CrashingTheGoalie

By Bill Heintz

Speaking of hockey…what the hell?

I’ve spoken to a number of people recently who say they just aren’t getting excited about the season in general and the Canucks in specific.

Canadians? Not excited about hockey?

Another sign of the end days.

Truth here. Part of the reason has to be the maddening inconsistency demonstrated by our guys. They’ve blown out a few teams this year; Montreal and Colorado, and then most recently, Edmonton. But while they look like contenders on the one night where we get scoring from four lines as well as the D…and Bob Luongo also looks to be in his groove, we fall apart quickly thereafter and have thus far found ourselves on the outside looking in at the playoff teams.

A week ago some fans were upset because guys like Tony Gallagher and Jason Botchford were openly questioning whether we could even make the playoffs. Hey, we are in the race, most answered…and besides, it’s way to early to be making the gloom and doom statements.

But the truth is, these guys were reacting to two things, one of which is the aforementioned inconsistency.

Good teams don’t blow so hot and then so cold. The Great One always said that consistency of excellence was the hallmark of the champion.

We don’t have that effort this year. Blame injuries or flu or whatever. But you can’t argue with the fact that it just ain’t there.
The second thing I believe, is that the reason that Gallagher and Botchford were being somewhat negative was the same thing that is causing malaise amongst the Canuck faithful.

The schedule.

It’s pretty hard to get excited when your team is playing once a week. Like many, I watch other teams. Certainly Edmonton and Calgary, but also Toronto and Montreal. Mostly I cheer against them. And I’ll take the worst hockey game on TV over say, a finely played, three and a half hour baseball marathon.

But without the added tension of a Canuck game, it’s just not the same. And that schedule that has been giving us way too much leisure time is about to turn on us. The next month will be harsh. And you can add to that the brutal 14 game road trip coming up with the Olympic break.

I love the Olympics. It’s the best athletes in the world on stage. But it has twisted the NHL hockey schedule into a joke and the Canucks being the Olympic home team are going to suffer for it.

Lots of talk about character building and such, but the rule of thumb is that playing .500 hockey on the road is an acceptable level of winning. Except we are already playing around the .500 mark as we are heading into this brutal two and a half month grind.

R-uh R-oh.

.500 hockey doesn’t get you into the playoffs. So we’ll see Brodeur face Luongo in Jersey. And we’ll also play some old hated rivals like the Flyers. It will be good benchmarks for the team.

And at least we’ll find out a few things about our guys. The good news is, if we make the playoffs coming out of this schedule then there will be some reason for optimism in the post season. And one can only hope the malaise and negativism that has struck the fan base and the local literati doesn’t infect the team that has to play this game on the ice.