Canucks & Beyond

Canucks Round-Up

by Alanah McGinley on 12/03/08 at 12:59 PM ET
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Random considerations for an off-day:

Ryan Kennedy of The Hockey News apologizes to Mike Gillis. Very tearful and heartfelt. BFF regained.
Canucks.com has been filling in the 16 Days of Trevor Linden on their site. This is shaping up to be an impressive tribute collection of articles and video.
With Curtis Sanford out, “Can Cory Carry the Load?” J.J. responds “We hope so,” Waiting for Stanley says “I’m not counting out Schneider, Canucks Fan Girl says “He [is] fantastic,” the Yankee Canuck says “Of course he can,” and I say: “He’ll be just fine—until he goes down screaming in pain when he blows a knee.” (remember: goalies + vancouver = prepare for disaster)

Filed in: vancouver canucks | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: cory+schneider, curtis+sanford, mike+gillis, trevor+linden,

Best of Metro Vancouver

by Alanah McGinley on 12/03/08 at 11:48 AM ET
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My friend Miss 604 is spearheading the awards for the Best of 604, finding and voting for the best of online Vancouver. Categories include everything from Best Fashion site to Best Sports Blog, and today is the last day for nominations.

The awards reception will be held at The Cellar on December 11th, and is open to anyone for the admission price of a donation to the Vancouver Food Bank.

Note: Someone kindly nominated C&B in the sports blog category, but alas my area code discriminates against me—I’m in the 250, thus not eligible. But I loved the idea of these awards so I chipped in as one of the event sponsors. I hope you’ll chip in too, nominating any of your favorite Vancouver sites today and participating in the voting starting tomorrow.

Filed in: website business | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: best+of+604,

I’m Not Feeling the “Zen”

by Alanah McGinley on 12/02/08 at 02:32 PM ET
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Since most of the Vancouver media and blogosphere is no doubt talking about how much the Canucks suck today, I’ve decided to leave the topic alone. Instead, I’m focused on something of more immediate importance: a new Canucks Blackberry theme gone awry.

Here’s a screenshot from the new “Zen Theme” for your Blackberry Bold.

Not bad, but then the problems begin…

Filed in: dumb stuff | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: blackberry, roberto+luongo,

Perverse Moments in Hockey Blogging

by Alanah McGinley on 12/01/08 at 05:10 PM ET
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This isn’t your standard tug-the-heart-strings Happy Hockey Day story, but it is the one that’s given me the biggest laugh in all my years of hockey blogging. (Just be warned: it’s a bit perverse!)

Back in October of 2003 when I started my first blog, women hockey-fan-bloggers were a rarity. In fact it was quite some time before I knew of any others out there, and this often made for some unique experiences. And sometimes unpleasant, too.

Filed in: nhl general | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: happy+hockey+day, hockey+blogging, hockey+fans,

Luongo Skating

by Alanah McGinley on 12/01/08 at 03:20 PM ET
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From CBC:

Vancouver Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo no doubt raised a few eyebrows when he took the ice late in Monday’s game day skate at Columbus.

Sidelined week to week with a strained left groin, he skated with full gear and took a few laps around the Nationwide Arena playing surface, did a few twists and turns, but didn’t face any shots.

“It’s a positive step in the right direction,” Luongo told reporters afterwards. “We’ll take it from here day by day. We’re going to try and increase the workload every day.”

So that’s good news.

And speaking of good news, if you have a happy hockey memory to share we’re doing Happy Hockey Day around here. You can write something on your own blog and send us the link, or use the KK Member Blog and post it there.

Filed in: vancouver canucks | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: happy+hockey+day, roberto+luongo,

Welcome to the Big Leagues

by Alanah McGinley on 11/29/08 at 04:14 PM ET
Comments (3)

Cory Schneider is the Vancouver Canucks star-of-the-future and he’s been tearing it up in the AHL so far this year to prove it. Still, Schneider has never played a regular season game in the NHL but that’s all about to change: he’s up tonight against the Flames on Hockey Night in Canada.

“I’m definitely excited, but at the same time I’m focused and worried about the game tonight because it’s a big divisional game so we need the two points.”

-- Cory Schneider in the Vancouver Sun

I’ll bet he’s excited… especially if “excited” is code for “I nearly threw up when Coach told me. Oh my god, there’s gonna be how many cameras??”

Good luck to Schneider. One of the only upsides to Luongo’s injury was the opportunity for us to see what he can do in the NHL. I think I’m almost as excited as Schneider is.

Filed in: manitoba moose, vancouver canucks | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: cbc, cory+schneider, hnic, manitoba+moose,

Canadians Trapped in Bangkok Include Jiggs McDonald

by Alanah McGinley on 11/28/08 at 02:23 PM ET
Comments (2)

Saturday Update: Interview with Jiggs McDonald available at FAN590.
Sunday Update: Email from Jiggs below, asking for your help.
Monday Update: Some heading home.

