You Know What I Hate?! – March 26th

This zombie is angry. Wait, it’s not a zombie? What happened to my favorite Zombie show!
(Photo courtesy AMC/Mad Men)

You know what I hate?! The next two weeks of Canucks hockey. Zzzzzzzzz. I know. I’m a spoiled, smug Canucks fan, cheering for a spoiled, smug team. The Canucks have already clinched the Northwest division and have effectively clinched 2nd place. Sure, they could try to go for 1st place in the Western Conference and 1st place overall and a second straight President’s Trophy. But, it was an accomplishment they achieved last year, so I (along with many other fans) are not driven to cheer for that. Besides, winning the conference or President’s Trophy is hardly a guarantee that you get to the Stanley Cup Final, let alone win it. They are merely playing out the string and, with Daniel Sedin already sidelined indefinitely, Canucks fans are just hoping their team makes it out of the next seven games unscathed. I would personally be super happy if the Canucks cap situation allowed the team to just recall half of the Wolves roster for the rest of the year. Oh, and in case you need ANOTHER reason to hate the last 7 games of their season, here’s the Canucks remaining schedule: vs LAK, vs COL, vs DAL, vs CGY, vs ANA, @ CGY, vs EDM. There’s a legit chance that 5 of these 6 teams won’t make the playoffs. BOOOOOOOOOOOORING.

You know what I hate?! Every Canucks player who doesn’t wear a visor. WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?! They witnessed their teammate Manny Malhotra suffer a devastating injury to his eye late last season, to the point where there was serious concern that Malhotra could permanently lose vision in that eye. And then… in yet another game against the Avs, Kevin Bieksa took a NASTY high-stick to the face… Actually, it came within millimeters of piercing his eye. What the F*CK is it going to take for these players to put on a damn visor? Unreal. Juice! Are you listening? You’re not? Oh well, I’ll tell you anyways: put on the shield, buds. 

You know what I hate?! Dubious "streaks". The Canucks will hit 399 consecutive sell-outs tonight, and will of course get #400 on Wednesday when they host the Avalanche. But this is such a joke. We’ve seen the games on TV, we’ve been in Rogers Arena and we KNOW that those games are sell-outs every night. They’re sold out most nights and there’s no denying that.

But CAMAN a mid-week game against the Blue Jackets? We know full well that the Canucks don’t sell 18,890 tickets to that type of game. They just gobble up the remaining tickets and buy them back. So while it’s nice that they’re taking those tickets and giving them away in contests, let’s stop claiming that these games are sell-outs. What difference does it make? Do they win a prize of they reach 500 straight sell-outs? No, they get nothing. What they DO get is a reason to justify continually raising ticket prices and keeping them at astronomical rates, which, in turn keeps the arena stuffed with non-cheering suits. I hate that.

You know what I hate?! Pretending that Quebec City isn’t going to get an NHL franchise. CAMAN. They’ve committed to building an 18,000+ seat arena to be completed by September 2015. They’re DOING THIS. They WANT hockey. They have money, desire, a rabid fanbase ready to cheer voraciously for NHL hockey and history in the league. What more could you ask for? So why are league officials pretending this isn’t going to happen? It’s almost the perfect scenario.

Frankly, the Jets scenario was damn near perfect too. The Thrashers just picked up from Atlanta and dropped right into Winnipeg, where the Jets have been a massive success (as a business) and that looks like it’ll continue for many, many years (so long as the Canadian dollar maintains parity against the greenback). The NHL has an almost identical situation, including the fact that any relocated NHL team could just play at Colisee Pepsi for the next three seasons until the new arena is ready. Just admit that this is happening and do it already. And quit talking about Saskatoon. Quit it. Biiiiiiiiiitch pleeeeeeze.

You know what I hate?! Waiting 17 months for the new series of Mad Men to begin. I know there were contract disputes and production issues to iron out so the fact that there is a fifth season is a bit of a miracle anyway. I get that. But couldn’t they have figured this out sooner? Did they have to keep their fans waiting for SOOOO LONG? I’m a spoiled Mad Men fan and I demand high-quality television at all times. I WANTS MAH MAD MENS ALL DA TYME!