Team Colours

I put a link to my last post on my facebook and my dad commented saying this

Hey Christine, how about talking about how pissed your dad gets when looking at the crowd at Rogers Arena, and seeing a mess of colour in the stands. As a shut in, not being able to go to games, I always watch them on TV. This cities crowd does not know how to cheer for our team. people wearing grey, yellow, black,green,orange, shirts or jackets. Come on people, it's a home game. Wear something BLUE. I'm not saying the ladies don't look good in their pink Canucks shirts, I would just like to see the fans support our great team. come on SHOW OUR COLOURS. If you can't afford a jersey, find a blue shirt or t shirt. Other fans fill there arenas with the home colours . lets show the team and the world that we support our #1 team. Dean.

Sorry dad, You're probably not going to like my answer. You make a good point, but I have a few of my own.  I'm not saying I don't agree that it would be nice to see an Arena filled with blue, as we see in Calgary with all their red.

First off, I  HATE pink hockey stuff. HATE. I have a very hard time coming to terms with womans 'fitted' jerseys, but I have. I refuse to come to terms with the fact that their needs to be pink stuff made for girls to wear it. I do like the regular coloured t-shirts, tank tops, hell I even like the underwear, but something about the idea of changing the colours to be more girly just rubs me the wrong way. Pink and those stupid looking bedazzled type jerseys are stupid, support your team, where their actual jersey, don't change things up to look more 'girly. This may also be a result of the fact I'm just a 'Hockey loving tom boy' and hate the colour pink in general. Those pictures you can find from time to time with girls wearing nothing but a jersey and standing with a hockey stick and such, I find the girls wearing the baggy regular jerseys to be 'sexier' then if they are wearing some tight fitting or pink crap. Not that I'm attracted to girls at all, and not that there's anything wrong with a girl being attracted to a girl, but.........I'm going way off track here.

Second, this team has had so many different colours as their jerseys in the past 40 years. Black, orange, red, yellow, blue, green...am I forgetting anything?a few shades of each. If you had the chance to buy a jersey over the years, but don't now and still want to wear a Canucks jersey to the game, it's going to be the wrong colours.  If you take a look at the merchandise available with Canucks logos on it, you end up with the green, blue, white and pink quite often, but their is also all the stuff with the old logos. Especially right now with the Canucks celebrating their last 40 years, they have come back with the different vintage styles, obviously the flying skate logo isn't going to look right on a blue or green t-shirt. People like that logo, and will spend the money on a 40th anniversary t-shirt to have it, instead of a white whale on a blue t-shirt. Also, the people who still want to support a player but can't afford a jersey are going to go with the player t-shirts, these are a very dark blue compared to the bright blue that is in the uniforms. The Flames have had the same colours for their 30 years of existence in Calgary. This makes it easy for the "sea of red", whether you bought your jersey, jackets or other shirts 10, 15,20 years ago, or yesterday it's still going to look the same in the crowd.

Third, Canucks ticket prices have skyrocketed, I remember going to games and they had specials for 4 tickets, plus white spot and parking for just over $100. Now, Canucks fans laugh at other teams with pricing like that, wishing this was still possible in Vancouver. The teams success has made going to games the cool thing to do, the thing the hip people do. This has lead to people who don't even care much about the game, or supporting the team in other ways, go to the games to be able to say "Hey, I went to the Canucks game last night!".  All the suits that used to win tickets through work and used to give them away like candy, are now going to the games, usually straight after work, still in their suits. Most t-shirt prices and everything are even up, if you want a nice t-shirt your usually looking at about $40, and with the world the way it is right now, a lot of people are just going to choose to wear their older stuff. It still says Vancouver Canucks and still has *a* Canucks logo, so its still cheering for their team.

I guess until we see this team use the same colours for a longer period of time their is always going to be a lot of variation in the crowd. Watching pre game warm ups online, and now finally finding a Sportsnet Pacific feed, I see lots more crowd shots, there is a lot of people in Canucks stuff, a lot older, but still cheering their team wearing it. People would also rather wear an older shirt, with a logo or name then just a plain blue shirt. That combined with the suits, and the "Cool people", are all going to add together to make a giant rainbow of colours. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see Rogers Arena a "Sea Of Blue", but I just don't see it happening any time soon.


