Dee Lux DX7's World of Hockey

The #1 most crucial step in a rebuild is removing the cornerstone players of the old core. While they are still in place team culture, attitude and identity remain the same getting progressively more stale by the year until it becomes bull blown rot. The old leaders most be moved out so the young guys coming up can grab those leadership spots and re-make the team in their own image. Look at Calgary, they stubbornly refused to move out Iginla, who is as important to them as Trevor is to us, the moment they surrendered and moved him things started to go right for that team, new leaders popped up out of nowhere and the team became exciting vibrant and fun to follow. This year or last should have been the season the Sedins moved on to Washington or Montreal or even FLA or NAS to go get their cup. and the year Horvat and other top picks made this team their own,  Burrows and Hanson could remain to make sure the kids stay on track. But.....  there is a big problem with making that tran

  Listen Canuck fans! When the good cheer of this current win streak fades and you crawl into your beds on these gloomy fall nights`, as the shadows of the trees dance like ghosts upon your window sill and the howling of the wind seems to lull you with it's sinister lullaby. Listen closely and you will hear that darkened voice of doom calling it's victims past and future by name, Listen I say! For their tale of woe is one best heeded, lest one become forgetful of victims past and their mournful fate. Listen and you will hear the wraiths of seasons past lamenting the name of one Jim Sandlak. Those too young 5to remember, best count their blessings, those who lived through this shadowed era must relive it when the wind calls his name.  A great power forward he was, terror of the Junior ranks it seemed young Sandlak was destined for greatness till one ill-fated day upon a draft, an evil GM took to the stand and in front of the god-fearing folk of the NHL, stole him away to th

Linden Vey, he was my favorite. But some other names include Jiri Sleger, Alex Stojonov, Jim Sandlack, Kyle Wellwood, Jan Bulis (He deserved it) Tod Bertuzzi  and Cam Neely. And countless others I haven't mentioned belong to an exclusive club up here in pacific Asia: The Vancouver Canucks sacrificial Lamb club. I don't know about other teams but when you have yet to win a cup 4 decades into your team's history, people start to get a bad case of the monthlies around mid october. All that inferiority complex psycho B.S babble starts to make real sense when you realize almost every fan of every team in the league, especially all your fiercest rivals, have a comeback for any trash talk you direct their way, and you will have no comeback for it. "At leaset weeeeee have a cuuuup....nyah nyah!" What's a a Vancouverite to do? Chances are, with real estate being what it is he already lives in his car and as if that weren't enough to put him into a bad m

Oh I hear you out there.... No quite courageous enough to own it but snickering behind the backs of all us pragmatists, mocking us, taking the piss, as the English would say.....and why would you see fit to mock such uber-reasonable folk such as myself? Because the Frigging Canucks have won a couple of games. Now save you I told you so for the VD clinic, you never told me NUTHIN' and in fact what is happening is what I and others have been telling you would happen since before the beginning of the season, Yes, that's right, this is still WORST CASE SCENARIO The worst thing that can happen to this team this year is not finishing dead last, all who still have a brain cell or two functioning know that. The worst thing that could;d happen is EXACTLY what is happening, The Canucks are making a valiant and heroic push to the middle of the pack, where they will, and I guarantee this, miss the playoffs But......but....we are building a culture of winning! B.S! Were th

    The 2016-2017 version of the Vancouver Canucks is a team so offensively challenged the B.C foundation for the handicapped should be paying for their pre-game meals. So desperate are they to find some scoring, that there have been hushed whispers around town concerning a possible trade for the NHL's resident gangsta and playa from the hard streets of .....well...East  Van, Evander Kane. This is a player who seems unable to go out for the evening without getting into a physical altercation with a woman and breaking out in handcuffs. The whispers have many angry, including me. We don't like him, we don't want him. But before we all get too sanctimonious we would do well to remember that this isn't the first "Abrasive " persona Van has tried to deal for. About 20 years ago we tried, and succeeded in landing one of the NHL's premier players,w Mr. Personality himself, Alexander Mogilny For anyone too young to remember Mogilny remains one of the best pl

"....and maybe you could do something besides write negative shit about the team" It seemed so long ago those words (A generous paraphrase but the intent, and the colorful language, were his) rocked Twitter. At least those lonely corners of it inhabited by fans of the Vancouver Canucks. It was a shocking moment indeed, not that a pro athlete would swear via Twitter, in this day and age we are used to so much worse, but because through years of media awareness and "Fan sensitivity" training the way NHL players deal with fans is about as warm and organic as a Chinese blow up doll (I would imagine) To have a NHL player interact with a fan and express real fire, real emotion, to reveal he REALLY CARED the way fans do, was quite possibly unprecedented in modern pro sports,, And this PR jewel? Man of the people? Marketable personality that while occupying the least glamorous role a hockey team has to offer, shone out like the first sunny morning of spring. Why he wa

