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Spreadsheet Nerds Get To Cell 5000
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Jeff Veillette
Sep 27, 2015, 23:00 EDTUpdated:
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On April 9th, 2009, a dream was born. No, that’s not when the Hockey Gods decided that the Canucks would be stuck with goaltending controversies for the following decade (though that would explain a lot). On that day, Nations Network overlord of overlords Wanye Gretz dreamt of putting together an army – a Canucks Army.
As we would later find out, the noodle and beer connoisseur that was Mr. Gretz didn’t actually care at all for the Canucks, and the creation of this site was, at the time, at least somewhat about appeasing his brother, who did. But he wanted to make a site as eccentric and fantastic as they did with Oilers Nation; except in this case, talking a much better hockey team. 
Over the years, the site has grown from “we should probably put out something to look like we’re busy” to “we should probably put out something to look like we’re busy, but like, really busy and using photoshopped graphics instead of MS Paint”.
In all honesty, the evolution of this site, like much of the network, has been staggering. Today, the site has more readers per week than it had from launch date until Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals. We have the biggest and most creative staff that we’ve ever had and have featured some of the most intelligent minds and ideas outside of the hockey world in recent times. In fact, some of those minds ended up joining the hockey world because of their work – how insane is that? Canucks Army is in the best state it’s ever been, well, minus the fact that they have some goofball from Toronto as a managing editor. I still think that’s pretty dumb.
This post is the 5,000th in site history. No, seriously, you can count it; just scroll to the bottom and click through the 1,000 pages available to you. A pretty hard task, right? That goes to show the amount of work put in here over the past six years. Let’s take a look at some of the greatest hits over those 5000:

The Most Read Posts In CA History

10. Three Prospects the Canucks Should Avoid at the 2015 Entry Draft, by Rhys Jessop
This is one of the more recent posts in this list, but it’s a good one. While it’ll take some time for us to find out whether Rhys made the right calls here, elements of his reasonings can be applied to other players moving forward. Moreover, teams seemed to agree with him; the first player of this bunch to get picked was drafted in the second round, ten spots after the Canucks headed to the podium.
9. Jake Virtanen is Good, So Don’t Draft Him, by Rhys Jessop
The Canucks didn’t listen to Rhys at all on this one, however. It’s up to you whether to decide whether that’s a good thing. Virtanen didn’t have the best 2014/15, but has looked pretty solid in both Rookie and Main Camp thus far.
8. @LAKings Tweet Sends Thin Skinned Canucks Fans Into Tizzy, by Thomas Drance
This tweet ended up legitimately changing the social media landscape in professional sports, for better or worse. Thom does a good job explaining why the Kings were right to do it, as it happened.
7. Who Should Vancouver Draft? (Spoilers: It’s Sam Reinhart), by Rhys Jessop
Wherein Rhys declared Reinhart to be sufficiently ahead of his peers to be worth trading up for. He didn’t end up going first overall, and he didn’t end up falling to #6, but the Buffalo Sabres will likely be very happy with him for years to come.
6. The Pros and Cons of Alain Vigneault, by Thomas Drance
PRO: Wasn’t Torts.
5. Reasonable Expectations for the Future: Is Bo Horvat a Top 6 C?, by Rhys Jessop
Another big deep dive by Rhys, which he considers his second best look at Horvat. 
4. Did the Canucks post their 2010 Draft Board?, by Thomas Drance
A rather unprecedented look at the mindset of Canucks management heading into a draft where they had an opportunity to hold onto a first-round pick, or let it go (they chose the latter)
3. Get to Know a Prospect: Jared McCann, Not Jared McCan’t, by Rhys Jessop
With confidence in Jared McCann at an all-time low, Rhys interviews Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds GM Kyle Dubas to get a total breakdown of his game; one that defied the negativity. Fast forward to today; McCann is impressing many during this year’s training camp, and Dubas is now the Assistant GM for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
2. The Reports of PK Subban’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, by Rhys Jessop
While the 2014 Canada roster may have been the most dominant team to ever be tracked by fancy stats, Subban losing a grip of his ice time was a little bit ludicrous. 
1. We Think the Vancouver Canucks May Have a Scouting Problem (!!!), by Rhys Jessop
The most read article in CA history, and for good reason. While the premise seems a bit more simple than most analytics-driven works, it boils down basic concepts and outputs a spectacular result. I genuinely believe it to be one of the single best executions of critical thinking and all-around most important articles by any hockey outlet in the past several years. The follow-up is a great accessory too.

Honourable Mentions

There were some other great posts written throughout the history of this fine site, that may not have gone quite as viral as the others. Here’s a few that were hand-picked on Twitter and by our staff.
  • How a Weak Canadian Dollar Will Put NHL Teams In A Tough Position, by money puck. This was a very good call, despite being a staunch opposition to the theory of signing players long-term now so their contract would look good later. That type of thinking is already starting to come back and bite teams, and this is with the league pushing safeguard boosts to the Cap to avoid a dollar-driven catastrophe.
  • Draft Theory: On Risk and Reward, by money puck. This was the prototype, if you will, for PCS% – the first article to introduce it and use it.
  • Draft Analytics: Unveiling the Prospect Cohort Success Model, by Josh Weissbock. In this piece, Money Puck and Josh fully reveal the inner workings of PCS, and why they believe it to be a worthwhile tool. In my biased eyes, it’s not hard to make the case for this being the most important introduction in the post-blogger hires analytics era.
  • Canucks v. Kings – Round 1 Preview, by Thomas Drance. It takes a lot of guts to say “I believe in the numbers, and the numbers say that our awesome team is probably screwed”. Thom effectively did that, and if anything, almost gave the Canucks too much credit for how the series would play out against the champs.
  • Shootout Math: Applications of QualCLUTCH, by Cam Charron. This was an incredibly detailed joint breakdown from Cam and his good friend Rob Pettapiece. The two went on to produce a lot of quality work across many different outlets before both being employed by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2014.
  • Luongo Regrets Post-Game 5 Comment Criticizing Thomas, by Thomas Drance. This is the first “big” traffic driving piece in CA history, as we were the first to get a full English translation of the piece. Shoutout to ESPN, who “borrowed” it from us after (salt never melts on this network). 
  • Pahlsson Doesn’t Displace Malholtra or Hodgson, by Thomas Drance. Thom put a lot of effort into breaking down why acquiring a rental player like Sami Pahlsson didn’t mean that the Canucks were looking to replace Cody Hodgson, but merely supplement him. Hodgson was traded to the Sabres within an hour of this post going up.
  • Pavel Bure’s Number To Be Retired, by Jeff Veillette. This article isn’t actually any good or important, but it was my first piece here and I wanted to feel like I helped.

Moving Ahead

As great as all of these posts were, the goal is to make sure that they’re not the most popular or most influential when we have this discussion at the next milestone. We want our content to become more frequent, more thought-provoking, and generally better as time advances. This site is well on it’s way to becoming the best hub of hockey content and discussion in the public eye, and that’s in no small part thanks to everybody who reads and interacts with us every day; the bravest soldiers of the army, if you will.
We’re working diligently on a new lineup of weekly scheduled content for the site, along with the thought-provoking features and breaking news reactions that you already come to this site for. We’ve added some new contributors of late, and you might see even more fresh faces in the near future – hopefully, the only criticism you’ll feel about this site is that we put out too much good work for you to keep up!
Thank you so much for reading, and hey, here’s to another 5000 posts!

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