PENTICTON, BC — Thoughts from a week in the Okanagan, the perfect town for a rookie tournament that morphed into the Vancouver Canucks main camp.
If they don’t make this an annual affair, and maybe stretch it to seven or eight teams, I can’t wait to visit the city that would make a better fit.
This was truly a fine way to start the hockey season.
The Full Monte
Exposed as far too eager to be first, and not so concerned with being right, it was a tough week for the hockey writing trade.
In fact, L’affaire Pat Burns was likely the most embarrassing episode for sports writers since a certain Winnipeg columnist lost his gig for plagiarism, then pleaded on national sports television (and we paraphrase), "Everyone in our business does it. I just got caught."
Boy, we could have used Twitter back then.
So, in the wake of the Burns fiasco, the time has probably come to ask you, the hockey fan, what matters the most: Fast, or right?
We know what we think, but we’re asking you. Do you care — on trade deadline day, for instance — what network beats what web site by 14 seconds on a trade?
If Mike Brophy is twittering a scoop at the same time as Darren Dreger is e-mailing the same information to his site, at the same time as some other guy is announcing it on his radio show, who wins?
And do you, the follower/reader/listener, really care, as long as the info is legit?
Two quotes from Canucks camp that have raised an eyebrow:
Daniel Sedin, who snapped in last spring’s playoff loss to Chicago, on a stated goal for his team this season: "Stop the talking to referees and opponents," he said. "It's got to stop and if we get used to that in the regular season, we should be fine in the playoffs."
Two of the league’s premier chirpers are Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler. And we know that on any team, not just this one, there are going to be players who are sick and tired of guys who talk too much.
Was Daniel’s quote aimed at those two?
Just asking.
And speaking of chirping, how about farm team coach Claude Noel calling out 2009 first-rounder Jordan Schroeder in the Vancouver Province the other day?
"I think he can play at another level and he has to… be better than this," said Noel, at the end of the rookie tournament. "He has an opportunity to do well (at main camp) but he also has the opportunity to be exposed."
Frank-ophone
One last Canucks thought: Burrows is scheduled to work as the colourman on three Canucks pre-season games while he recovers from shoulder surgery.
What happens if referee Stephane Auger gets assigned to one of the games?
Needle in a Haystack
The steroid speculation that has arisen around Jose Bautista isn’t his fault, but it is his problem these days. And it won’t go away, because fans — and media — who were fooled once aren’t about to take anything for granted anymore.
Let’s face it: Baseball players have made their own bed on this one. When you look at the stats surrounding Bautista’s meteoric rise, you can check a lot of the boxes on what we learned from the steroids era.
Bautista goes from 13 homers last season to pushing 50 this year? At age 29, a guy who has never hit more than 16 bombs in his Big League career is about to stroke No. 50? Throughout his career he has hit one home run in every 30 at-bats. Now, suddenly, it’s a homer in every 11 at-bats?
In recent history, anyone who made commensurate improvements either turned out to be a steroids guy, or was seriously suspected to be. It’s nothing personal against Bautista — we hope he’s clean, and assume he is until proven otherwise.
But excuse us for not wanting to be burned again.
Idle Threats
Ever since the salary cap was installed, saving teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs millions upon millions in salary they could no longer spend, there has been talk of burying contracts in the minors.
We’ve heard the Flames consider it with some over-priced defencemen. The Oilers have that option as a temporary solution to their Sheldon Souray problem. The Rangers, consider the same with Wade Redden, and now the annual warnings are emanating from Toronto about Jeff Finger and his $3.5 million cap hit.
What we never hear however, is a team that actually does it.
Lou Lamoriello buried Alex Mogilny in Albany at the end of his career, but for the most part, that strategy has been all talk and no action.
Cheezy Films
To honour this, the 30th anniversary of the final four World Hockey Association teams being swallowed by the National Hockey League, do yourself a favour:
Go to Youtube, and search "Gerry Cheevers."
There’s an old newsreel on there from his days with the Cleveland Crusaders, complete with dressing room footage. Compared to what we see today, it’s like hockey from another planet.
