Two Minutes Hate! The Vancouver Canucks Are Miserable Bastards Edition

 

 

Oh, those poor Vancouver Canucks. Since the dawn of the 1970’s, the west coast whale has on more than one occasion been on the brink of glory, only to fall off the cliff into the pits of stinky despair. Indeed, over the years, the Nucks have boasted rosters with high degrees of skill, speed, hockey IQ, and twins, squandering these gifts as each window of success slowly drew close, drawing to mind comparisons to any number of applicable scenes from the Indiana Jones movies.

Indeed, a litany of talent has passed through Vancouver with an alarming frequency on par with the number of times the team unveils progressively uglier jerseys, and despite all of this,Vancouver always ends up on the outside looking in. It would be easy to sympathize with them, as surely any halfway compassionate human being can want to see any entity that continually has sand kicked in their face taste even a glimmer of success, and the Canucks are most certainly that.

WELL F#%* THAT AUDIO, PAVEL BURE. The Canucks and their fanbase are probably the league’s most entitled organization, and have never conducted themselves in a manner that affords them even a shred of decency when being referred to by literally almost anyone else. Instead, all that we’re going to offer here today is two minutes of unbridled disdain and crass name calling, and I don’t feel the least bit guilty or ashamed to do it.  (Though admittedly, I will have to tread carefully, as Canucks and their fans tend to dive into violent backlash when provoked, seemingly without warning.)

The Man is out to get the Vancouver Canucks. At least, you know, according to them. Leave it to the league’s most demonstrably classless fraternity to lose a playoff series by being outplayed, outscored, outpossesed, outBrent Burns bearded, acknowledge this, and still blame the refs.

Historically, this has been a thorn in Vancouver’s side. A squad who over the years has boasted a catalogue of noted agents of shitheadery like Williams, Odjick, Murzyn, Bertuzzi, May, Ruutu. Cooke, Kesler, Burrows, Bieksa, Torres, and Lapierre (to name a few) has casually asserted that maybe they are subject to biased officiating.

There are arguments that this is an astute observation by the Canucks collective. When the whole world watches Alex Burrows slake his thirst for human blood by nibbling on Patrice Bergeron’s finger (an incident in which Burrows went completely undisciplined, for what it’s worth), everyone was quick to assume the worst: that Alex Burrows is a dirty player, one that will do anything to get under the opposition’s skin. No one even once considered the possibility that he might be a vampire. Seeing as there has been incidents of this in the past, it’s pretty irresponsible of everyone to ignore this notion.

When Todd Bertuzzi, irate that no one was trying to help Steve Moore get a spider off the back of his helmet, forcefully took matters into his own hands and inadvertently knocking Moore unconscious and out of hockey forever (whoops!), no one commended him for lending a hand. Instead, Bertuzzi, who was only trying to do the right thing, was unabashedly villified by society and SUSPENDED by the league for what amounted to approximately 20-30 games. Where is the justice in this, I ask?

There is a case to make here. Observe the following:

And not one of these plays resulted in a penalty against the opposing team.

To get back to a hatred of a more serious tone, the Canucks conventionally have always been a team to cry foul. It’s in no way insufferable, and I really like it when it happens. Roger Nielson’s legacy might be that of an innovator who revolutionized reviewing game video as a coaching tool, but his most defining moment may be when he famously raised a white towel in the playoffs, alluding that he was surrendering to what he thought was tedentious officiating.

This simple act of mewling begat what is now playoff tradition of towel waving in Vancouver, which says a lot about their fanbase. Not only are they all noted quitters, but they demonstrate how clearly they believe the refs are out to get their beloved dirty hockey team, and are even SO PROUD OF THIS that Nielson is forever immortalized outside Rogers Arena with a statue of him mid-twirl.

Way to establish credibility, gents.

Canucks fans are generally the worst, everyone knows this. They go out of their way to establish it at every turn. But atrocious fansmanship is a pandemic that has spread across sports as a totality, so why even mention it? Well, the Canucks took something awful, and mutated it into what I consider to be a plague on the world and needs to be exterminated, either through force, or by any other means necessary.

Of course, you already know I’m referring to the Green Men. This is skullduggery at it’s most extreme, and it’s so insincere it makes me wretch.

At it’s core, the Green Men are are two idiots trying to redefine what it is to be a sports fan. Their definition of the term seems to include a clause allowing vigilante fanaticism, and encourages bystanders to get involved in the game to degrees that alter the outcome of a game AND diminish the integrity of the game and the people who support it.

The arrogance to assert that they make a difference in ways that do not border on dangerous (whuddup, dude who fell into the penalty box with Tie Domi in Philadelphia?) is about as offensive as their refusal to acknowledge that they ripped off Charlie Day and the Green Man from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. It’s plenty possible to be an impassioned sports fan and not rely on cheap ploys; to not become a distraction. An embarrassment. That’s what these two sock stuffing community college comedy troupe rejects are trying to change. It’s dangerous, it’s disingenuous, and it’s not even terribly clever.

In short, it’s incredibly Vancouver.

Speaking of fans doing terrible things, hey, what’s with the rioting, City of Vancouver?

There are several reasons why riots occur. Generally, it comes from reactions to unpopular public discourse, a fight for better living or working conditions, conflicts between religious sectors, or just due to factors of generic civic unrest.

Punching people in public and setting things on fire with other things that have already been set on fire because of your favourite hockey team is asinine. I realize this sort of thing happens all the time in international soccer (and Montreal, usually just because), but we’re not here to hate them today, so let’s not let that sway our opinion.

The fact that everyone came out the following day, and in the face of contrary evidence from the Vancouver Police Department, brashly declared that the riots were not the actions of Vancouver Canucks fans rang about as sincere as the Green Men coming out and saying the refs have an agenda against Alex Burrows. We’ve already established the character of Canucks fans and their masked union reps, so their inability to accept accountability for the wanton destruction of their own beloved home comes as no surprise, but it is about as appalling as a Max Lapierre "hockey play".

But why, BoL, why would Vancouver Canucks supporters do this to their own town? Surely we’re dealing with a secret society of thugs who have their pulse on heightened emotions of a community and prey on it to create mayhem. This is an isolated incident, after all, and it’s not like this happens everytime the Canucks choke at their most chokiest?

  

 

whoops.

Is it fair to harp on the Canucks at a time when their team and their fanbase are grieving a second consecutive embarrassingly thorough early playoff defeat? They are at their lowest, their most sensitive, and it seems in poor taste to pile on top of that, as if they’re oh, let’s say, Steve Moore.

Uh…no.

You have two quality starting goaltenders who have accomplished nothing more than Dan Cloutier aside from being better at Twitter.

You have noted mouthbreather Vern Fiddler present a perfect and apt rendition of Kevin Bieksa as a caveman that was so convincing even Canucks coach Alain Vigneault couldn’t help but be swayed.

Ryan Kesler’s lasting legacy will be that of a naked douchebag and not of a hockey player.

Pavel Bure had stupid hair.

The Canucks mascot, Fin the Whale, is a fat orca and inspired by former Canuck Kyle Wellwood.

You acquired Keith Ballard on purpose.

What in the hell is up with Marc Crawford’s voice?

No one likes you. You’re all Millhouse. You’re Milton Waddams. Stale fruitcake. Black licorice. One Direction. Nic Cage. you are the worst. You will never amount to anything, and it warms all of our hearts here at FlamesNation to see you continually come to to the precipice of success, only to have it so cruelly wrested from you as you fall into our Two Minutes Hate.

Thank you.

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