If Toronto and Vancouver could talk, and they had a conversation leading up to this Saturday's game between the Canucks and the Maple Leafs, it would probably go something like this: Vancouver: Hi Toronto Toronto: Oh hey little buddy! How's it going? Big game for your Canucks this weekend playing the Leafs, eh? How are you guys doing anyways? V: We're leading our division, and we're sixth in the NHL right now. T: Really? Who'd have known... V: We've got the best team in Canada! You don't even know how well the Canucks are playing right now? T: Nah. Last time we heard about you guys was when Ron MacLean was talking about that Burrows guy. Burrows – what a jerk eh? V: Seriously? Don't you know what happened after that? It was the biggest sports story here for two weeks! T: No idea. V: MacLean's interview with Colin Campbell was completely one sided! The Canucks even boycotted the CBC last week by doing no interviews. T: Really? We didn't even notice. You know no one past Alberta watches hockey after 10pm, right? So basically your team boycotted its own fans from interviews. V: Grrr... I HATE you Toronto! T: Haha, relax little guy! (Toronto ruffles Vancouver's hair. Vancouver scowls and pouts)
As I vegged out on my couch watching NFL football all day on Sunday, it If you don't see where this is going, let me explain: what's the average length of a play in football? 10 seconds? That's being generous. That's a long bomb touchdown pass from Payton Manning to Austin Collie including the 10 yard run into the end zone. Football is actually the reverse of all other sports – the gameplay simply serves as a timeout from the drinking. And boy do North Americans love their drinking. 2. It's all a ruse! "Sorry Honey, we can't go shopping for new duvet covers today, even though I know we need them. I'm watching sports with the guys." Sure you are, you average North American male. What a great excuse to sit around with the boys, shooting the shit, drinking, and doing nothing. On Sundays, we return to our days of college bliss – back when we had hours to waste away and no one nagging us to do errands. Female readers: disregard this paragraph, please. Let's be honest – of the NFL games we watch, how many do we really care about? Oh sure, we've all picked a team we claim to follow, and we cheer louder when they make a good play, but do we really care at the end of the day? Cowboys fans are a dime a dozen, but there are probably 10,000 die-hard fans whose mood will still be affected that night if they lose. Most football fans only care because they've got money on some outcome. They're not upset or excited about the SCORE, they're getting emotional over the money! 3. A Gambler's Paradise Which brings us to the last point: there are a million things to bet on in a football gam So there you go – when it comes to competing with the NFL juggernaut in North America, other sports are quite simply out of their league.
struck me that this was the best part of my week. I was in a happy place. Why? Well, it certainly wasn't because of the game that was on the screen in front of me.
1. The Beer:Sports Ratio 
own to dip your nacho or take a swig of beer can be disastrous, causing you to miss a key moment or a highlight reel play. So we wait. We wait until whistles, timeouts, commercial breaks – those 30 second breaks where we can quickly munch our hot dogs and wash it down with beer – and then it's back to business, back to the game.
e, and boy do we take advantage of them. Who will win the coin toss, who will score the first touchdown, what will the score be at the end of the first quarter, who will make the first sack, the possibilities are endless in this game. When we're hooting and hollering in front of the set, it's because we're either making money or losing money. We don't care that much about the teams! Why is it not the same when we're watching hockey? There's no time for bets! We can barely make it to the bathroom and back during a commercial break, let alone propose a bet, decide on odds, decide on the wager, and shake on it.
In a year when headshots have become a hockey topic too often discussed, Patrice Cormier, of the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, has gone above and beyond what anyone thought possible by committing the most egregious of fouls. For anyone who has not seen his gruesome elbow on Mikael Tam of the Quebec Remparts, or would like to see it again, it is posted here:
The most immediate question on everyone’s mind, aside from concerns about Tam’s health, is how will the league punish Cormier? The goal of the reprimand is of course to deter this sort of behaviour in the future, and the thought is to make the suspension so long that other players will never do anything like it again. The question is, can suspensions and fines actually teach players to stop hurting each other? Wouldn’t it be better to somehow increase the level of respect for the fellow athlete, so that people are not so quick to hurt each other when the chance arises?
On Wednesday’s SportsCentre on TSN, hockey analyst Bob McKenzie stated that he would like to see more: “I know there are studies at Harvard University, Boston University, where athletes are donating their brains to science and they’re studying the ill effects of concussions. I’d like these kids that are guilty of headshots to go and find out the true impact of what they’re doing to someone else and give them a better understanding.”
