the hated Bruins. Plus........Hudsons has pretty good wings!
  3. Never make the goalie the captain of your team. I have read the blogs this morning, and I have seen the interview with Roberto following last nights Game 4 implosion. I have never written a blog before and usually take out my Canuck Fan Frustration (which will be refered to as CFF for the remainder of this blog) on my beautiful wife who has to listen to me rant and rave about all I believe i know about what is going on with the Canucks while she sits next to me on the couch. Like many of you who may be taking the time to read this, I am a Canuck. Just like the sign says at GM place......"We are all Canucks.", and I will be a Canuck until my last days. I live in another major NHL market and it is even a bigger kick to support your team behind enemy lines at times but today I wish I was at home, so I could find Alain and let him know how to fix this before I have to wait till next year to go through the same thing I am going through right now. I have my theories, I yell at the TV, and I blame........oh do i blame. The gods, the players, the coaches, those 2 green dudes beside the penalty box. Heck, some days I even think its FIN who is causing such dismay to my beloved team! Luongo looked bad. He hasn't looked really good ( even though Kelly Hrudey seems to think so from time to time ) since the start of the playoffs and he didn't last year as well. I want to blame him too. I want to blame him for not tracking the puck well in front of the net, for looking so damn serious during the Canadian National Anthem and then not looking so serious during the game, but in reality the only thing I can blame him for is accepting the "C" that he decided to paint on his mask. WHO I REALLY NEED TO BLAME FOR THIS IS THE PERSON WHO THOUGHT MAKING A GOALIE A CAPTAIN WAS A GOOD IDEA. WHO IS THAT PERSON? Now to the reason why I am making this statement............ I am a goalie. Ask any goalie something about their personalities and you may wish you didn't. Folks.........we have issues. Kind of like drummers. Drummers are the catalyst that holds a band together. Silently wailing a way in the background, performing heroic fills, machine gun double bass blasts, and explosive symbol crashes at all the right spots. The drum solo is like a goalie staring down Crosby on a breakaway..........but don't ask him to write the songs, or do the Muchmusic interview........leave that for the front man. The mind of a goalie is a complex instrument. The position itself is one that toils in extreme highs and deafening lows.......and almost all of these mental battles are fought alone....inside the mask. There are rituals that are performed, a specific route that must be driven to the arena, a particular way the gear is packed in the bag, people who you absolutely do NOT sit next to in the dressing room prior to ANY game. A particular jersey that is LUCKIER than the others and of course all those little things that happen in the crease. The ice clearing, first the left side and then the right......but never the other way around. Finding your posts.........stick nub first and then the blade. But the biggest thing I have noticed on the nights that i feel that at any moment the Canucks are going to give me the call because there just isn't a puck in the world that is going to be able to make a home inside the net is.......................wait for it..............., When I don't say a word to anyone about anything. When a goalie hits the zone......and I know if you look at goalie footage of Luongo when he is absolutely on topic......he is NOT TALKING TO ANYONE. The curse of most goalies is when they come up with a thought they feel they have to verbalize. When a goalie is in the zone.....the eyes do the talking and that is it. THIS DOES NOT MAKE A GOOD TRAIT FOR A CAPTAIN OF A HOCKEY TEAM. If I am crashed into in the net and don't get up and make a bee line for the referree, position myself and get mentally prepared for the next sequence, I make great saves. The glove becomes a giant magnet for pucks, the blocker.......a giant shield and I can stretch from post to post in the time it takes most people to blink. However, the moment I lose that concentration and open the Yukon Jack big yap, my game goes swirling around the toilet bowl of dispair and before I know it.....I'm golfing instead of playing hockey. The goalie unlike any other position on the ice, is a selfless and selfish position. I started out a goalie, became a player and then returned to goalie because you get a lot more ice time, highlight reel moments and you can make up a lot of excuses as to why you are the way you are when you are a netminder. Luongo has one job to do. Stand in front of the net and stop pucks. Once you strap on the goalie pads, you are tied to 2 post and a crossbar and command an area of ice that does not allow you to talk to the players on the bench. You are the King of the Crease. Which brings me to the next biblical statement for goalies. The #1 job of the Captain of the team is to calm the goalie down. If the goalie is the captain, how is he going to calm himself down? His 2nd job is to calm the bench down when they aren't listening to the coach. I like Alain. I think he is a good coach and I think he is good to his players, but sometimes kids don't listen to their father like they do the oldest brother. Alain is NOT on the ice. He can't do the same type of coaching that a Trevor Linden type can do. Here is the example of why a goalie needs a captain and not the other way around. Put a goalie in a position like Luongo last night. He lets in the softie 18 seconds in to the first frame and every Canuck fan in the Garage is looking at you and thinking.........oh no, here comes the slaugher. It is at this very moment that the one thing a goalie doesn't want to do is try and find the words to rally his team. He needs someone to come to him and tell him that the team is going to rally around him. This single and most important piece of the mental game that goes on inside a goalies head has been taken away from Luongo......or maybe the glamour and selfishness that we goalies sometimes thrive on enticed Lou to make this strange packed with the hockey demons. Anyway, this is likely the reason why Team Canada was successful and Lou actually looked good in the Garage during that pressure cooker of a game. All he had to worry about was playing.....and if a puck got past him........his Captain would be the guy talking to him about it. So..........Game 5 Sunday night. We have juggled lines, found no answer for Buffalo ( I can't be bothered to spend the time to research how to spell that guys name ) and lost our discipline. Lou, I know how you are feeling.........maybe not at the level your are feeling it.........but like you.....growing up........I dreamed of making the big save.........not the big goal......that won the Stanley Cup. You know the one..................deke, inside, outside..........amazing acrobatic GLOVE SAVE LUONGO! Walk into GM place Sunday morning, and pick your Captain. The guy that is going to be able to settle the team on the bench.......the guy who is going to tell you........"Don't worry about that one.........we are going to get that one back for you." Go in and tell them, I just want to be the guy to make the save to win the Stanley Cup. We have the greatest goalie in the league..........it doesn't make him greatest candidate for Captain.......and he shouldn't feel like he has to be. Lou, if you are not reading this, can someone please tell him to have some fun on Sunday night and let someone else worry about keeping the refs in line.
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