BrowntoBure

After going one by one through each NHL team message board the past couple of days and asking the question, why do they hate us? Some things have been made very clear. In almost every market in the Eastern USA the common response as to why they hate the Canucks seems to be quite simple, they don't. Most of them could actually care less about the Canucks as not only do they rarely meet with the current structure of the NHL schedule, but they have bigger fish to fry in terms of their divisional rivals. There was one New York Rangers fan who ever so eloquently put it "F the Canucks, they are overrated and they suck" Interesting, even though almost nobody was willing to bite, a New Yorker swoops in to save the day. One common topic found out east was definately a hatred for the Boston Bruins, something we can all share. Surprisingly to me anyways, this was pretty much the same opinion of Eastern based Canadian teams. Montreal and Toronto are to busy hating each other to care, and Ottawa is just looking for someone to have an opinion on them one way or another. You then have teams like Columbus, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis who really for the most part also are pretty indifferent to the Canucks and cited losing to us year after year as their mean reason for the dislike. As I ventured south to see what the fans of these teams thought about the Canucks, I discovered something not all too surprising to me. Most of the teams don't even have message boards on their website, so it made it very difficult for me to even find someone. As with the majority of the NHL I decided that their opinion didn't matter because they barely have any fans and the majority of them won't even have teams in the near future. Finally I got around to our biggest rivals, western Canadian divisional foes, previous playoff opponents and fan bases that caught me off guard. The going consensus with fans from Chicago, Boston, Edmonton, Detroit, Colorado was that the Canucks are a bunch of whiners, divers, and hypocrites with bigheaded fans who have absolutely no reason to puff out their chests, as they have never won a thing. Led by of course their "alien twins who can't even shave their faces differently” Mike Gillis and Alain Vigneault were also pointed out time after time as a gm and coach who are constantly complaining to the league. Really? Not the way I see it, seems to me they go out of their way to keep their mouth shut most of the time. The fan bases that caught me rather off guard were San Jose, LA, Dallas and Anaheim. The amount of feedback and previously posted material on the message boards on each one of these teams’ websites was an absolute gold mine. They echoed the same sentiment as our other rivals and went even further, which I was somewhat taken back by as none of these teams are in our division or are really historical rivals of ours, outside of maybe LA. It's my belief that the fact Canucks fans now travel so well, and these are 4 of the easiest accessible markets for them to go see a game, where they generally vastly outnumber the home crowd, and win has something to do with this. San Jose fans were by far the most aggressive bunch I spoke with. A lot of the fans on that website remarked over and over again that while they had previously hated the Canucks prior to last years western conference final showdown, it reached an all new high as they believe we got every single bounce and lucked our way through the whole series. The main piece of evidence of course being Kevin Bieksa's series winning goal that bounced off the stanchion and landed right on his stick. When I decided to do this little piece I already knew exactly what most of the response would be, but it's a topic that won't go away in Vancouver and I wanted to see how much validity there was to it. One thing I heard over and over again was that if I didn't know why, then I was clueless. Way to miss the point boys. Another one was the Canucks fans are far to concerned with other peoples views of them and their team. After all of the people I talked to a came to the conclusion that the Vancouver Canucks are not the most hated team in the NHL, far from it actually. It seems to me nothing more than a complete over reaction by the sports media in this city to get people talking. From what I can see hatred is something that is strictly location based in the NHL for the most part, teams in the east hate the east, and teams in the west hate the west. The Vancouver Canucks definitely were the most hated team from the fans of the other 14 teams in the western conference though, as were the Boston Bruins the most hated of the 15 teams out east. This bodes very well should the 2 teams meet in the finals again this year as I suspect we'd have the east cheering for the west and the west cheering for the east, who are you going to cheer for? The way I've felt for quite a while now is it's good to be hated, which means you're doing what you're supposed to do in a professional sports league, winning games. How many people do you think absolutely despise the Columbus Blue Jackets? Well, besides their own fans, but that's beside the point here. The Vancouver Canucks have spent nearly 3/4 of their first 41 years as a mediocre team, down right horrible for a lot of it, and nobody cared. We were welcomed into every arena because it was easy win night and we were the loveable losers. Now we are becoming a dominant team in hockey, and people don't like it. I think Canucks fans need to enjoy this while they can, because there's going to come a time again when they aren't a top tier team, and we'll be back to people not caring about us, in either conference.

Seems to be what most are saying, to quote one guy from New York "F the Canucks, they suck, they are overrated" But that's probably just cause he's from New York...

I don't really think it's the fans as much as it's the media here driving it down our throats, pretty much the goal of this is to see if there really is a hate, or if it's completely blown overboard. Clearly, Calgary still hates us though lol.

