37 Years and counting in Canucklehead Land ...
Posted 6:03 PM ET | Comments 0
While not quite as taxing as being a Chicago Cub fan, the lot in life for a Vancouver Canucks fan is, and has always been, how will “we” screw it up this time? Whether we’re talking performance on the ice, Drafting, Uniforms etc, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day Canuck fans are almost always left with disappointment and wondering what might have been.
Its taken 37 years to get to this point, so where are we? Is everything same-old, same-old or is that light that we can see off in the distance something other than the usual speeding Locomotive, once again bearing down on our emotional allegiance to this Hockey Club?
Having gone to the very first Canucks game in 1970 and hundreds since, all the while suffering through countless disappointments during those years, it is my opinion that we really (finally?) have something to justify the never-ending commitment this city offers to this team.
The first 20 odd years of this Franchise Canuck fans were happy if they could get the puck out of their own end every once in a while. Things have changed. Expectations have risen dramatically.
Prior to this past season, everything was unknown due to all the changes in the organization, thus, it would have been one of the very few years in the last 15 or so that missing the Playoffs would have not been the end of the world, after all, it was deemed a transition/rebuilding year. The Culture of the Team needed changing and this season was the first year of a new tenure.
The Canucks started the 07/08 season with no less than 14 new faces on the roster and a completely new Coaching Staff. On top of all that, it was basically Dave Nonis’ first year where he wasn’t managing Brian Burke’s team. If ever there was a year that the Canuck faithful would give them a mulligan this was it. In fine tradition, they even screwed that up!
After a slow start to the year they all-of-a-sudden-like had the best record in the league for the final 50 games. Here we go again, get us all hyped and raise the expectation levels of even the most pessimistic followers, not to mention the band-wagoners always lurking, just itching to get back up on that rickety old wagon. Once again the City gets jacked, only to be dropped off into reality with a resounding THUD when the real season starts.
Same-old, same-old? Well, kinda, but not really.
While the disappointment in no longer watching the boys in Spring feels very familiar to all those years, the outlook for the future seems very positive. If we look on the year as a transition/rebuilding year, then it can only be deemed an over whelming success. To win what many pundits described as the most competitive Division top-to-bottom and make it to the final 8 teams playing, when battling for the eighth seed was all that was realistically expected at the start of the year, is pretty good in my books.
Does that mean that we should expect the same or better next year? Most will, but not this Canucklehead.
This is the starting/building blocks of a new team in a new game that now has the ‘hardest’ Salary Cap in all of Professional Sports. Many believe they just have to add a little offense to what already is a very solid foundation on the back-end and away we go. Definitely possible, especially if those going into their last contract years on the roster have better years offensively, and we all know who is on that list. If all the stars align anything can happen, but realistically, one could say that this past year a lot of those same stars WERE aligned, and that’s how they did what they did.
Personally, I’ll be happy to go through next year as productive as we were this year. Actually, I think that would be quite an achievement. I believe this team probably over-achieved this past year and wouldn’t be surprised if next year we’re back fighting for the final playoff spot in an extremely tough Western Conference.
Even with Cap supposedly going up again, I see little room to significantly upgrade the roster. That, combined with the fact that the potential Free Agent crop for next summer looks far more appealing than this year’s, I say tinker here and there as best we can for next year all the while looking forward to the following season when there will be significant dollars freed up from the Roster to spend.
What? I have to keep waiting? Yes, yes I do. Rome wasn’t built in a day … I’ve waited 37 years already, what’s another year or two? Besides, it could always be worser, I’m not a Cub’s fan.
Its taken 37 years to get to this point, so where are we? Is everything same-old, same-old or is that light that we can see off in the distance something other than the usual speeding Locomotive, once again bearing down on our emotional allegiance to this Hockey Club?
Having gone to the very first Canucks game in 1970 and hundreds since, all the while suffering through countless disappointments during those years, it is my opinion that we really (finally?) have something to justify the never-ending commitment this city offers to this team.
The first 20 odd years of this Franchise Canuck fans were happy if they could get the puck out of their own end every once in a while. Things have changed. Expectations have risen dramatically.
Prior to this past season, everything was unknown due to all the changes in the organization, thus, it would have been one of the very few years in the last 15 or so that missing the Playoffs would have not been the end of the world, after all, it was deemed a transition/rebuilding year. The Culture of the Team needed changing and this season was the first year of a new tenure.
The Canucks started the 07/08 season with no less than 14 new faces on the roster and a completely new Coaching Staff. On top of all that, it was basically Dave Nonis’ first year where he wasn’t managing Brian Burke’s team. If ever there was a year that the Canuck faithful would give them a mulligan this was it. In fine tradition, they even screwed that up!
After a slow start to the year they all-of-a-sudden-like had the best record in the league for the final 50 games. Here we go again, get us all hyped and raise the expectation levels of even the most pessimistic followers, not to mention the band-wagoners always lurking, just itching to get back up on that rickety old wagon. Once again the City gets jacked, only to be dropped off into reality with a resounding THUD when the real season starts.
Same-old, same-old? Well, kinda, but not really.
While the disappointment in no longer watching the boys in Spring feels very familiar to all those years, the outlook for the future seems very positive. If we look on the year as a transition/rebuilding year, then it can only be deemed an over whelming success. To win what many pundits described as the most competitive Division top-to-bottom and make it to the final 8 teams playing, when battling for the eighth seed was all that was realistically expected at the start of the year, is pretty good in my books.
Does that mean that we should expect the same or better next year? Most will, but not this Canucklehead.
This is the starting/building blocks of a new team in a new game that now has the ‘hardest’ Salary Cap in all of Professional Sports. Many believe they just have to add a little offense to what already is a very solid foundation on the back-end and away we go. Definitely possible, especially if those going into their last contract years on the roster have better years offensively, and we all know who is on that list. If all the stars align anything can happen, but realistically, one could say that this past year a lot of those same stars WERE aligned, and that’s how they did what they did.
Personally, I’ll be happy to go through next year as productive as we were this year. Actually, I think that would be quite an achievement. I believe this team probably over-achieved this past year and wouldn’t be surprised if next year we’re back fighting for the final playoff spot in an extremely tough Western Conference.
Even with Cap supposedly going up again, I see little room to significantly upgrade the roster. That, combined with the fact that the potential Free Agent crop for next summer looks far more appealing than this year’s, I say tinker here and there as best we can for next year all the while looking forward to the following season when there will be significant dollars freed up from the Roster to spend.
What? I have to keep waiting? Yes, yes I do. Rome wasn’t built in a day … I’ve waited 37 years already, what’s another year or two? Besides, it could always be worser, I’m not a Cub’s fan.