Big night for Shirokov in Calgary

Sergei Shirokov is set to play tonight on the top line with Kes and Samuelsson, coming back from a knee sprain that had him out for the past week. This is gonna be a huge night for him. Gillis has already gone on record to the TEAM 1040 saying that "Right now, he hasn't demonstrated anything in my mind that indicates he's ready to play at this level based on this camp". Ouch. At least Gillis isn't being nice to his young hopeful by avoiding the assessment. I like the bluntness from Gillis about Hodgson. And Grabner, although I've been pulling for him, has not been impressive enough to crack the roster.

Shirokov on the other hand, had 2 goals in the 1st game in Terrace (against an AHL roster albeit) and a couple of assists in the 2nd game against San Jose before being sidelined by injury. I don't want to be too excited about his potential, but he could be a good replacement for Demitra, at least while Demitra is out with his shoulder injury (and maybe long term option for the rather expensive contract?).

"He's a smart hockey player and pretty skilled offensively and can find the back of the net."-Kelser. And we need players like those, the ones that can find the back of the net, unlike the Bernier of last year.

He has 2 back to back games to impress coach V and will face a mostly veteran line-up in Calgary tonight and tomorrow in Edmonton.

Hodgson and Grabner will also play tonight. Hear the game on the TEAM 1040.

Kesler, Bieksa and Hockey Moms

So I've seen the NHL2K10 commercial twice tonight while watching the football game. Not quite sure what to make of it yet. Are they trying to make hockey moms sound like Newfies or people from Chicago? "Welcome to Ha-ckey Night"? Yeauch.

Two of our boys, Kesler and Bieksa, are in the commercial along with Jack Johnson. And our boys look good, non? And Jack Johnson just looks like he's trying to act hardcord like Mike Green, though I kinda like that Kings shirt he's wearing.

Please enjoy some photos from the video shoot (full gallery is here), and you'll find the commercial at the bottom.





















































And now the video:

Canucks News

The Canucks announced a 3 year extension for Coach V today. It was only a couple of months ago that the majority of Vancouver was calling for Vigneault's head to roll, but hey, we have short term memories in this city. If he coaches the whole contract, he will have coached in Van for 7 years straight, though, coaches never ever 'finish' a contract these days do they? We'll see how it plays out in the future, and I can only hope he keeps coaching the boys in the faster more aggressive play like we saw this year.

The Canucks trimmed down their roster today. They sent Yann Sauve back to the QMJHL, and sent Evan Oberg, Taylor Ellington, PC Labrie and Eric Walsky back to Manitoba. Daren Machesney and Travis Ramsy have been released from their PTO (professional tryout contracts) and are going back to Manitoba as well. And not surprising, but the veteran players Ronald Petrovicky and Dave Scatchard have been released from camp with no contract.

And for an injury update, both Schneider and Demitra are going on the long term injury reserve to start the season. Schneider has been skating, but is not been able to have contact yet in practice, Demitra hasn't begun practising yet, and may be sidelined until November. This will give the Canucks a little cap relief at least, but don't you wonder how long it will take before Salo lands on that list as well?

Here is a look into the new Canucks dressing room which is said to cost between 2-3 million dollars. It looks sweet, especially the doors. Yes I like the doors. For a gallery check out this link here, and for an article about it, check out Iain MacIntyre's article here.

And from yesterday's Raise a Reader campaign, here is a pic of Shane O'Brien:

People at Pre-Season Games

So your Vancity Canuck was at Saturday's pre-season game against the Oilers with R for the first pre-season game at home. During the game, me and R came up with a few thoughts on people that attend pre-season games.

Before I get right into it, I must say that GM Place announced that it was a sell-out, but the people that were there will confirm that the building was clearly not full. Obviously not everyone shows up to the pre-season, hell, I only show because I have tickets and I feel bad letting them go to waste.

Though, for those of you who have them and don't show up, perhaps next time you could just donate your tickets a local children's charity and then feel like you are a good person? It's really easy, all you have to do, if you have a pack (ice pack/half season/full season) is log into your My Canucks Account, then click Forward your tickets to charity. Then, presto! instant good karma. DO IT.

Now, during the various topics of conversation me and R had during the game, the topic of people who show up to pre-season games came up. I personally think there are far too many pre-season games, we should really just have 4, 2 home and 2 away, then right into the regular season.

Every year when you get a pack of tickets from the Canucks, you inevitably get stuck with a few pre-season games, and between the people I share my tickets with, nobody wants to go. We are all gung-ho about picking the tickets for the regular season, (grudgingly getting stuck with the multitude of Minnesota games) and then you get the pre-season tickets. Everyone just sits around being quiet and ho humming until we can take some sucker friend with 25 bucks extra to show up to a worthless pre-season game.