Did I just get through an entire post without mentioning Keith Ballard once? Hot damn, I deserve a cookie. I also deserve a cookie because its my birthday.

Why aren't they playing me that Ballard?

Time for a little chat.

 I was looking through my stats for this site and found something interesting yesterday. It had been found during 2 separate google searches using " Why isn't Vancouver playing Ballard more?" and " Why does Ballard get so little ice time?". Aaron Rome has had up to 6-7 minutes more TOI, and some people don't get it.  So, a few observations I guess.

• It's been a long running 'joke' that Alain Vigneault  has some sort of man crush on Aaron Rome, which is why even though people see Ballard as the better player, Rome is getting the ice time.
• Running with that, it is said that Rome is allergic to wood, therefore unable to sit on the bench for long periods of time.
• It is also said that Rome has compromising pictures of Vigneault.
• It's also been said that Rome has been calling Vigneault dad for months.

Now lets get serious

• He  suffered a concussion  early in the season and was side lined. Upon returning from that concussion he was scratched 4 games later, he later admitted that he wasn't feeling 100%,  after the lack of exercise and such while being out with the concussion. (by the way, random fact,  he claims it's impossible to give 110%)
• Ballard sprained his knee in early February, he came back sooner then expected and everyone thought this was  a good thing. He had said somewhere(wish I could find the interview) that during this time he didn't have a single day off, from the night he hurt his knee to the time he played his first game back, he was getting treatment on his knee and working every single day. He also said that even though his knee is 'healed' he still felt pain, and could possibly for the remainder of the season. Could it possibly come out his knee is bugging him more then we thought? like he wasn't feeling great coming back from the concussion dealio ?
• It came out tonight that he has also been playing with a groin injury, the exact amount of games I do not know.
• He tweaked his knee again in tonights game, and claims to be fine. We shall see.

So, this doesn't explain it all, but may have some insight into it. After chatting with people today I wouldn't be opposed to sitting him again for a few days, because before the game I had mentioned his knee was probably still bugging him. Now that the groin injury has come to light and issue with his knee tonight, it probably wouldn't hurt to sit him a game or 2...but that wont happen.
thoughts?

Puck The Bunnies

Found this when looking through Travel Babbles blog (go check it out girls! you wont be sorry), and had to share. Some have probably seen it, but it's to good not to share for those who haven't

It doesn't need an explanation, it's just awesome.

LYRICS and CHORDS
They'd give a kidney, to get with Sidney [D G]
I'd give an arm to do them harm [A D]
They're so obnoxious and they're so awful [D G]
I wish they would go and watch some baseball [A D]
Because they're so damn stupid and so damn cocky [D A]
But they know next to nothing about hockey [G D A]

Because when Quick blocks the puck [G D]
All they to do is [cough] his brains out [G D G]
And when Toews shoots and scores [G D]
They want to throw him on the floor and have their way [G D A]
Puck bunnies don't know [cough] about hockey, [G D A G]
Because they're there to play a different game [G A D]

They're not loyal to any one team [D G]
They're fans of anyone that's winning [A D]
So if the Penguins, have a bad season [D G]
It's hello, Blackhawks or maybe Bruins [A D]
Because they're so damn stupid and so damn cocky [D A]
But they know next to nothing about hockey [G D A]

Because when Fleury blocks the puck [G D]
All they to do is [cough] his brains out [G D G]
And when Talbot shoots and scores [G D]
They want to throw him on the floor and have their way [G D A]
Puck bunnies don't know [cough] about hockey, [G D A G]
Because they're there to play a different game [G A D]

They'll go Wild for all of the Lightning [D G]
And say "put in my five hole," to any Red Wing [A D]
They want the Thrashers, Kings, and Flames [D G]
And they're like Predators to the Hurricanes [A D]
Because they're so damn stupid and so damn cocky [D A]
But they know next to nothing about hockey [G D A]

