Canucks Celebrity Draft Picks

Michael Buble is not the first celebrity to feature prominently in the Canucks organization.
(Photo courtesy chfi.com)

It is hardly a secret that the Vancouver Canucks have had a dismal draft history. It is a source of constant head-scratching, foot stomping and table flipping among Canucks fans old and new. Here are a few names to cause your heart to shrivel and shrink just a little: Patrick White. Jason Herter. Libor Polasek. Mike Wilson. Brad Ference. The list goes ON and ON.

However, the Canucks have a less publicized, yet surprisingly impressive history of drafting "celebrities", dating all the way back to their first year in the NHL. 

Do you care to hazard some guesses as to which famous members of film, music, TV and sport have been selected by the Vancouver Canucks? Read on past the jump!

The famed and celebrated guitarist was drafted in the sixth round by the Canucks before their inaugural 1970 season. Ok, it clearly wasn’t really him, but someone named David Gilmour was selected 72nd overall that year. Gilmour played zero games for the Canucks. In fact , he never played a game in the NHL. His career peaked when he played a single game for the Calgary Cowboys of the WHA in the 1975-76 season. 

John Hughes is a legend in Hollywood film writing circles, helping to define the 80’s and introducing the world to the "Brat Pack." Hughes directed such classics as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. "John Hughes" was also taken by the Canucks in the 3rd round (41st overall) of the 1974 entry draft, one round before they selected Harold Snepsts. The hockey-playing Hughes did manage to make it to the NHL with the Canucks, suiting up for 52 games in the 1979-80 season and racked up a boatload of penalty minutes (52 GP; 2G 11A 13 Pts; 181 PIM). He played another 18 games with the Oilers the following year, before hanging up his skates after the 1982 season. At which point, he skated across the ice, pumping his fist in the air while "Don’t You Forget About Me" blasted through the arena sound system.

If Taylor Hall has proved anything to us form his use of Twitter, it’s that ol’ Slashface could sure use some extra time in grammar school. 

However, he is clearly smart enough to have learned and mastered time travel (though he lost a fair bit of his hockey skill in the process). Hall managed to successfully zoom back almost 30 years (no word if he procured a DeLorean for his scientific endeavors) and played well enough in juniors to convince the Canucks to pick him in the 1982 draft (6th Rd; 116 overall).

The first, and lesser Hall did forge a long career, but the vast majority of it was spent toiling away in the minors. The Canucks draft pick played 34 games with Vancouver, amassing 16 points (7G 9A). He then went on to close out a long career in minors, playing his final four years with the Tulsa … OILERS. OH NO! THERE WAS A BREAK IN THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM!!!! THE RAMIFICATIONS COULD BE DISASTROUS! 

Labatt assumed control of the family-owned brewery when his father died, and later grew the business to be the largest brewery in Canada. Beer and hockey have gone hand-in-hand ever since, which is clearly why the Canucks selected the 144-year-old brewmaster in the eighth round (150th overall) in the 1983 entry draft. Because of some obvious hindrances, such as being a dead, rotting corpse for 68 years, the zombie Labatt never played a game in the NHL, or any professional league for that matter. Labatt went to the University of Minnesota and managed to be inconspicuous enough to not scare the bejeezus out of his fellow students. He played for three years with U of M, and then was assumedly killed by Rick Grimes and his travelling gang. 

Steve Anthony has made quite a career for himself in the Toronto media circuit. He is most famous for his 8-year stint on MuchMusic as a VJ and on-air personality.  Since leaving MuchMusic in 1995, Anthony went on to a variety of positions at different Toronto radio stations. He finally got sick of the media business and threw his hat in the ring of the NHL Entry in 2009, where the Vancouver Canucks selected him 187th overall in the 7th round. While the older Anthony remains in Toronto media, the younger Steve is still a Canucks prospect and will likely play in the ECHL for the Kalamazoo Wings this upcoming season.