This Week in Anguish

This week in anguish: - Do you hear the sheep(le) bleat? Bleating the song of wealthy men? Quinn and Elias are back in the fold, and we're not afraid to ask the big question: How do these new contracts fit into the team's 2005-06 salary cap structure? - Ardella has some homespun reckonings from her first full-game viewing of the preseason, while Tristan picks bones with the Calgary Flames about th...

This week in anguish: - Tristan (and Rachel) went to training camp, and Ardella (and you) are the beneficiaries of his bespoke scouting report. It's handmade and useless. - We consumed our yearly ration of Canucks.com videos in the past few days, with highlights including major manners , general pity , a possible charlatan in our midst , the self-hyping Hunt , and some downright demonic coaching ....

This week in anguish: - Vasily is exhibiting palpable joie de vivre, and it's putting some desperately needed esprit back in our corps.  - The terrible story of the 1995 murder of Peter Karlsson, then teammate of soon-to-be-Canuck Leif Rohlin, starts us down a long and winding rabbit hole that leads, dogleggedly, to Brent Sopel.  - How did we not know about Glenn Burke, inventor of the high-five,...

This week in anguish: - We discuss the untimely passing of Patrik Jonsson, who, among many other things, did a great deal for the Canucks in a short period of time.  - After excoriating the Canucks for not drawing more deeply on the "real" history of Johnny Canuck, we figured we ought to actually investigate just what that history consists of. As Johnny Canuck would say: "Aww, shucks."  - Did you...

This week in anguish: - The offseason, long a bastion of competition-less safety and glowing training reports, has taken a more dire turn. We remain concerned that Petey might sign an offer sheet, and we regret the inexorable march of ads across the front of NHL jerseys. - It's almost harvest time, the blueberries are heavy on the vine (or whatever), and Ardella's mind has turned entirely pastoral...

This week in anguish: - It's been over two months since we last muddied the airwaves. Rather a lot has happened.  - We cautiously welcome the new Special Advisors to the GM, camp out at OEL's desert abode, take in the good and the bad of Conor Garland, and question Brad Shaw's communication skills.  - How Did I Not Know That's include Oliver's Olympic lineage, the grim history of the Tait Mansion,...

This week in anguish: - We were going to make it through this year if it killed us, but we've survived long enough to come nearer to our mythical "tight forty-five" than we have in months, putting this cursed season to bed in 56 fun-filled minutes. - Jim Benning, he of the real long history of breaking little hearts like the one in me, answers (?) for his team's season. Put up your dukes, let's ge...

This week in anguish: - We complete the final leg of our heads-in-the-sand marathon with Breakfast TV's broadcast from the smoldering wreckage of June 2011,  What a Season . - Mere waves in a sea of clever commentary, we make note of things like the revelation of the Seahawk parentage of the Green Men, hazy recollections of the Towel Power suit man, and a deep dive into the musical and copyright s...

This week in anguish: - We laughed, we cried, and we once again skipped over the most painful bits along with the Boys of '82 in the 2002 Orca Bay Productions Canucks PPV feature - Raisin' Hell and Waving Towels . It's 46 minutes long, and it only took us 40 minutes to recap it. Progress! - After lurking in The Bleakness last week, Tristan is grateful that Höggy Bear, J-Bone, and a happy-to-be-her...

This week in anguish: - Alex Edler, Tyler Toffoli, Adam Gaudette, Jared McCann, and Gustav Forsling are whistle-stops on our hopefully one-time segment,  The Bleakness .  - The Virtanen situation confronts us with a bleakness of a very different sort. We're not quite sure what to say, but we give it our best shot. - We retreat to the faded comforts of earlier travails and enjoy Ten Years After and...

This week in anguish: - For a brief moment, it looked like the recuperating Canucks might go 19-0 to round out the season. Boy, wouldn't our faces have been red. - So, we watched a thing. It was entertaining, nostalgic, hokey, and bizarre. If you didn't watch this thing, we saved you the trouble by poring over it in agonizing detail. If you did, enjoy hearing us say all the same things you probabl...

Lo, these weeks in anguish: - A lot has happened in the 19 days since Antoine Roussel opined that a break in the schedule would be nice.  - We pester and applaud our favourite voices in the shifting local media landscape.  - The world witnesses its first Troy Stecher hat trick: a greasy goal, a beauty goal, and A Stech in Time for the ages. - A forlorn goodbye to Adam "Dimples" Gaudette. We hardly...