Over the course of the next few months BrowntoBure will be scouring North America, speaking to a fan from each NHL city to find out the answer to the question that just won't seem to go away. Why do they hate us? First up, one of Vancouver's oldest foes, The Calgary Flames. Today we caught up with Trevor Martins, producer of the Sekeres and Price show. Which airs 10am-2pm, Monday to Friday on the Team1040 in Vancouver. Here's what he had to say: So living in Vancouver, how exactly did you become a Calgary Flames fan? Born and raised in North Vancouver, lived in best city on Earth my whole life. The reason I’m a Flames fan is pretty simple really. I started getting into hockey when I was a young kid, maybe 6-7 years old and at the time, the Flames were a powerhouse and won the cup. My earliest hockey memory was the Flames and Habs in the final. I was 6 years old. I jumped on their bandwagon, not knowing what a bandwagon was and haven’t jumped off since. Been through some tough times being a fan, the 7 years in the late 90’s/early 00’s and quite frankly, it’s a tough time right now. But the peaks and valleys of being a fan are worth it. Who is your all time favourite Calgary Flame? All time favourite would have to be Al Macinnis. I loved his big shot. Jarome Iginla is definitely up there as well. Love everything about him, everything he represents, on and off the ice. What's your first memory of a Flames/Canucks game? As much as I want to say the 89 epic series, I can’t really remember it. I do have that game 7 of that series on DVD though. Mike Vernon shutting down Smyl and Tanti in OT was unreal. But my earliest memory has to be a bad one for me. I was at the game at the Coliseum, wearing my Fleury jersey, when the Canucks beat the Flames 11-0. I was 9 or 10 years old. I remember my father giving me a hard time the whole drive home as he was a Canucks fan. A lot has been made in the last couple of years about the Canucks being the most hated team across the NHL, would you agree that they are? I don’t think there’s any doubt the Canucks are the most hated team in the league. Whether or not I agree with that sentiment is a different story. The media outside of Vancouver has done a lot to further that angle. I frequent message boards of the Flames and there is no doubt the Canucks are the most hated team with everyone else a distant second. I think people hate the Canucks because of their antics and because they win doing so. They have agitators and they have unlikeable personalities. That’s not to say they’re the only team that dives or complains, but rightly or wrongly, the damage has been done and it will be a long time for the Canucks to shake the reputation of being a team that uses certain antics to win games. I don’t think this current era of the Canucks with the Twins/Kesler/Luongo etc will ever rid themselves of this rep. And like I said, the fact that the Canucks are really good and can't be stopped, a sense of jealousy sets in amongst the Canuck detractors. I will say however, those antics have been way less this season. But some of the stuff in last year’s playoffs was a bit much. It was hard to respect some of those antics. Do you share the same opinion of the Canucks, Or is there another reason you don't like them? If this interview was done a few years ago and the Canucks were in the way of the Flames winning a division, you might get a better answer from me. I used to despise the Canucks, almost at an unhealthy level. But I guess I’ve grown up a little. I’ve come to accept the Canucks are far and away a better team and that the Flames just can’t compete against right now. I just worry about what the Flames are doing on and off the ice. I can’t really pin point one reason as to why I don’t like the Canucks. I’ve just never liked them. But it reached new levels after the 2004 series and into the season following the lockout when the Flames and Canucks had a good competitive rivalry going. Now, the Canucks just dominate and it’s more frustrating than I can tell you. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy watching the Canucks lose. I cheered on the Hawks, Preds, Sharks and Bruins last year. Vancouver is the team I dislike the most. They’re a team that I love to hate. It’s the Canucks, then everyone else in terms of team I enjoy watching lose. What are your favourite and worst memories from this rivalry? Favourite memory- Pretty easy. Game 7 in 2004. Iginla’s best game as a Flame. The missed empty net by Iginla, leading to Cooke’s late tying goal. I literally had my head in my hands for the entire intermission, only to see Gelinas score the OT winner. I went insane, jumped up and down. Not only was it the first Flames series win in 15 years, but it was against the Canucks. The following day, I went into the big communal area at BCIT with my jersey on and got booed by about 100 people. I loved every second of it. Worst memory? Bure in 94. I cried. End of story. What are you going to do if the Canucks win the cup? Go into hiding, take a few days off of work. Last year, before Game 6 in Boston, I posted on my Facebook and asked all my friends to give me 24 hours to grieve before giving me a hard time. I was fully prepared for the Canucks to win in Game 6 or 7. But when they lost, I gave my friends who support the Canucks the same 24 hour rule and didn’t give them a hard time. If you'd like to participate in this and give us some insight from your teams perspective, shoot us a message or get to us on twitter @BrowntoBure

Funny, fans here seem to think Luongo is terrible in them because we don't have that great of a record in them. But it seems when we actually SCORE A GOAL, we win. Nice to see him ranked #11, by the people who actually know what they are talking about, the players.