Because when Miller blocks the puck [G D]
All they to do is [cough] his brains out [G D G]
And when Staal shoots and scores [G D]
They want to throw him on the floor and have their way [G D A]
Puck bunnies don't know [cough] about hockey, [G D A G]
Because they're there to play a different game [G A D]

Because when Luongo blocks the puck [G D]
All they to do is [cough] his brains out [G D G]
And when Stamkos shoots and scores [G D]
They want to throw him on the floor and have their way [G D A]
Puck bunnies don't know [cough] about hockey, [G D A G]
Because they're there to play a different game [G A D]

And they're driving me insane! [G A D]

Random Pictures and a Dear keith

 Dear Keith,

What was with the helmet pre game? it really threw me off my game of, uh, watching pre game warm up. Were you tired of seeing your hair stand up night after night even after you got your hair cut?. You threw a great hit in the game, nice to see. That's about the only nice thing I have to say though. Now lets just work on getting some pucks TO the net, and hope that one day AV appreciates you a little bit more then Aaron Rome. Good post game interview. I was so annoyed with the game, I was ready to throw my laptop out the window. Good luck on the road.

Score a god damn goal already,
Christine.

Anyway, onto more pressing matters before my head explodes from thinking about that 'game' last night..

Hockey has given me some pretty cool stories in life even though I've never really played the game beyond our school parking lot. My only sort of claim to fame may be that I played floor hockey in school with Karl Alzner and Kenndal Mcardle. Thats as far as my actual  hockey playing stories go. Quick Random story, Karl and I once got in trouble in drama. We were doing improv work and naturally ours was about a hockey game, the teacher made us stop half way through because we weren't being creative enough and had to choose something other then hockey.

I have, however, been a member of many different hockey forums on the internet for a number of years. The first few years I'd love to forget, but the past 6-7 years or so have been pretty cool. I was going through my photobucket account and found some old pictures, I wish I had the rest from these times but I've had laptops die, and laptops stolen and I'm only left with a few. I've met some pretty cool people through them, made some real friendships and the major main one I was involved in even got me baby presents when my daughter was born, all Canucks stuff for her of course. (The jersey was passed down to my son, and is now in a keep sake box and it makes me extremely sad to look and see just how big they are both getting)  They played in tournaments, where I was just the underage drunk girl watching. Hey, someone's got to do the dirty work and yell at the refs and score keepers.

can you spot me? yeah, not going to point myself out :/

Here?I think I'm pretty easy to spot.

When the draft was held in Vancouver I had the opportunity to go with them, this was the last time I was in GM PLACE  before I made the decision to move to the frozen land. Being comfortably drunk before 4pm and booing Gary Bettman? HELL YEAH!.I got my picture taken with my favourite draftee at the time, James Sheppard, however I have a major double chin so that picture is staying in hiding (photoshop anyone?).

god I look young, that was 5 years ago.

I'm so short, the cop and guy 'guarding' the cup were laughing at the size of the Cup compared to me. Your so short Stanley Cup jokes, anyone?

don't  hate me Ted, I love this picture of Cody and I.

I've met many people through various other ways that have somehow related back to hockey. Everything in my life usually does, but those are the people that definitely stand out to me.

When I still lived at home and the fire department was called to my house and I wasn't home, The firefighters commented to my parents how much they loved their son's room as they were leaving. I am 1 of 2 girls in the family.

I came runner up in the ultimate Canucks fan contest on Canucks.com with this bedroom, I wish I still had the other better pictures, but you get the idea.

my grade 12 art project and the only A I think I ever received in my entire 5 years of High school.

Anyway, There is no real point I'm trying to make today, just thought I'd share some of my hockey pictures I recently found.

Cringe Worthy

It's easy to pick favourite players such as Ryan Kesler and The Sedins, based on the basic fact they are amazing players. Stats show that. I can't lie, last year when I was looking into retiring my Trevor Linden jerseys and getting a new player jersey, I ended up going with Alex Burrows. I did this the day after he had scored his 7th goal in 3 games. I kind of regret it now in a way,hes a great player, just not my favourite by far.  It's not like I can't wear it with pride though, unlike some other jerseys I own that I want to burn, *cough* Matt Cooke *cough*. Sorry, what was that?  I was actually pricing a new jersey and looked up Keith Ballard jerseys on ebay to see what there was, there wasn't 1 single jersey. The company I got my Burrows jersey doesn't even have them in stock, you have to order and they will make one, every other player is in stock. There is however his game worn jersey from the skills competition still available, its a measly $300 if anybody wants to buy me a present for my birthday next week.