A Toronto journalist friend of mine sent me a startling note today alerting me to the news that Jiggs McDonald—a hockey broadcaster of many achievements including the HHOF (more details below)—is currently stranded in Bangkok along with 80 other Canadian citizens, due to the explosion of political unrest there in recent days.

His family is understandably very afraid, and his daughter Susan DeSimone wrote this in a letter (directed to another journalist) and passed on to me this morning:

We are trying to put pressure on the CDN govt. to get them out of there. Some countries are sending planes into a Thai military base to get their citizens out. So far, there hasn’t been much response from the CDN embassy there. The tour group has asked us to get the word out to journalists, etc. to put pressure on Canada to intervene.

The email address and phone numbers for the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok are noted down at the bottom of this post. Anyone who thinks they can help and who needs additional contact information for the McDonald family, please directly.

Here is the full text of the release that Ms. DeSimone sent out this morning.

Filed in: hockey media, nhl general | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: jiggs+mcdonald,

Canucks Media Notes

by Alanah McGinley on 11/28/08 at 11:46 AM ET
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“It’s been a battle, but when people ask, ‘Why would you want to be the backup in Vancouver?’ the thing I say is I’ve worked extremely hard to get to where I am and I’m extremely proud of what I’ve accomplished.”

-- Curtis Sanford in the Calgary Sun

Randy Sportak of Sun Media takes note of Sanford’s interesting career path, moving from the obscurity of the UHL after his junior career was over, to a rebuilding St. Louis Blues a year later, to the Vancouver hot-seat he’s on today. A quick and interesting overview on Sanford, and a worth a read.

In other news, Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun is here to tell you why he’s not that impressed with that 8-0-2 record Vancouver was sporting until last night. (*And it’s not that he doesn’t make some worthwhile observations, but I love how it’s only losses which produce assessments like McIntyre’s, yet strangely they never mention such things before a loss shows up in the stats.)

What’s worse, I have a feeling the Canucks lose to the Flamers on Saturday, too, so I expect such Monday Morning Quarterbacking to be in full effect across then entire Vancouver media landscape come Sunday. Fun.

Filed in: vancouver canucks | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: curtis+sanford, media,

16 Days of Trevor Linden

by Alanah McGinley on 11/27/08 at 07:05 PM ET
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From a Canucks press release:

The Vancouver Canucks are proud to announce that Canucks.com will celebrate 16 Days of Trevor Linden, beginning on Monday, December 1st, 2008. The special 16-day initiative will take an in-depth look at Trevor Linden’s career, concluding on December 16th, 2008 just one day prior to Trevor Linden’s sweater retirement ceremony.

The 16 Days of Trevor Linden will feature video and print content as well as a series of photo galleries highlighting Linden’s hockey career spanning more than two decades. The 16 days of coverage encompasses draft day in 1988 through to his last game on April 5, 2008 and will include stories and accounts from on and off the ice courtesy of former teammates, coaches, fans and countless others impacted by Trevor.

More at Canucks.com. And while you’re on Orca’s website, the FanZone got a nice makeover.

Filed in: vancouver canucks | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: trevor+linden,

NHL Birthdays and Their Impact on Success

by Alanah McGinley on 11/26/08 at 04:58 PM ET
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A Google search today produced a seemingly unrelated link in the world of hockey news when it pointed me to a review of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers: The Story of Success. But looking a bit closer it seems Gladwell explores, in part, a topic that is indeed very relevant to the hockey world: players’ birthdays and the inherent statistical oddities as they affect drafting and other selection processes used to ‘create’ a successful NHL hockey player.

From Kevin Carey’s review:

The first chapter deals with the fairly well-known phenomenon of birthdays and Canadian hockey players. A hugely disproportionate number of elite hockey players have birthdays in January, February and March. That’s because the age cutoff for entry into junior hockey leagues is January 1. A five-year old hockey player born on that day (they start early in Canada) could be as much as 25 percent older than his youngest competitors, giving him a major advantage in size, strength, and coordination.

Filed in: nhl general | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: malcolm+gladwell, nhl+draft,

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About Canucks & Beyond

Alanah McGinley has been blogging hockey since 2003, sharing opinions, rants and not-so-deep thoughts with anyone who will listen. In addition to writing Canucks & Beyond and helping manage Kukla’s Korner, Alanah is one of the founders and co-hosts of The Crazy Canucks Podcast, as featured at Canucks.com.

She has contributed pieces to FoxSports.com and the New York Times Slapshot blog, as well as other stray destinations in cyberspace.

Email:

Alanah’s Twitter: Not really hockey-ish. [LINK]