Urban Vancouver

A couple months ago, media and fans got the idea that Canucks GM Mike Gillis was ready to trade Daniel and Henrik Sedin to the first takers. Clearly this didn’t happen but the root of the rumors wasn’t unreasonable.  When Gillis was first hired, he was put on the spot about the future of the twins and his response was this:

“I don’t think the group of forwards right now are ready to compete. I don’t know if they [the Sedins] are players the team will be built around moving forward.”

Next week, he’ll finally be meeting them face to face and so today he addressed his earlier comments:

Continue reading "Time to Meet the Twins"

A couple months ago, media and fans got the idea that Canucks GM Mike Gillis was ready to trade Daniel and Henrik Sedin to the first takers. Clearly this didn’t happen but the root of the rumors wasn’t unreasonable.  When Gillis was first hired, he was put on the spot about the future of the twins and his response was this:

“I don’t think the group of forwards right now are ready to compete. I don’t know if they [the Sedins] are players the team will be built around moving forward.”

Next week, he’ll finally be meeting them face to face and so today he addressed his earlier comments:

Continue reading "Time to Meet the Twins"

Yesterday I had the surreal experience—along with the rest of The Crazy Canucks podcasters: Rebecca, John, J.J. and DaveO, plus Richard Loat who created the very successful Canucks Facebook application—of participating in a photoshoot for the Vancouver Canucks “I Am A Canuck” advertising campaign. 

Here are a couple behind-the-scenes pics I stole from Rebecca’s iPhone:

Continue reading "I Am A Canuck"

Yesterday I had the surreal experience—along with the rest of The Crazy Canucks podcasters: Rebecca, John, J.J. and DaveO, plus Richard Loat who created the very successful Canucks Facebook application—of participating in a photoshoot for the Vancouver Canucks “I Am A Canuck” advertising campaign. 

Here are a couple behind-the-scenes pics I stole from Rebecca’s iPhone:

Continue reading "I Am A Canuck"

Last week I posted about how a man had driven a pickup through the Halu Sushi restaurant in Maple Ridge.  Brian Irving, a resident of Maple Ridge, was arrested after the incident, rather than being taken to hospital, which would tend to indicate that he wasn’t injured in the crash that unfortunately took the lives of two people, and left several more injured.

His first court appearance was last Tuesday, but he was a no-show.  The report was that he had become sick while in custody, and was actually in the hospital, but a second date was set for yesterday.  Local TV showed his lawyer arriving at the courthouse to meet his client (he couldn’t have gone to the hospital?) but, again, he didn’t show up.  Still in hospital, the reports said.

So a third date was set for today, but his lawyer has already confirmed that his client won’t be making an appearance today either, although he’ll be meeting with his client, and enter a plea on the Friday. 

To be honest, I don’t know if the families of the victims were in the court earlier in the week to get a look at the man that changed their lives forever, but don’t they have the right to do so?  Shouldn’t the accused be present as well?  The mysterious illness that Mr. Irving is suffering from has certainly been kept quiet by the media, who don’t give the impression that they’ve tried to find out a whole lot about the man, other than what the police have made available.

Perhaps there’s a reason for all of this, but it certainly can’t make things easier for the families of Maija-Liisa Corbett and Hyeshim Oh to keep having things delayed like this. 

It’s time to start the process, so that they can attempt to pick up and move on from this terrible tragedy.

With Mats Sundin saying he may not decide about playing this season until after it starts, the Canucks may still keep their two-year, $20-million offer on the table and wait out the big Swede as the best hope to improve their offense.

They probably won't wait on Sundin to name a replacement for departed captain Markus Naslund, however. Not that the job of wearing the "C" was necessarily Sundin's to accept anyway.

New general manager Mike Gillis insisted he never offered it as part of his over-the-top contract proposal, and the team already has several good candidates under contract. The most obvious choice would be Roberto Luongo, who leads with his work ethic and passion as well as his talent, but goaltenders aren't allowed to be NHL captains, so next on the list is...

The Ottawa Senators on Thursday signed left wing Brad Isbister to a one-year, two-way contract.

"Retiring a player's sweater is one of the highest honours a club can pay to its most elite players and...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Ticker) -- The Vancouver Canucks announced Thursday that they will retire former center Trevor Linden's number.

Committing long-term to their star goalie, Sabres begin to move away from recent trend of losing high-priced stars.

Coquitlam River Park
Okay, not really, but evidently I’m not the only one who feels that September feels more like the start of a new year as opposed to January 1st. Both Buzz and Colleen posted about this as well (okay, so Colleen mentioned it briefly, but still…)

Obviously the whole idea stems from the fact that September is when school starts, and it’s a chance to make new resolutions about how you’re going to focus on the coming year, and do the best work that you can, but it also used to be a time of new cars, and the new TV season, which, while less important, was still a regular occurrence when I was a kid.

And the start of the hockey season doesn’t seem like it’s a million years from now anymore.

It’s the season of change, with the run-up to Christmas starting (somewhat) in earnest a little earlier each year.

So, it’s time to make a few resolutions. Public ones. I’m going to increase my blog readership (both traffic wise, and in the number of RSS subscribers), both here and CanuckNation.ca. I’m going to start losing the weight that I should have for a couple of years now. I’m going to improve my PHP, Wordpress and HTML skills. Make myself more marketable.

