Embrace the Hate

When I was asked by Tom to write a post for ‘Embrace the Hate’, I accepted fully knowing that my troll talents would come to good use. What he wants me to do is “piss off” the Vancouver Canucks fan base and then said if my entry was good enough, a monetary donation would be made to charity.

Whoa there Tom, settle down, you had my at “piss off the Vancouver Canucks fan base”.

January 7, 2012 is being dubbed as the Stanley Cup “re-match” between the Boston Bruins and the Vancouver Canucks, although it can hardly be called a re-match because there isn’t anything up for grabs. If the Vancouver Canucks come into the TD Garden and blow the roof off the joint, what do they actually win?

A hockey game.

That’s it.

Now, I’m sure that Canucks Nation, or whatever the hell you people call yourselves, will use that as an opportunity to chirp me and the other Bruins fans out there, but the ultimate chirp still hangs from the TD Garden rafters. That golden 2011 Stanley Cup Champions banner will always be the ultimate chirp and a sudden reminder that the only thing worthy of being hung in the Rogers Centre is a few Northwest Division Championship banners, a Western Conference championship banner and a picture of Ryan Kessler crying at the NHL Awards with the President’s Trophy photoshopped next to him to make him look like he’s appreciative of that stupid thing.

Think about what the 2010-2011 season was for the Vancouver Canucks for a minute. 117 points with the second place team coming in at 107, 10 points less than the Canucks. 54 wins, again best in the league. A goal differencial of +77, once more tops in the NHL. Henrik Sedin, 5th in the NHL in total points with 94 total points and first in the NHL in assists with 75.

Enter: 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Canucks entered the first round with a hated rival in the form of the Chicago Blackhawks. The Canucks disposed of them in 7 games, then easily took down the Nashville Predators in 6 games. Finally, one team stood in their way of the Stanley Cup Finals, the San Jose Sharks. Vancouver never took their eye off of the prize and put away the Sharks in 5 games and were headed to their first Stanley Cup Final since1994.

17 years. 17 long, arduous years since the Vancouver Canucks could take a sniff of the Stanley Cup and they were there again. Last time they were in the Finals they lost a team of destiny (also an American team) known as the New York Rangers.

Seven games. Seven games in which the Rangers took the heart and soul of the Vancouver Canucks and curb stomped it.

2011. This was supposed to be the Canucks year, or so I was told. First in the NHL in almost every statistical category. Most points. Most wins. Most goals scored per game. Best goals scored against. Best power play in the NHL.

This was their year….to fail once again.

Let’s be honest with ourselves here for a moment. If you want to fit the Vancouver Canucks’ 2011 Stanley Cup Finals in to one scene, just look at the minute 5’9” Brad Marchand was feeding 6’2” Henrik Sedin a buffet of punches and Sedin just stood there, taking it like a punching bag.

That’s all you really need to know about the Vancouver Canucks. They just took it.

The punches? They took them.
The hits? They took them.
The suspensions? They took them.
The losses? They took them (and badly).
The Stanley Cup? They watched it get passed around from Boston player to Boston player on their own ice.

And what did the Vancouver Canucks fan base do in light of this loss? They set their city on fire, threw trash cans through store window fronts and took pictures of couples smooching in the street.

There’s a term I like to say when something like this happens: “Act like you’ve been there before,” and for Vancouver you have been there before. In fact, the 2011 Stanley Cup Final marks the third time in a short 41 years that you’ve lost the chance to be named Stanley Cup Champions and the second time it took 7 games to blow it.

41 years.

The Bruins went 39 years since winning their last Stanley Cup, but at least they won. Sure, they don’t have 24 like the Montreal Canadiens, but at this point they have 6 more than you do. We have 6 more than you do.

So my biggest problem with the Vancouver Canucks fan base has to be this sense of entitlement. You know what I’m talking aboot. When Vancouver made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, the Days of Y’Orr comments page was riddled with Canucks fans saying how the Canuck would win in 4, 5 or 6 because the Bruins “aren’t very good”.

Oh my how the tables have turned. It took seven games, a finger being bitten, a midget punching a ginger, the best goaltender in the world (you know that guy right? He’s a two time Vezina Trophy winner, Conn Smyth Trophy Winner and a Stanley Cup Champion and isn’t signed in a certain city for another 11 years or so) flattening the other ginger and then flattening out a pest in Alex Burrows and a short handed goal by Patrice Bergeron to show who was the actual champions.

And what happened to all those Vancouver fans who said Boston wasn’t a challenge? They complained that the Bruins are goons.

It’s funny how easy it is to rile up the people in Seattle North. Tom likes to call Days of Y’Orr his favorite Canucks blog (probably outside of his own, of course) but that’s because it’s so easy to hate on the Canucks and their fans.

When Milan Lucic boom-bashed Ryan Miller into a fake concussion and didn’t get suspended, who cried about it? Yup. Vancouver. A fan base in another conference who had nothing to do with the incident at hand.

Typical Boston. They get away with everything. They’re goons!

Then Dave Bolland comes out and calls the Sedin brothers “girls”, something that Days of Y’Orr was doing when the Finals started and the boohoochoo train left Vancouver station for Pansyville.

That’s unimaginative!

Apologies. I’m sure the Bruins or Blackhawks would be more imaginative if they wore green suites and ripped off a TV show. Oh, you have no idea what I’m talking about? Your beloved Green Men! Lets face it, there’s nothing worse then ripping off “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” and then trying to pass it off as your own. What’s even worse is that the Green Men were “hyped” about “what they were going to do to Boston” if one of the Bruins took a penalty and then they pulled this off: 

Oh no! A lifesize cutout of Ben Affleck wearing a Vancouver Canucks jersey. First off, Chris Kelly is a native of Ottawa so I’m sure he doesn’t give a shit about Ben Affleck or his affiliation with the city of Boston. Secondly, most of Boston doesn’t care about Affleck either. The poor attempt by the Green Men to “burn” the city of Boston was just that, poor. It’s time for those guys to give up the schtick because it’s not useful or funny. 

Back to Bolland: Alex Burrows, of all people, calls Dave Boland “an embarrassment to the game.”

What?

While most of you wearing your navy blue and sea foam green uniforms were too busy calling Burrows a hero and sucking on each other’s index finger in celebration, you clearly forgot that Alex Burrows is one of the biggest goons in the NHL…who fucking bit someone!

It’s amazing how this happens in Vancouver. First they burn the city down and then they go on to proclaim Alex Burrows a hero while calling 30 goal scorer Milan Lucic a goon. I just don’t get the rational behind this.

So remember folks, if the Canucks do beat the Bruins on January 7th, it’s nothing more than two points and if you need a reminder about who the real winner in all of this is, well here you go:

How you like dem apples?