An excellent idea, but why not take it a step further? Instead of teaching hockey players who have committed offences to learn about the results after the fact, why could we not set up a program to teach this information to all young hockey players? Perhaps in doing this, a greater sense of respect could be developed at a younger age, and instead of trying to punish headshots out of the game, we can take a more grassroots approach to educating them away.
The “Head Down” Mentality
There is another problem with the way today’s youth are taught to play. Hockey players are cultured to think that playing with your “head down” is a capital offense and anyone who does so should be taught a lesson. Really, what does “head down” even mean? In plain terms, it suggests that a player was most likely more focused on the puck than on his surroundings. The hockey mentality is that if an individual is not watching out for himself by being aware of those around him, he is a fair target, and the results are his problem. True enough – hockey players do need to be taught awareness for their own safety, but I have issue with the idea that because he is more focused on the puck, he should have his neck snapped back in a massive open ice hit.
If you think about it, the average player has his “head down” at many instances during a hockey game. Any time a forward takes a pass slightly behind him or in his feet, or if a puck is bouncing or rolling, a player must focus on it that much more to make sure he has control. During that moment, the player has his “head down”. Luckily, Scott Stevens is not always present at that split second to “teach him a lesson”. In my mind, the culture of hitting the unaware player as hard as possible because he deserves it for not looking up is just plain wrong. There are many ways to separate player from puck that don’t involve potential injury or concussion that would be just as effective, so why are we teaching young players that the big hit is the right play?
NHL headshots are a by-product of the hockey culture, and the only way for this to change is through enlightenment. Mikael Tam, Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros, Brett Lindros, Pascal Dupuis – anyone ever affected by a headshot – education is the way to salvation.
If any of you are not yet aware, Alexandre Burrows went off on quite a rant following Monday night's game against the Nashville Predators. He made serious allegations against one of the game's referee's, Stephane Auger, stating that, "It started in warm-up before the anthems. The ref came over to me and said I made him look bad in Nashville on the Smithson hit. He said he was going to get me back tonight, and he did his job in the third, I think." – as reported by Brad Zeimer of The Vancouver Sun. He went on to add that Auger's ego cost the Canucks two points, as he made one of the two calls with the game tied 2-2 and 4:45 left in the game. The surprising thing that occurred as the story developed on Tuesday was that all of hockey's most respected analysts, from Bob McKenzie to Darren Dreger, experts who have no ties to Vancouver, were not critical of Burrows and were not accusing him of crying over spilt milk. Rather, they took the view that for Burrows to give such accurate information on the interaction between him and the ref, and in review of the two penalties in question that did very much appear to be "phantom calls", his story probably was based in fact. In examining the story ourselves, and trying to take out as much Vancouver bias as possible, it must be understood that the player's post game comments were made after having some time to consider what the repercussions would be. Every player knows that complaining about the refereeing of a game will most likely lead to a fine and a possible suspension. Despite this, Burrows felt it necessary to make his voice heard – obviously believing his story was important enough that it needed to be exposed. As of Tuesday evening, TSN has reported that the only discipline that will be laid out by the NHL will be a $2,500 fine to Burrows. Apparently they wish for this story that threatens the very integrity of the league, to just go away. One thing is for sure: it won't soon be forgotten in Vancouver.
“They’re too slow.”
“All they do is cycle the puck!”
“They’re just boring to watch.”
Over the years, supporters of the Sedin twins have heard many comments like these, and they haven’t had much of a response. Halfway through the 2009-10 NHL season, Henrik sits atop the NHL leaderboard, tied for the league lead in points scored, yet the same criticisms seem to remain. While it does appear that most of Canuckland has finally bought into the idea that the brothers are legitimate top line players, the conversion is taking longer for fans outside Vancouver.
Maybe it is the fact that they’re tucked all the way out west that has the duo stuck in obscurity, but one figures it has to change at some point. Perhaps Henrik’s statistical achievements will finally start to turn heads. True NHL fans – the ones who see the beauty in watching Joe Thornton manhandling opponents, or Ilya Kovalchuk’s rocket of a slapshot – should appreciate the slick passing game of the twins. There are not many lines in the league that produce pretty plays as often as these two, and they will start to be appreciated as must watch players. You know the kind – Ovechkin, Crosby, Toews, Iginla – when these guys play, we watch games awaiting their next shift. The Sedins, in their 9th full NHL campaigns, are finally creating this sort of buzz.