"To the loser goes the spoils" Thusly have top draft picks been awarded to pro sports teams in the modern era, little or no vitriol has been aimed at the system due to the fact that well,......it works. Historically there have been a few embarrassing hiccups along the way, such as the New Jersey Devils and Pittsburg Penguins playing the last game of the season for Mario Lemuiex, but for ther most part in an imperfect world. The system worked and life went on...... Enter the Edmonton Oilers, in a streak of failure unprecedented in major pro-sports the bumbling boobs given rein ton operate this once proud sports franchise had them winning first round 1st overalls almost every year for the past several. They were unable to get their short bus out from being stuck in the mud.no matter how many future superstars they acquired to help them push. It began to feel as if Edmonton were a black hole at the top of the losers food chain into whom the greatest potential talent of a

The Medicine hat Machiavelli's strike again! The Alberta-Axis-of-Evil  of Aquallini, Linden-Benning and Dejadains have struck another blow against upstanding hockey fans everywhere, as they have once again had intimate relations with the mind of every BC hockey fans favorite protagonist and victim extraordinaire Jake Virtanen. His inexplicable 2-day sentence to live and play amongst the peasants of Utica, farm team to the Vancouver Canucks, became even more bizarre when after watching the team get what it had coming to them in the form of a 7-2 ass kicking by the New Your Rangers our young hero has been sent BACK to Utica. That's 2 cross continental flights in 3 days, blah!!!` Kill you now! The airports! The Cavity searches! The hoping them don't find your crack that far up your crack, if ya know what I mean...... Well, I don't think Jake has been smoking any crack (Willy has been hogging it all judging by his twitchy mannerisms) now that I think about it,

It was only a  matter of time, From the moment I became aware of advanced hockey statistics I was sure the day would come when NHL fans all over North America woke up slapped their foreheads and exclaimed: "WHAT THE F%$CK WERE WE THINKING !" Why so sure you ask? Well, there were a few dead giveaways that to my eyes and those of other discerning hockey fiends, marked the latest and most annoying fan trend to enter the NHL since those "Breath Right" nose strips in the 90's, with a due date. And I believe any day now fans will collectively be running from fridge to sink trying to hold a full carton of Corsi as far from their noses as possible. The NHL is in the entertainment business. I don't know about you but any form of entertainment that demands one rummage in the attic for their university mathematics textbooks does not make for a fun night. As much as people like to act as if the NHL were an essential service, like police or firefighters, it is no

Hunched over his broken ribs, crouching with his back to the boards, his face the living embodiment of the "Leave it all on the ice" cliche, Trevor Linden struck the pose for one of the Vancouver Canucks most iconic images, moments after his super human two goal performance in game 7 of the 94' Stanley cup finals. This was the moment he became immortal to the province of B.C, who for the first time in checkered history of NHL competition could point to one of their own and say: "Wow, I want to be more like THAT guy" that night he put the team of his back and swung for the fences." He didn't leave with the cup,but with a 1st-star performance with broken ribs to boot,he  left Madison Square Garden with the respect of New Yorkers and Vancouverites alike, it was even discussed in NY media that the team should try and acquire him as he would clearly be a worthy successor the just beginning to age, mark Messier (If only they knew then what was coming...)

“Resolution, like responsibility, is a product of ownership, and kids can't resolve a conflict until they figure out how they contributed to it.”  ―  Richard Eyre ,  The Entitlement Trap: How to Rescue Your Child with a New Family System of Choosing, Earning, and Ownership We are to blame for it all. That's right, Louis Eriksson's goal drought, Jake Virtanen's rushed development, the lack of goal scoring even, it is all our fault. The "We"I refer to is anyone who has put a dollar into the pocket of the Vancouver Canucks and more specifically, The Aqualinni family over the past three years. And what a three years it has been! The inter-fan squabbling over "Re-build re-tool" philosophies filled many a message board with lively debate and a good time for all, but the fun is over , the debate ceased and as the smoke clears one and all realize what a few were saying all along: This ship is going down! Only now in November of 2016 we awake to find

Following a disheartening loss by his team to the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night it , there is a rumor circulating amongst certain media circles that the decision to let Desjardins go has been made. Though there are increasingly many in Vancouver who have now been allowed in on the secret. It also appears the coach himself has already been informed of ownership's decision , clearly, the Canucks know playing broken telephone in the information age is a game best not played, In hotter water will be the few "unnamed sources" who were allowed in on the info and leaked it. One also might wonder if this is all a smookscreen to remove media informants from the inner sanctum at Rogers place, but taking ownership's propensity for nominating a fall guy to to take the blame for their ill-conceived directives one would think this is probably the real thing and they were giving their loyal press toadies a chance to have the story ready for the mourning edition. As an in