So anyway, enter Keith Ballard, as usual. I've joked about it being wrong kind of reasons, or as someone referred to me the other day a "Ball bunny". I couldn't help but laugh at THAT one, but for real, I'm better then that. Statistically, looking at points, it makes no sense, if you're looking from the way I mentioned above.  Some of my reasons I stated in "Oh Ballard, My Ballard" are crazy, I know. I was looking for a blog name and was trying to figure out something that would work with a players name and one thing lead to another, I got Ballard. My "Dear Ballard" posts, are just stupid nonsense that comes from being cooped up in a house with 2 kids all day, every day. That nonsense comes out at the expense of poor Keith Ballard.  Now I'm really sounding even more like a girl who really doesn't know what she's talking about.

He doesn't score many goals, he has 2 on the season in 47 games played. He has never had a season in the past 5 where he has under 20 points, right now he has 5. You have to factor in the fact he isn't the top defenceman he was on other teams, isn't getting the same amount of playing time because of it, and also games played. He has missed games due to a concussion, being a healthy scratch(which has since been admitted he still wasn't feeling well from the concussion, and lack of physical activity while out), the flu and a knee sprain. He also came into training camp after having off season hip surgery, all this factors into the year he's having. I'm not trying to make excuses, the fact is he probably should be playing better, and on a team like the Canucks, he has stuff to work on. I'm a sucker for the underdog, for the one with the good playing attitude and for the one that has the best off ice(ie interviews) personality. He's no Trevor Linden, but he has the attitude and personality that I like. I am not afraid to admit when he has a bad game, I'd probably be the first to jump on him about it. I'd have no problem admitting when he made a bad play, should be benched or should even be scratched.  Which brings me to my next eye roll.

When a fan can't admit their favourite player isn't doing well.
It's almost like, being blinded by love, but different..... maybe. It drives me up the friggen wall when a player is doing bad, every single real fan you talk to can admit it but this one person will sit and make excuses for him for everything. Or talk nonsense about playing him on lines that don't even make sense position wise, let alone playing ability wise. If the player has been a healthy scratch and sees limited amounts of ice time, how the hell can you say he is playing his best hockey?....ok.... Maybe he just doesn't fit in the line up, the team is stacked and has players that are better then him. Don't sit there and try to convince people why he should be playing, obviously the team is doing alright without him. Why can't people just admit that? hope he gets traded, or signs somewhere else and gets the play time he deserves if he is so great? You can be a fan of him on another team, even if the Canucks are "your team", but please feel free to move on. The more I think about it the more it just seems like the wrong reasons, because it makes no god damn sense.

I really don't know where I was going with this, I'm pretty sure I got off track and made no sense. Bottom line is, I'm sick of seeing grown people act 12 years old and trying to defend their favourite player. You're taking it too far, admit when hes not playing well, when he may fit better on another team or your just going to make yourself look like your liking him for the wrong reasons. It makes me feel the need to have to justify myself every 10 minutes to make sure people don't think I'm like that.

Funny story. Was at Toys R Us the other day and, as I've mentioned before, was in my usual  jeans and a Canucks player t-shirt. I'm not one to dress up, specially not on a quick trip to Toys R Us. I happened to have on my Ballard shirt (I also own Kesler, Hamhuis, 3 Lindens, Bertuzzi and Cammalleri ones). I'm walking along and I hear someone walk up behind me and then I hear " Hey sweety, you can hip check me any day"... hah WHAT?!. It took me a minute to clue in, and it took everything I had not to just burst out laughing while slapping him silly. I turned around told him he gets a "B for effort" and continued on.