So the people who don't show up are obviously people that have more money than us, and don't mind for their tickets to go to waste while they enjoy their night at home. I haven't achieved that level of financial prosperity to waste tickets yet, even if they are only the pre-season ones.

Then, you get people who pay to go to the pre-season.














People like this guy.

He must have lost some bet.

I hope.

I wouldn't be surprised if the back of the jersey has Pyatt on it.

He was pretty happy about his jersey, and I do thank him for letting me take a photo of him.

So back to the question, who buys tickets to the pre-season? Maybe the same person who would shotgun a mickey of liquor, and then getting promptly kicked out because you are too drunk (so we heard). Or maybe you are like the couple that sat beside us. You might be on a date, drinking beer through a straw and looking like Stifler's mom (no joke). And if you are on a date, clearly the best thing to do, would be to dance every time DJ Dave plays a song, a song like "Get Low" (low, low, low...) by Flo Rida, though please, next time, keep to your own personal space, even if you look like Stifler's mom.

Ugh, preseason people.

So this year, this sucker was me and R.
ps. If that photo is of you and you want it taken down, please send me an e-mail

Tweetup, Pronounciations and Cuts

Tweetup
The Vancouver Tweetup community is having their first Canucks Tweetup tomorrow night at the Hurricane Grill.

I will not be in attendance, but since I'm talking about twitter on this blog, I do have twitter, though I haven't really gotten into it yet. I know most of your feel that twitter is dumb, but hey, I said that about Twilight, and look how far I got with that. So if you feel inclined to follow me, here it is.

Pronunciations
Cody Hodgson spoke to the press about how to really pronounce his name. Apparently we've all been saying it wrong. The G is supposedly silent, so it's like Cody Hod-son, not Hodge-son like we've all been saying.

Tempowcrew doesn't think it's gonna stick, at least not he cracks the lineup, but here's to hoping that he does: Ko-dee Hod-sun

Canucks Makes Cuts
The Canucks made some cuts with Dan Gendur going to the Moose, and Steven Anthony, Morgan Clark, Prab Rai and Kellan Tochkin (Silver Tips) going back to their junior clubs. Then they made some more cuts, sending Kevin Connauton back to the Giants.

Botch on the Defense
Jason Botchford wrote an article today about how a deep defense has players fighting for a roster spot. He asks "Can any team in the NHL afford the luxury of having that kind of money invested in their seventh and eighth defencemen?".

What he fails to point out, is that two of the players we have on our team are named old man Schneider and glass Salo, who really are not expected to be healthy enough to play the whole season. So yes, I do expect to carry 7 or 8 D all year, though I would have preferred for them to be not paid as much as they are getting.

This and That...

I guess it could be called "news" that the Canucks beat the Isles 2-1 last night for their pre-season opener in Terrace, but really, it was just AHL team vs. AHL team. Though it is nice to have hockey feel like it is that much closer, the preseason, in my opinion is too long and until the last 2 games, really worthless. The NHL should really just start the season next week...but they're not, so here is some Canucks musings that I found:

Ed Willies writes today about the Sedins:
"Daniel and Henrik? You could give them each a million bucks, send them on the road with The Rolling Stones and a dozen Playboy bunnies and they'd come back telling you about the movies they saw in their hotel room."

The Sedins think that Samuelsson is a dirty Swede (which really just makes me laugh):
Henrik: "And he can be a little dirty. He's kind of a dirty player and not Swedish that way. He can play it all."
"You can say that," said Daniel. "He's more Canadian than Swedish. He's tough to play against and gets under your skin and can frustrate you because he's so strong. He'll fit in in a lot of different situations."







Not that I watched this, but it looks like Burrows, Hordichuck and Raymond made an appearance at the Canadian Country Music Awards. A french hockey player that likes country music? I may know a girl that we should keep that info from...

And now for some self-endorsement: After some bonding over True Blood over at Wrap's house of Tokarski, and obliging me with a photo in his episode a recap, HF29 asked me to give an intro about Curtis Sanford for their blog Four Habs Fans. It's stripperriffic, so please click here to read my submission here about the Sandman.

Canucks Training Camp: 57 Players Invited

So medical testing starts today at UBC for the Canucks, followed by two days of training camp and then the first preseason game on Tuesday in Terrace, BC against the Islanders. For a list of who is invited to the training camp, see a post here on the CDC.

Mike Gillis has invited a bunch of journeymen to the camp, including Mark Parrish, Dave Scatchard, Ronald Petrovicky and Keith Carney. It seems that Gillis has a thing for older guys that are on the outs...but maybe one will be low cost surprise.

And something funny for the weekend:

Check out the KB for their Friday chat. This week's comments about Team USA's glamour shots are hilarious. The picture of Kane just cracks me up, "Grrrrrr...."

Click here for the full series of photos from PD.