Whales Can’t Skate

Because they don’t have legs, y’all.

Well, Citizens, our day has come. and for the first time since the birth of this fabulous little blog, we get to cover your Calgary Flames as they battle their way through the playoffs, and for someone who has been doing this writing thing since the Fredrik Modin era in bygone Flames history, this was beginning to look like a day I’d never see.

Nonetheless, we’re all here now, and I don’t know about you, but I’m itchin’ to get down to business! We’ve been covering our heroes and their chances since that fateful day our brave giantkillers #BeatLA and clinched their spot in the tournament of champions. We’ve profiled everyone, and will continue to do so.

And we’ve known this whole time that the Flaming C is facing off against their long time rival and over-border hoodrat Vancouver Canucks, yet here at the Nation, we have not spilled much digital ink talking about that. And I feel it’s important we do, because they’re the enemy now, one we know so very well, and if we’re not hating them, we’re not trying. So that’s what we’re going to do today.

For the past 5 or 6 days, we’ve heard all the experts and Johnny know it alls in the local media weigh in on the series, and while there are a lot of calls for the plucky underdog Flames to limp on out of the series with their hands raised in victory, most scribes are giving the nod to Vancouver, and putting a lot of lipstick on a pig in the process.

That pig is Kevin Bieksa.

The Vancouver Canucks are whales. They will tell you that they’re all humanoid hockey player twins from Sweden, but do not be fooled. They are slicked up cetacean mammals who weigh over 6 tons and roam the vast oceanic expanses afforded to them. 

The Canucks are owned by Francesco Aquilini, marine biologist, and owner of Canucks Sports and Entertainment, formerly Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment. (Right?)

Their logos at times have been a totem pole whale (right?), and this is their mascot (come on).

But while we consider killer whales to be free roaming ocean hunters, the truth is, just like anything else, they can be kept captive and used to serve the convenient purposes of their detainers. And when this happens, these sluggish mammals tend to get a bit erratic and develop a touch of “aquarium fever”.

No better example of this plight has ever been captured (yep) than in the critically acclaimed documentary Blackfish, a biopic chronicling the often times tragic and violent lives of the Vancouver Canucks:

As you can see, Alex Burrows plays a starring role.

Yes, when you take the Canucks out of their natural habitat (the discarded grease bin behind any bowling alley in the world), the once proud creatures become depressed and despondent. And while you can get them to do what they want:

Over time, going stir crazy from that level of captivity causes the Canucks to act out and disobey their captors, often times pulling aggressive stunts in broad daylight with seemingly no concern for repercussions or the fact that they’re acting like loathsome little shits who are going to their room without a bucket of fish heads for dessert. (the Canucks LOVE eating fish heads)

Yes, all the Canucks want to do is to frolic all day and eat chum and get belly rubs from the neighbourhood walruses, but the seemingly indifferent Vancouver public gawking at them with their slack jawed stares are enough to convince those at Canucks Sports and Entertainment to keep this grievous side show afloat, no matter how old and slovenly and dumb the whales continue to become with each passing day.

It’s very irresponsible, and there needs to be a more concerted effort trying to return these Canucks back to the far depths of the oceans, where they can sun themselves all day and try to stick things in their blowholes, just for fun.

No, they’re whales.

When you put orcas on ice, they tend to become very immobile, unable to turn with the kind of precision that one with, say, legs could, as defensewhales Kevin Bieksa and Luca Sbisa will demonstrate to you all through the first round. Remember, it will look awfully hilarious watching Johnny Gaudreau and Jiri Hudler mercilessly skate circles around these guys, and the spastic motions  and futile flopping will be so jarring and ineffectual that you won’t be able to help laughing at Kevin Bieksa, but these are pitiful creatures ripped from their homes and ne- Holy shit Sbisa just got turnstiled again, man that is hilarious.

I’m going to stop this right now while I still have a chance, because obviously this whale analogy does not hold as much weight as I initially thought, and all I want to do is hate the Canucks and help you hate them with me.

