So, Zac Efron started off little trend when he showed up with his young costar, Charlie Tahan, from The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud at a Canucks game a couple of weeks ago. Click the link for lots of photos.And I know that you are rolling your eyes at the name of Zac Efron, but please read this story by Lainey before you judge him.
And there was photos of Twilight's Taylor Lautner at the Stanley Cup Finals game supporting the Detroit Red Wings. He is from Michigan so I'll let the Detroit supporting slide.
And then, Taylor Lautner flew out of Vancouver this weekend after finishing up filming Twilight: Eclipse to LA to attend a LA Kings game with Taylor Swift.
And then photos show up of Claire Danes (albeit, she's not very relevant as a celebrity these days) with Hugh Dancy at a Rangers game.
So it makes me wonder, is going to an NHL game trendy for young stars these days? Now it has to be noted that this is different from appearances of say Hillary Duff, Carrie Underwood or Elisha Cuthbert, as they date hockey players. A hockey girlfriend appearance at a game is not really a shocker, cause you are there to support your man.
But the appearances of Zac Efron, T. Lautner and T. Swift show young hollywood attending regular season hockey games to check out the game. I wonder if this will be a continuing trend with these young celebrity powerhouses and if so, who will we see next?
So because Tronna fans can't stay up late at night, and they want a 7pm game, CBC has scheduled the Canucks/Leafs game to start at 4pm PST. That's right, the game starts at 4pm. I would advise just to get over the start time, our bitching really won't matter, Toronto will win this round.
This game on Saturday really has no great benefits to the Canucks, besides 2 points. But could you imagine if Vancouver loses? Can you imagine the Toronto fans then? I don't want to imagine it, so instead, enjoy your news about the Canucks:
Kesler Contract Talk Kesler's agent spoke to Kuzma of The Province about the contract that he feels that Kesler deserves to sign. It's gonna be big money, because Kesler is the type of player that is the heart and soul of a great team. In my opinion, Kesler is captain material. If he wasn't in his last year of his contract, I would be saying that he should be the captain instead of Luongo. Overhardt brings up an interesting statistic that the Canucks "won 74.36 per cent of their games (26-10-3) when the twins had less time than Kesler."
Schneider Ready to Go... ...But he's gonna have to wait until Sunday's game against Edmonton before he'll be able to play because of IR regulations.
Burkie acts like a 5 year old In a phone interview to The Province today, Brian Burke talked about how he wasn't going to make a big deal of the tampering accusations that were made by the Canucks, but in the end, well you know that he is Brian Burke, and he's making a big deal of it. As per usual, Burkie has some gold quotes:
“I’m certainly not going to pour any gasoline on a fire that as far as I’m concerned doesn’t exist. When other organizations talk or complain about the Leafs, I ignore it by and large.”
“We weren’t copied with any of the correspondence or made aware of it so when all this talking was going on we were mystified, it was like, what are they talking about?” Burke said. “If we were going to bring a tampering charge against a team we would copy the team on it, make them aware of it. That wasn’t done so we were kind of in the dark on this.
“If I didn’t see Mike, that wouldn’t be a snub,” Burke said. “In my building, I always go down and talk to the visiting GM, ask him if they need anything. I don’t know what Mike does. If I see him, I’ll say hi to him, but if I don’t see him I wouldn’t consider it a snub. . . . I’m not jumping off a bridge if I don’t see him and I’m not going to order a cake if I do.”
Now the last quote, it's like trying to figure out a girl is trying to say when she says "I'm FINE". Is he trying to guilt trip Gillis into hanging out with him? It's also kinda like when my mom says "Do what YOU think is right". It's just the ultimate guilt trip, you're so damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
The Monster!
"The Monster," Beauchemin said, offering up his best scary voice, albeit with a distinct Quebecois accent. "The Monster!"-Globe and Mail My favorite addition to the Leafs this year is definitely Jonas Gustavsson. Why? Well he's Swedish, his name is Jonas, and his nickname is The Monster! (with the exclamation mark!).
Rawr!
Those are three perfectly good reasons to love The Monster!
Reports out of Toronto that say that he might be ready to go for the Vancouver game on Saturday afternoon. It's not likely, but it would be nice because Mirtle saying that Schenner might be a healthy scratch, and really Schenn and Gustavsson are the only two things that I like about the Leafs.
If I didn't have 3/4 of a pumpkin pie in my fridge I would be so on making the kaiserschmarrn right now. But true to my promise, I will be making it to celebrate Grabner's first goal, soon. I'll have to pick another Austrian dessert for goal #2, maybe some Apfelstrudel next?
So this game, was pretty awesome non?