This week in anguish: - Our thoughts are with the players, coaching staff, and especially their families as they battle Covid-19 infections. - We still make time to celebrate the Canucks putting a $25 million dollar promise ring on Thatcher Demko. - Tristan does not even halfway hatch a theory about on-ice contributions vs. locker room compositions before getting bogged down in an effort to prove...

This week in anguish: - Tristan had five teensy, manageable little talking points, and Ardella claimed to have nothing at all to say. The Canucks who aren't injured are hibernating. This one clocks in at one second under 90 minutes.  - We better-get-to-know another Tyler (Graovac) and another Travis (Boyd), but the real prize is the Växjö Laker we met along the way. - We're sorry, Tim Peel, but th...

This week in anguish: - The Canucks' two steps forward, one step back approach to life has us wondering if we'll ever cross the finish line in time.  - We welcome Jimmy Vesey to the team. Or at least we meant to. We end up questioning his character, the reasons for his being waived by the Maple Leafs, his demand-iness, and express concern for his possibly non-existent family. OK, so this one got a...

This week in anguish: - We play a round of Vancouver's new least-favourite board game,  Twisted Incentives . - Alexandre Ménard-Burrows is back behind the bench of les Habitants, and it leads us to a check-in with all our old 2011 besties. Sure, we've lost touch a bit in the last decade, but it's nice to hear so many of them are doing well. I'm sure they meant to write.  - Canuck connections led u...

This week in anguish: - Did you see how hard we carpe'd that diem? And since that's all that matters in this workaday world...job well done, I suppose. - But seriously, folks. Jim Benning finally had to face some media questions  and we have thoughts about how that went. Like, an hour of thoughts. Let's go. - Move over,  Ice Chips ! Your forty-plus-year reign of being a perfectly fine use of the b...

This week in anguish: - Ardella's opening statement begins with a sigh, followed by a brief moment of levity where she describes herself as being simply "so darn sad", before things really go downhill and it's hard to tell hockey- and COVID-fatigue apart as she laments, "Really? I had to live through this week just to be back here again?" - This was a really bad month of hockey. So bad that it has...

This week in anguish: - We revel in some of the more obscure benefits of a cratered season. We now cause other teams existential conniptions whenever we beat them, and we can look on the mere existence of an ember of team cohesion as the only victory that really matters. - We comb the beaches and plumb the depths to bring you reminiscences and updates from Canuck Finns from Petri to Olli.  - We ge...

This week in anguish: - Life (or in this case its henchman, Bell Media) finds new and intriguing ways to punch us in the gut. - JPat, who poured his actual tears and toil into 1040 over many years, spent just over 30 minutes talking about its demise. We spend nearly 45 minutes.  - Get the nostalgia machine revved up and there's no telling where it will go. We talk Sports Page, Jim Robson, Tom Lars...

This week in anguish: - Ardella, experiencing feelings, has prepared something of a speech. Tristan (more of a new media guy, really) would like to discuss a thumbnail.  - There have been great indignities this week. These come with anecdotes. There has also been tremendous futility. This comes with statistics. - We've identified at least one historical stratum between this week and the bottom of...

This week in anguish: - Was just...awful. I mean, you were there. Gross, right? Mighty disquieting in many ways as well. So we talk about all the things you might expect us to, but also... - An oh-so-timely autopsy of the 2010 draft, - The ugliest goalie mask of all time, - The arc of taxi squad inequity bending slowly towards justice, - The 1937-38 Chicago Blackhawks, - And the fact that while Ar...

This week in anguish: - We retreat to the warm, fuzzy, fading memories of Game 1 before grappling with what may be a somewhat difficult back-fifty-three. - We finally officially welcome Travis Hamonic to the squad, and appreciate the diverse humanitarianism of this family-focused farmboy.  - Braden Holtby's new Luke Marston-designed mask is on the way, and our exploration of the Sea Wolf / Wolf Pa...

This week in anguish: - Nils Höglander is forcing everyone to learn his name. Past examples of Elias Pettersson and Jonathan Dahlen just go to show that you can never force someone to learn your name right .  - We check up on at least some of the Calgary Canucks, and then learn something heartening about Troy from Richmond in Detroit.  - Ardella flaunts her quiz-mastery while Tristan muddles his w...