Jannik Hansen got knocked flat on his ass last night, and the NHL rulebook would just as soon he stayed there. Morgan Riley's vicious hit added insult to injury Saturday night as the crumbling Vancouver Canucks suffered their obligatory  loss against an NHL organization they hate to lose to. I'm always amazed at the HNIC commentators surprise though the years when Canucks/Leafs games turn ugly, I suppose the cliche is true "The eastern media doesn't watch Canucks games" because it seems every time the two teams lock horns it's the spirit of '76 all over again and one can almost here KISS and the Bee Gee's play over the P.A system and smell the spilled bottles of 99 cent beer as helmetless players brawl to the delight of the great drunken unwashed. But I digress, Ever one of the Canucks tougher players, Hansen was quick to rise and hurry off down the ice shaking off the residual effects of the clean but devastating hit. One may have thought he was s

Dr. Kevorkian Where are youz?!?! Who remembers the infamous Dr. Death who, for a time in the 90's, appeared to have been present at the death of everyone in Michigan for about a three-year span? Well, it wasn't as sinister as I made it sound, he was actually a caring gentleman who did not like to see the sick and wounded suffer, and therefore fought for legalized euthanasia, assisted suicide. Don't worry, Hockey is about fun so I won't spend too much time ruminating on this morbid simile, but rest assured the players fans and most likely management of the Vancouver Canucks are probably begging to be put out of their misery. It.s not just that they are a bad hockey team, we are way passed that. You see being a bad hockey team implies that you are playing hockey, just doing it poorly, but In my books there is a checklist of things you should be able to scratch off if you are indeed playing the "Coolest gamer on earth" (HAHAHA WTF? love to play poker with

Remember last season? The one before maybe? I doubt it.  Psychiatrists say that extream boredom over a prolonged period can cause long term memory loss and actual brain damage if the mind isn't positively engaged at some point. In light of that, just concentrate on getting those mashed peas into your mouth, I'll assume the answer is "Nyaha..." No biggie, there really isn't much worth remembering, if you followed the Cancuks recently you have probably considered calling up the front office and demanding to be put on the payroll, because you can see no other logical reason to subject yourself to this drudgery. In fact, I'm willing to guess that if you remember much of anything it's not the stuff on the ice that caught your eye, more likely it was the noise from the stands that remains tattooed on your poor gray matter. "Tanking is for losers!" "Baertschi is going to break out for 30!" "Erickson is just what the twins need!"

I must admit, when the Vancouver Canucks drafted Jarred McCann I was really excited about McCann from day 1, and considering what I had heard about the type of game he plays and the fact he plays center, I considered him our most important prospect by far. I don't know where the disconnect was but the player I watched last years wasn't the one I heard about. In fact it was more than once I thought to myself "This guy reminds me of Jordan Shroeder. He's Mr invisible, doesn't seem to want to stand out" It wasn't because of the lack of offense. Virtanen wasn't scoring either but he looked like a guy who was trying to stand out and make a name for himself, I saw sparkle, I saw hunger for the spotlight, these are star qualities that lead me believe Virtanen has something. McCann? Nothing, couple of wrist shots and disappeared for the rest of the year, no pushback, no demand for the spotlight, just sank into the shadows. Sounds like he's doing the same t

 Jake Virtanen is DOOMED No fan should be able to say that about a prospect as recently drafted and as brimming with potential as the young man from Abbotsford. Stranger still to say it about a player   who has ascended to the rarefied air of the NHL, but in the case of this mismanaged youngster not only can fans say it, but they can point out the egregious mistakes that have pushed the young power forward onto hockey's death row. More inexplicable still is the inexcusable stubbornness that keeps him locked on a fatal crash course with the worst label a kid not yet 20 with NHL potential can be tagged with: Draft Bust.   Two key factors have led the 6th overall 2014 pick into a position where he is already feeling the need to demand ice time through the media. Two factors that were ignored by Canucks management as they whistled past the graveyard of another sure season without playoff revenues, on their way to destroying a promising career in the NHL.There are plenty of other fa

      Vancouver is a terrible place to live,  A nearly feudal economic situation has left those of us who remain in serfdom. As you may recall from social studies (Remember when we did stuff like that in Canada?) Serfs were bound to the land of their medieval lords by gigantic debts that were thrust upon them without their consent and virtually guaranteed that A. they would work themselves to death trying to pay it back and B. Their kids would too. Well, even the serfs (not the Smurfs dummy, stop humming the song) were allowed out to market every Saturday to trade cow dung amongst themselves, and apparently our new Shanghai sovereigns are generous enough to do the same. But unfortunately, like other economically disenfranchised peoples, we have turned our anger on to each other. Instead of helping one another and strengthening our economic position when we take to the modern market place, that bustling village square we know as Craigslist, we try to screw each other silly. Well, maybe