The Canucks get a powerplay goal from Steve Bernier, who if I may say, looks great with his new haircut and physique. More importantly, he was finally able to stuff in a puck from a rebound. The Canucks penalty kill looked pretty good too, keeping Chicago from taking many shots. Then, Mitchell had a fantastic legalopen ice hit on Toews, who got smoked. Please enjoy the video:
Then, Kes takes a hit while bringing the puck into the offensive zone, but manages to get the puck to Grabner, who nets his 1st NHL goal! Woooo! Even better that the Moose was there in the crowd to cheer him on! And for the win, Samuelsson with an unassisted goal.
We did also did get some help in the end there by Antti Niemi, who really should have had Samuelsson's shot, but whatever, Hawks lose. Oh, and Luongo looked better, all big in his net and stuff.
Grabner is 22 and is one of the few hockey products out of Austria. He played in Austria until coming over to the Dub to play for the Spokane Chiefs. He was then selected 14th overall in the 2006 Entry draft by the Vancouver Canucks.
This year, he has had 4 goals in the last 7 periods of play with the Moose, which made a strong case for why he was to be the one called up for Friday night. He took the red-eye here, and found himself practising on the top line with Burrows and Henrik. He was practising on the 2nd powerplay unit with Kes and Wellwood.This is going to be Grabner's NHL debut for the Canucks and there's a lot of pressure on him to prove to the Canucks management and fans that he was a good draft pick as opposed to a bust. It's good to see that he knows what is at stake for him here: "They're great set-up guys and should be a lot of fun to play with. It just up to me to make the most out of it. It's been a long time coming."-The Province
I'm really hoping that he'll do well. In addition to wanting him to be play well to because he is a Canuck, I have another reason that I want him to succeed.
Bear with me here, I'm gonna go off on a tangent, then attempt to tie it in to hockey.
So back in the day, Austria and Hungary used to be one joined together called the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now after WWI, the dual state was dissolved following their military defeat. Anyways, during the dissolution, the empire got chopped up into tiny countries, and their boarders re-drawn. So the effect of the re-drawn boarders, treaties that were drawn up by the Allies (very one-sided) caused devastating political and economic effects on the new countries.
So some of my family is from the different little countries in the former empire, ie. Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia and I've had long discussions with them about the impact of the the changes on sport, specifically hockey.Hockey is an expensive sport. Not only do you have to pay a ton for equipment, but you also have to have the location, ie. rink to be able to play. It is not like football/foci (soccer to you North Americans) where you can play anywhere, no hockey is a sport that required money, and the building to do it in. And those countries didn't have either, money or facilities for sport. That's why you don't see a lot of Austrian, Hungarian, Croatian etc players, because those kids didn't have the opportunity to play hockey growing up, but a lot of them really do love the sport. So for me, it's great to see a young Austrian getting a chance to play in the NHL. It was also awesome to see Hungary make an appearance at the World Cup last year, even though their team was made up of players that also had day jobs. They ended up losing to Canada 9-0, but they were just happy to be there and play.
So, the point to this rambling is to say how proud I am to see young kids like Grabner with talent and a shot at a chance to be in the NHL. It shows how far hockey has come along in places like Austria or Hungary and makes me hopeful for the future of hockey in those countries. So I'll be pulling for Grabner on Friday night hoping that he does well in his Canuck audition and maybe, if he scores, I'll make some Kaiserschmarrn to celebrate.
I have wrote a few words for Cycle Like the Sedins' season preview feature called "The Sore Thumb" for the Vancouver Canucks. Click here to read my submission.
I may have spoken too soon when I wrote up my thoughts about the fragility of our team since Salo is now joining Demitra and Schneider on the injury list. Care to agree/disagree with my thoughts?
Glass had been getting some media love these days. First there is was some love from Kuzma of The Province here, and then yesterday he got some from the Vancouver Sun.
So who is this guy?
Tanner Glass, 25, was born on November 29th 1983 in Craven, Saskatchewan. He was played in the BCHL for Penticton before being dealt to the Nanaimo Clippers. He was then drafted in the 2003 entry draft by the Florida Panthers at 265th overall. He then went on the play for Dartmouth College for 4 years and even earned a History degree while he was there.
“I am a history buff,” explained the 25-year-old Saskatchewan native in the Canucks dressing room following a practice. “I studied the history of imperialism, the Roman Empire, the American Empire. You look back at major things that happened in the world and it’s interesting to see what led up to them and what caused them.” -Vancouver Sun
He then played just 4 games for the Panther's AHL team, the Rochester Americans before being called up to play for the Panthers. He has some injuries to his shoulder in his 2008-2009 season, had surgery back in February and spent much of his time in the AHL, and thus didn't get a qualifying offer from the Panthers.
Here is where the Canucks come in to the story. We offered him a two-way deal worth $500, 000, so he's a nice cheap addition, and so far so good.He doesn't have a ton of skill, but he works hard, is scrappy and from what I've heard, has a ton of heart and soul.
With the reassignment of Desbiens, I think we'll see either Grabner or Shirokov back up to add some offence. As for the defense, I don't think we'll see any call ups since we still are carrying Aaron Rome.
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