I think that’ll about do it for now, anyway. I’m sure I’ll think of other things.

The Vancouver Canucks new enforcer Darcy Hordichuk introduces his dogs to the Vancouver Sun:

“They are to protect my wife,” Hordichuk winked Wednesday after a skate at Burnaby 8-Rinks. “They’re two big killers. Twelve pounds each. We named Chandler when we lived in Chandler, Ariz., and Franklin when we lived in Franklin, Tenn. They’re loving it here in Vancouver, walking up and down the streets of Yaletown meeting all the other dogs.”

Meet the Killers:

Continue reading "Darcy Hordichuk is Comfortable with His Manhood"

The Vancouver Canucks new enforcer Darcy Hordichuk introduces his dogs to the Vancouver Sun:

“They are to protect my wife,” Hordichuk winked Wednesday after a skate at Burnaby 8-Rinks. “They’re two big killers. Twelve pounds each. We named Chandler when we lived in Chandler, Ariz., and Franklin when we lived in Franklin, Tenn. They’re loving it here in Vancouver, walking up and down the streets of Yaletown meeting all the other dogs.”

Meet the Killers:

Continue reading "Darcy Hordichuk is Comfortable with His Manhood"

Deciding whether to take $20 million from the Vancouver Canucks ? Yeah, that'll take all summer and a sizable...

Maybe I’ve been a little behind the last few days, but when I tried downloading Google’s new Chrome browser yesterday, I’d only heard about it about 10 minutes prior to that, and was wondering if they’d be able to come up with something worth switching to from Firefox.  And after spending a (short) bit of time with it, I’d have to say: Not Yet.

But that definitely doesn’t mean, "Not Ever", because I like some of the things that Google has done here.  First up, it’s a tabbed browser, and if it hadn’t been, that would have been the deal killer right there.  A non-tabbed browser is no longer an option, and hasn’t been for years.

Secondly, it’s fast.  Particularly on sites like Google Reader, and Gmail.  Not that they’ve been optimized for Chrome or anything like that, mind you, but those sights tend to have a much cleaner, streamlined interface, which is going to cut down on load times, etc.

Some things are going to take a  little getting used to, such as the lack of extensions and mouse gestures that can be configured in Firefox, but it’s nice to see that things like CTRL-T work for opening a new tab, the same as Firefox and IE.

And I absolutely love the ‘Create Application Shortcuts’ option.  Essentially, this will allow you to save a website (Gmail for example) as a standalone application, that’ll put an icon on the desktop, quick launch bar, or start menu.  Click on that icon, and up comes your Gmail.  If you’re a fan of Mozilla’s Prism app, which essentially does the same thing, you’ll love this too.

Is it going to steal market share from Firefox?  Some, maybe, but not very much.  However, it probably will take a little more from Microsoft, and the IE market share.  It’s a clean, streamlined, simple browser to use, and if that’s what you’re looking for after dealing with a lot of bloat in your web browser, than Chrome might be just what you’re looking for.

Give it a try, and I’d love to hear feedback.

Earlier we saw Plan B moving into action, now here’s Plan ‘Z’ from The Spoof:

DIDJUNEAU - ALASKA: Levi Johnston, the 18-year old, self-proclaimed ‘Redneck” and father of Rep-Veep Sarah Palin’s soon-to-be born grandchild was offered a 2-year 20 million US$ deal by the Vancouver Canucks.

Said Canuck GM Mike Gillis, “We’re tired of waiting on that procrastinating Swede Sundin. His loss is LJ’s gain”.

Gillis further believes that The Redneck brings an exciting new vision for the Canucks future:

Continue reading "Vancouver’s Future is in Didjuneau, Alaska"

Earlier we saw Plan B moving into action, now here’s Plan ‘Z’ from The Spoof:

DIDJUNEAU - ALASKA: Levi Johnston, the 18-year old, self-proclaimed ‘Redneck” and father of Rep-Veep Sarah Palin’s soon-to-be born grandchild was offered a 2-year 20 million US$ deal by the Vancouver Canucks.

Said Canuck GM Mike Gillis, “We’re tired of waiting on that procrastinating Swede Sundin. His loss is LJ’s gain”.

Gillis further believes that The Redneck brings an exciting new vision for the Canucks future:

Continue reading "Vancouver’s Future is in Didjuneau, Alaska"

One of the greatest gifts of hockey blogging has to be the friends you make, as any hockey blogger can tell you.

Case in point: today I received in the mail a slightly-belated birthday present from a friend and fellow blogger whom I met online a few years ago. And hockey friends are the best kind in the world, aren’t they? After all, who else would give you this…

Continue reading "Joys of Hockey Blogging"

One of the greatest gifts of hockey blogging has to be the friends you make, as any hockey blogger can tell you.

Case in point: today I received in the mail a slightly-belated birthday present from a friend and fellow blogger whom I met online a few years ago. And hockey friends are the best kind in the world, aren’t they? After all, who else would give you this…

Continue reading "Joys of Hockey Blogging"

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Ticker) -- The Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday announced that they will honor the memory of Luc Bourdon prior to the team's home opener on October 9.