miss me yet?
Thomas Drance
November 03 2011 12:35PM
The following is written by Andrey Osadchenko a Russian hockey writer whose work appears most often at the popular site allhockey.ru. You can also occassionally find Andrey's work at The Hockey News, on youtube (he's the co-host along with Steve Dangle of the popular web-series "Joining the Rush") and across the Nation Network.
Written by: Andrey Osadchenko
It was supposed to be another Cinderella story. A Russian prospect (always a gamble to begin with) came seemingly out of nowhere to scored 2 goals in his first preseason game against the Islanders in a 2:1 win for the Canucks. He kept it going and turned some heads when Alain Vigneault put him on a line with the Sedins for the rest of preseason, then started him on a second line with Ryan Kesler at the beginning of the regular season.
The Northwest Division Through 10 Games
Thomas Drance
November 01 2011 02:04PM
Though it's still early in the season, with a roughly ten game sample to work with, we can begin to gauge the quality of teams with some degree of sophistication. As you can see from the image above, at this current juncture in the season the Oilers are riding high, with the Avalanche hot on their tail. The Minnesota Wild are treading water while the Canucks and Flames play poker in the cellar. But how much is what we see a mirage, and how much of it is a more meaningful reflection of the respective team's actual quality?
One More Post About Raffi's Jay-Z Costume
Thomas Drance
November 01 2011 08:27AM
Having digested the issue for twenty-four hours, read through the comments (many of them exasperating, many of them thoughtful) on my original post, and read the excellent takes on the issue by better writers than I in Bruce Arthur and Harrison Mooney, I figured I'd try and sum up my thoughts about a days worth of dialogue. After this I'll return to Canucks Army's regularly scheduled programming of dry statistical analysis and prospect interviews and such.
Alain Vigneault's Expiry Date
Thomas Drance
October 31 2011 12:44PM
Over the weekend I read a really interesting piece on whether or not the Canucks are "Tuning out Alain Vigneault" by Joe Pelletier. Joe is a hockey historian, a Canucks fan and an absolute must-follow on twitter, so go do that. While I very much enjoyed his take, I disagreed with it in some respects and I figured it would be worthwhile to elaborate.
Here's the meat of Joe's take (I've paraphrased to some extent):
Raffi Torres Messes Up
Thomas Drance
October 30 2011 10:15PM
Well it looks like Paul Bissonette's usually flawless twitter usage has finally got one of his teammates into trouble. That teammate: former Canucks forward Raffi Torres, who I personally loved as a Canuck. Raffi, however, made the idiotic mistake of doing blackface on Halloween, when he dressed as Jay-Z and his wife dressed as a pregnant Beyonce Knowles. Seriously people, don't do it, don't wear black-face on Halloween, or ever. It's stupid, it's ignorant, and it just doesn't fly.
