In what is somehow becoming a weekly column during the dog days of the offseason — I really should have a name for it by now — let’s take a look at four minor Vancouver Canucks news items that you may have missed amidst the hustle and bustle of your week.

Canucks fight for Dave Noordam during Hockey Fights Cancer

About a month ago, I wrote a story about Dave Noordam, a Canucks fan living who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Dave is a gem of a human being and anybody who has had the pleasure to interact with him on Twitter can certainly attest to this. He’s going through a tough time right now and has set up a GoFundMe to assist with the bills that await him and his young family while he’s forced to miss work.

Last week, a member of the Canucks’ organization reached out to me asking for Dave’s contact information. I wasn’t exactly sure what they had in mind, but I was delighted to discover that this was the result:

Vancouver Canucks

@Canucks

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Replying to @NHL

.@DaveNoordam is the face of our fight. Dave, the #Canucks stand in support of you and all those battling cancer. 💜 #HockeyFightsCancer

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5:10 PM · Nov 18, 2020

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The Canucks then wrote their own story on Dave, which you can read here. As mentioned above, Dave is a great human being and needs every bit of help he can get right now. You can donate to his GoFundMe here.

Keep fighting my friend!

Utica Comets not moving north of the border

There have been talks for a while now about the Canadian NHL clubs moving their AHL teams north of the border in order to avoid forcing their players to quarantine for two weeks when arriving from outside of the country.

As per Greg Wyshynski of ESPN, it appears that will not be the case when the season gets underway.

Greg Wyshynski

@wyshynski

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Not sure if this was out there, but heard the plan for @UticaComets to play games in Canada was dead. @Canucks found it too expensive to house AHL team up there for 2020-21. Still unclear how they'll handle player call-ups, etc. with border issues, but Comets staying in Utica.

11:51 PM · Nov 18, 2020

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It does raise some interesting questions, however, given the fact that it’s all but guaranteed that the Canucks will indeed be competing in an all Canadian Division. My best guess is that the Canucks will carry a “taxi squad” similar to how Major League Baseball did. These players will be available for call up if necessary, and won’t have to quarantine because they’ll already be either travelling with the team or staying in Canada.

This once again brings up the conversation of how having the farm team located in the eastern side of the United States is not exactly ideal for Canada’s furthest team out west.

Holtby’s tortoises can’t cross the border

Yes, you read that correctly. New Canucks starting goalie Braden Holtby is stuck at the border with his tortoises. Or at least he was when his wife Brandi put out the following tweet, asking for assistance in expediting the process so that Holtby can get settled into Vancouver and begin his two-week quarantine:

Braden stayed at the border with the two tortoises, Honey and Maple, while his family continued on into Canada. Brandi then posted this update yesterday, but there’s still no word on if Braden and the tortoises have made it into the country yet:

The US Fish & Wildlife services; it really is a shell of what it used to be.