Dear Kevin and Keith

Dear Kevin,

You've had some good chances this past weekend to do some pretty entertaining things, and you didn't do them. I was watching After Hours on Saturday night with Ryan Kesler and had an idea. You should of had some  KB3 stuff made up and walked back and forth behind Kesler, Weekes and Oake as much as possible. It would of been great. Then on Sunday at the skills competition you should of snuck out and pied Keith Ballard in the face, for the failed prank he tried on you. Then again I know your really busy at home with  your 2 little ones, and the broken foot and all. I expect better in the future.

I hope we have an understanding,
Christine

Dear Keith,

I am glad to see you listened and got your hair cut, although it was probably just due to the Skills competition and not wearing a helmet. Your daughter is A-freakin-dorable, not as cute as mine, but I'm a bit biased on that of course. Were you supposed to be in charge of pieing Chris Tanev and Cody Hodgson? you seem like the guy that would be, and it didn't happen. What the hell?. I was extremely  glad to see that beautiful hip check last game, but I also asked for a goal or 2 assists, I have to say I am very disappointed. I know you tried, but having a puck hit you and bounce back to Lucic who then scores does...not... count!. I expect better next game. I'll be happy with 1 assist. The Hip check better be there as well.

Thank you for understanding,
Christine

I promise to be serious again soon.

Willie Mitchell

I noted a few of my favourite hockey players the other day and forgot the one with the biggest stick of all, Willie Mitchell!

Ok, that is a bit of an exageration on his stick, but thats just Willie Mitchell. Last year before a game Vancouver played against Calgary, then flames coach, Mike Keenan made a remark about Mitchell using an illegal stick (over the league max. length of 63inches). During pre game warm ups Mitchell came out on the ice with the stick in the above picture, 2 shafts taped together. This is only part of the reason this man floats my boat.

who wouldn't love this smile??

which is why I hated seeing him like this at end of the 2010 season

On January 16th, 2010 in a game versus Pittsburgh, Willie Mitchell was hit from behind by Evgeni Malkin. He suffered a concussion. He missed the rest of the season suffering from the effects of that and post concussion syndrome. He had to leave Vancouver during the Olympics as the hustle and bustle of the city was to much for him and in May was still unable to do much more then take trail walks with his dog, Pino. He also went through counselling to deal with the psychological effects of he injury. 

I remember the interview clearly, I was watching on Canucks.com as the Canucks had just been knocked out of the playoffs by the Blackhawks (again!) and it was locker clear out day. The camera was on Kevin Bieksa as reporters waited, there was some noise and suddenly everyone ran towards one man, Willie Mitchell. It was the first time he'd been available to the media since the incident. I remember it clearly because it wasn't the same smiling, joking, Willie Mitchell from months previous. He sounded on the verge of crying at times and spoke with a very angered tone. He called out Colin Campbell for his inconsistency in handling suspensions for bad hits. He was also asked if he would consider a life outside of hockey in the wake of such a serious injury. He said this:

Absolutely, I'd take it. Some things are more important than hockey. Life's about recreating yourself three or four times anyway. That's what's fun. That's the journey. But do I want to continue doing what I've done for a large part of my life? Absolutely. But right now, that's not in my control. It's been a long physical journey and emotional journey. I'm feeling much better than I was before and getting better every day. I've been trying to put myself in the best place possible to be in a healing environment. I'm just looking forward to the day, and it's going to happen real soon here. Where I feel 100 per cent

And going with my theme lately,  my main reason for him being a favourite player. His Charity Work.  Mitchell loves fishing, so its only natural  that he takes part in a fishing charity event. He takes part in the West Coast fishing Clubs Fishing for Kids Fund raising Tournament. Brian Grange, who is the brains behind the event, credits Mitchell for its rise to a high profile event and bringing much more awareness to it.  He was always a frequent visitor to Canuck Place and Children's Hospital, he was always happy to give back. I am sure he is doing the same down in LA.

What made me  think about him was something I heard the other day. After Canucks Defenceman Dan Hamhuis suffered a concussion in a game 2 weeks back, Mitchell contacted Hamhuis and said he was willing to help him with anything he was going through. So my hats off, again, this time to the Class Act that is Willie Mitchell. Aside from Trevor Linden, who the Canucks eventually did get back, he is the player I have been the saddest to see go.