And while that is easy to do, it’s not as easy as it has been in the past. The Flames – Canucks rivalry is alive and well, that much is certain, but this impending series is very necessary to ensure it’s survival, because thanks the the Canucks, it’s holding on by a thread.

Vancouver just used to be so much easier to hate. Sure, these days all their players are delusional asshats who still believe the league is biased against them, and Alex Burrows is definitely trying to chew off my kneecaps as I write this, but it’s not the same. The Canucks just aren’t all that interesting anymore. They’ve gotten too old, and the dirty hits and the dives are becoming too predictable, and their fans haven’t destroyed their city in 4 years (which, by my estimation, means the next ludicrous display of civic unrest over the play of the Canucks is still 13 years away, and who knows what lengths they’ll go to then to blame some sort of unnamed union of thugs that apparently don’t exist anywhere else in the world?)

They’re more laughable than anything right now. Even the Sedins, with those four cold, dead eyes don’t strike despair into the hearts of the opposition anymore, because they’re both on the downslope of their primes right now and it’s just a matter of time until their fickle fans can’t distinguish their hatred of the twins from that which they have for Mark Messier, future Canucks executive.

And Eddie Lack might be a funny guy, but I have simple tastes, I like slapstick. Give me a Dan Cloutier center ice goal any day. 

(admittedly, giving Ryan Miller 6 million dollars a year to be an oft-injured backup goalie is pretty funny)

It’s just not what it used to be, and it’s going to take this series to find new and creative ways to talk smack about these clowns, because honestly, it’s been so long since the Canucks mattered to any of us enough to give these feelings a second thought.

The thing I’m most excited for is finding out exactly how it’s going to play out. Will the usual suspects do the things we know they’re going to do? Is Bieksa going to direct rumbly grunts at the opposition and try to hunt Mikael Backlund with his stick, saving him for a hearty Swedish dinner if he could just ever figure out how to create enough fire to grill him? Will Daniel Sedin feel Dennis Wideman breathing in his general vicinity and go down in a heap from the “contact”?

Or will it be a surprise new contender championing the cause of hating him? Will Bo Horvat high stick your mother? Will Linden Vey skate full bore into a diving, skates up dropkick into the waiting chest of an underprivileged child whose only wish was to attend one NHL hockey game?

Will Yannick Weber fall on his own balls?

I’m pretty sure the answer to all of these is yes, and you should be prepared for it now, because this series is going 7, and then Calgary is going to move on to it’s second round opponent, and we’re going to have to access deep reserves of scorn for whoever that ends up being as well.

Vancouver fans are passionate…for a good deal. 

Look, I know that price gouging is bad and it’s better for your wallet if you can get cheaper playoff tickets, but something, something, Canucks fans are cancer.

I’ve always suspected that Canucks fans love Mark Donnelly so much because he’s the one thing still in Vancouver that kinda looks greasy enough to be Roberto Luongo, because outside of that, I don’t get the appeal. Then again, trying to peer into the slimy and decaying soul of a Canucks fan is not an activity I’m particularly in favour of doing.

Mark Donnelly sucks.

And so too do the Canucks, and even knowing all we know about them, I found it hard expressing too much hate into a piece that was admittedly supposed to do just that.

I realized it’s because I find the Canucks to be more of a mild inconvenience than anything. I do not think they’re very good, and of all the first round matchups you could get, this seems like the one Calgary has the best shot at winning, so, not that I’m looking past this series for the Flames, I’m just anticipating how good a second round matchup versus literally anyone else could be.

I’ll close by saying that I truly hope that the NHL does someday consider expansion into Seattle. It’s the best thing for the league, because if you’ve ever been there, it’s so nice. It seems so much like Vancouver, just without Vancouverites living there, and that’s a beautiful thing. Maybe if they had an NHL franchise, the league would make note of how redundant the Canucks now are, and send them off to live with a nice farm family somewhere far enough away where we’d never have to listen to Jim Hughson gush about how wonderful they are ever again.

Go Flames Go.