Cheers and Jeers – Vol. 2

The Good and the Bad of this past week.

It’s Friday. We close out the Week That Was with our latest volume of Cheers and Jeers.

We start off with a hit and a miss from the Vancouver Sun.

CHEERS to everyone involved with "A Thrilling Ride" – a new book chronicling the Canucks’ 40th anniversary season, as the book went to #1 in BC stores this week. Produced jointly by the Vancouver Sun and Province, it will very shortly be added to my library.

JEERS to the Vancouver Sun for posting an article on new Whitecaps winger Mustapha Jarju and his history as an underwear model hours after Vancouver sports blog Head To The Net had already posted a remarkably similar article. HTTN’s post compared Jarju with Canucks center Ryan Kesler and how they have both donned their skivvies for ads.

CHEERS to Joey Kenward , who replaces Kristen Reid as the new in-house Canucks game host at Rogers Arena. Kenward is a frequent contributor to Team 1040 and still acts as a backup play-by-play man for Canucks game. He also posts tons of great stats and facts on his Twitter feed, focusing mostly on the Canucks.

JEERS to the Vancouver Canucks for delays. First a delay in getting a deal done with Jannik Hansen, who appears bound for an arbitration hearing. And for delaying the seemingly inevitable announcement that Craig McTavish will be the head coach of the Canucks AHL team, the Chicago Wolves. As our own Thomas Drance wrote… why the mystery around this?

CHEERS to David Staples for his post this week on his blog at the Edmonton Journal. The post, The most painful insult ever to the Edmonton Oilers and their fans, highlights that the Canucks are the most disliked team in the league (YEY! #embracethehate) and for one big reason – THEY’RE REALLY GOOD. Here’s a quick exerpt —
With their team hated so by opposing fans, there’s only one proper response from Canucks fans: elation.
Total, unbridled dancing-on-the-rooftops, shouting-in-the-streets glee.
In the NHL, there’s no greater compliment than for opposing fans to hate your team.
Hates often arises from jealousy, and there’s not many NHL fans who wouldn’t trade their entire home town roster for the Canucks roster right now.

JEERS to anyone who thinks that recently retired Red Wings goaltender deserves to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. His stats actually showed that his teams were more likely to win without him playing than when he was in net. One glaring stat is that Osgood is 5-8 in playoff elimination games. He was a good goalie. But he is NOT a Hall of Fame goalie. END OF STORY.