Wednesday, May 07, 2003

"There doing an excellent job of playing badly." - My buddy Markus, who's visiting from Ohio.

So there was another playoff game tonight. I could go on at length about the game. I could tell you that after the opening 20 minutes the Canucks mailed in their effort. I could tell you the refereeing was some of the worst I've ever seen. I could also tell you that with the way Markus Naslund played tonight, the Canucks look like fools for ever trading the immortal Alex Stojanov for him. I won't focus on those things. But I do have this to say about the Canucks.

I have been a Canuck fan ever since I started watching hockey, about 1986 or '87. I've seen them go through three different uniforms and about three hundred goaltenders. I've been there for every losing season, and trust me, there are many to recount. But it dawned on me a few years ago that maybe the Canucks are just cursed. Regardless of the players they have, they always seem to find a way to lose. Pavel Bure, Alex Mogilny, Mark Messier, Sean Burke and Trevor Linden on one team? Sure, sounds good on paper. Certainly sounds better than the team they iced in 1989-90, which consisted of Barry Pederson, Steve Bozek, and Andrew McBain. But regardless, the result for both teams was the same:

No Stanley Cup.

This team has been a picture of futility over the past 15 years. Yet I always stayed on the bandwagon. And I'd usually give them a break, even with the team they have now, when they bow out early in the playoffs. After all, they're stuck in a division with league powerhouses like Colorado, Detroit and Dallas. Which brings me to this year. All those teams are gone and the only thing between them and a Stanley Cup are a couple of teams that didn't even exist 11 years ago. Opportunity only knocks once. It doesn't knock once, then ring the doorbell, then try and climb through an open window to find you. Just once. Right now they're doing a big thing badly, but this time, they'd better not blow it. As a fan, I've suffered through too many bad teams to get screwed out of a Stanley Cup now.

They owe me.

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