— I know what Jannik Hansen was thinking when he crossed checked the referee prior to puck drop in San Jose.
Nothing.
“I don’t think I even realized what I had done or who I had done it to at the time,” Hansen said Monday afternoon.
“I saw it (the video footage) after the game last night. I didn’t realize it looked that bad.”
Hansen says he was jostling with Ryane Clowe and felt that Clowe was trying to get at Alex Burrows before the face-off so he stuck with him. Hansen says he ran out of room quickly as the two drove forward and, since he couldn’t stop, put his hands on the back of the nearest person and pushed to create some space. No official on the ice said one word to the Canucks’ forward about the incident.
Hansen said it was more of a shove than a cross check and it looked far worse than it actually was. Probably a good thing the zebras felt the same way.
Here’s a cracked-out theory. Maybe the officials actually thought Clowe did the shoving and then went on to punish him with 35 penalty minutes.
Speaking of Clowe…
— I know that Clowe had only cooled off a bit by the end of Sunday’s game. Clowe went a little snakey in the penalty box after receiving a high sticking penalty and was eventually tossed for his tantrum. As I was waiting outside the Sharks dressing room to interview Patrick Marleau (after his rather pedestrian 1-goal effort) Clowe stormed out not five seconds after the final horn sounded. He still looked in a fighting mood and it was clear he wasn’t stopping to talk to anyone. Especially media.
— I know that the Canucks were historically bad in the face-off circle. Here’s an email I got from Canucks game producer Greg Shannon at 1:57 a.m. (the man never sleeps) :
The Canucks team face-off percentage Sunday was 32.3 per cent, worst in a regular or post-season game since Dec. 12, 2009 against Minnesota when it was 29.0 per cent. That’s a span of 292 games.
It was the 10th worst game for Vancouver since the NHL starting recording this in 2000-2001. That’s 1002 games, people.
— I know that Kevin Bieksa thought someone was coming to fight him after he hit Scott Gomez in the 3rd period Sunday night. That’s why his gloves were coming off as he was turning around. And what if no one was coming to stand up for Gomez? Bieksa says he figures he was close enough to the bench to jump on without gloves and avoid any sort of discipline from the officials.
“They had given me four minors already so I don’t think they would have given me another.”
— Finally I know that WASP made one hell of a video in 1985. Thanks VH1 Classics for reminding me of this.