The (Hopefully) Long Journey To The Stanley Cup Begins

It's been 10 months since I last wrote about the Canucks. I wrote a blog after every game they played in last years playoffs. Except the last one. It was excruciatingly painful the way the Canucks crumbled to the Bruins, an inferior team in my opinion. I didn't even watch Chara hoist the Cup. I couldn't. I'm not even going to talk about what happened last Spring. It's too exhausting and depressing to think about. Right now it's time to focus on a new opportunity for Henrik to carry the Cup around the ice and enable me to finally open the champagne that is in the back of my fridge somewhere. Hopefully it doesn't have an expiry date.

It's been a long season for all of us Canucks' fans. Even longer for the players I'm sure. Hard to believe, as up and down as their season has been and as lackluster as they've played at times, that they've been able to win their 2nd straight President's Trophy. A pretty incredible feat that admittedly doesn't really mean much at the end of the day.

I watched 81 games this year, but really was more focussed on Tweeting than the actual games. With the exception of a few games (Boston, Detroit, Chicago) I haven't been paying attention nearly as much as most years. I think our expectations are so high that anything short of a 6-0 victory every game is a disappointment and somebody needs to be traded, or fired. Now we can all settle down. There will be no more trades and Vigneault will hold onto his job at least for the next couple of months.

I don't think there is any question that the Canucks have not put in a full effort for most of this season. Their focus has clearly been to be as ready as possible and as healthy as possible by April 11, which coincidentally enough is today. A lot of games I think I put more effort into my Twitter comments than most of the Canucks do playing. The real question is, will they be able to raise their game enough to beat a very solid team in the LA Kings? Soon enough we will know the answer. But for now, if you would like a little expert analysis or insight into this series, well, you probably will want to read someone else's blog. I'll just say that as long as we get good goaltending I think we'll find a way to score enough to win. If Luongo can't get the job done then I think Cory Schneider will. I don't care which one of them wins us a cup (or both, just not at the same time - unfortunately that's against the rules), just as long as we win. The best players put the team before themselves. In any sport. As good as Steve Yzerman was he didn't become a great player until he became a 2 way player and was dominant at both ends of the ice. I would take a young Steve Yzerman over an overly flashy all-about-me Alex Ovechkin any day. I really get the feeling that the Canucks as a whole put the team before themselves. That's how you win. Or to be more accurate, that's how you give yourselves a chance to win.

This team seems to be the most hated in the NHL and I'm not really sure why. On the ice I can see why people watching get frustrated. Kesler and Burrows do dive a lot. Lappiere yaps a lot. But off the ice they are a very classy bunch and there is no one more classy than the Sedins. All in all it doesn't matter anyways. Great teams are always hated. I'm not sure if there is a team in baseball more loved and more hated at the same time than the Yankees. (For the record, I hate them.) I think we should all take it as a compliment. I don't like the way CBC talks about the Canucks though. Our taxes help fund that shitty network. I don't need to hear that weasle Ron McLean bash our team. In fact not only did I not watch any Hockey Night In Canada games that didn't involve the Canucks this year, but I also changed the channel between periods when I did watch. Thanks to Youtube I could still hear the hilariously stupid things coming out of Don Cherry and Mike Milbury's mouths.

As we approach game time for the Canucks - Kings game my sources have told me that Daniel Sedin will not play. (Okay, I don't really have sources, just trying to make this sound better.) I wouldn't panic about that. The Canucks have been great without Daniel down the stretch and I would think that 2 goals may be enough to beat these Kings. We should be able to score twice without Daniel, if not someone needs to run Quick into next week. (Kidding.)

It's time for me to look out my Canucks towels, Jerseys, flags, mugs, posters, programs, autographed t-shirts etc and poor myself a Vodka Paralyzer. That's our drink to start the playoffs. We will be drinking Vodka Paralyzers every game until the Canucks lose and then we will switch to something else. I hope we sweep. I love my Vodka Paralyzers.

Enjoy the game and will all of you Canucks' fans please do me a favor and rally around Luongo. If you want this team to win, and I know you do, it would take a lot of pressure off of his back if everyone just gave him a break. NOBODY wants to win more than he does and nobody works harder on and off the ice. Let's just give him a break. He's trying his best and that's pretty much all we can really ask.