Over the last couple years there's been much made over the Canucks being "the most hated team in hockey" so we have taken it upon ourselves to do a little digging and find out why. We will doing a series of 30 blog posts on why and what exactly it is fans hate about the Canucks or their fans. We are looking for a fan of each team, preferably based in that city... But not essential, to do a short interview with us via email or IM. Anyone who is interested in this please send us a message and we will let you know if we'd like to use you and we'll set something up. If you're a Flames fan you are out of luck, not only is your team horrible... but we have already found someone and that post will appear some time tonight or tomorrow. Thanks BrowntoBure

Ever since the Canucks drafted Henrik and Daniel Sedin in the 1999 entry draft, people knew that then GM Brian Burke had drafted two kids who were one day gonna be special players in this league offensively, and that they were. In the first few years of their NHL careers, fans, media and NHL analysts across North America weren't seeing what was previously advertised. In the years that followed, while both Daniel and Henrik showed signs of being the players that they were hyped up to be, people didn't see a lot of that grit,toughness and sandpaper type play you see from Canadians. What they saw were two players being pushed around, and not living up to first line potential. There were many who thought that they would be career 3rd liners, no matter how talented they were, and some would go as far as saying they were busts. In the summer of 2006, after missing the playoffs, the Vancouver Canucks started changing the identity of this team. Todd Bertuzzi had been shipped off to Florida in a package deal that brought in star goaltender Roberto Luongo. Markus Naslund and Brenden Morrison remained, but weren't the players they were in previous years. This was when the spotlight shined brightly on the Sedin twins. They were looked upon to play a bigger role, and accept being extra go to guys for offence. In that season of 2006-2007, they took their first big step forward, as Daniel lead the team with 36 goals and 84 points, while Henrik finished with 71 assists and 81 points. Clearly, they had for the first time, proven all the critics (and there were lots) wrong. They were officially the top line for the Canucks, as the West Coast express was an after thought. The Canucks finished as division leaders, and beat the Dallas Stars in a 7 game series, before being dismantled by the Stanley Cup favorite Anaheim Mighty Ducks in round 2. In the years that followed, both Henrik and Daniel saw their fair share of linemates from Taylor Pyatt, Markus Naslund, Ryan Shannon, to Pavol Demitra. By 2009, Alex Burrows was a mainstay on the top line, as they had lots of success. The Sedins continued to improve and make the highlight reels across the world with their fancy passing ,crazy stick handling and huge goals.While they did this, they were also doing something else, staying injury free and not missing games. From 2005 to 2009, Henrik and Daniel played every single regular season and playoff game. In the 2009-2010 season Daniel Sedin missed 19 games with a broken foot.His brother Henrik didn't miss a beat, and eventually won the scoring race and the Art Ross Trophy. Henrik proved he didn't need to play alongside his brother to score points and help the team. In 2010-2011, the Canucks had their best season in franchise history, setting a franchise wins record, winning the division, winning the conference, and the Presidents Trophy. Henrik and Daniel yet again, played every single regular season game. Daniel Sedin won the scoring race with 104 points, capturing the Art Ross trophy as well as the Ted Lindsay. He had one upped his brother from the previous year. The Canucks this year were the favorite to win the Stanley Cup and bring it back to Canada. The beef on the Sedin twins from previous playoff years were they were criticized for being too soft, and they took a big amount of the blame from fans and media after two straight 2nd round exits at the hands of the Chicago Blackhawks. This year however, they took it to another level and lead the team to its first Stanley Cup finals appearance in 17 years. After all was said and done though, they were 1 win shy of brining home the Stanley Cup. They combined for just 2 goals in the 7 game series against the rough hard nosed Boston Bruins. They were mugged, punched, shoved around like they were being assaulted by a playground bully. Local sports talks shows took calls all summer of how soft the Sedins were, and how the Canucks were never going to win a Stanley Cup with them leading the team. The image of Brad Marchand repeatedly punching a Sedin who had no push back, went viral. That was the perception of both Henrik and Daniel all of a sudden, and it wasn't right. I however, have a different opinion. How can people call these guys soft? As of right now, Henrik Sedin has played 553 straight games, 2nd on the current ironman list. If you add the 66 playoff games he's played in, he's played in 619 consecutive games, which would easily surpass Jay Bouwmeester (1st on ironman list) since he's never played in a playoff game in his career. These guys get the most minutes out of any forwards on the team, and face every other teams top defence pairings each night, and a lot of time make those defence pairings look mediocre. Is that not tough? Henrik last missed a game in 2004. Besides Daniels 19 missed games 2 years ago, he too has rarely missed game action. The Canucks powerplay which is currently ranked #1 in the NHL, and has been in the top 5 for the last handful of years, has mostly to do with these two guys. They are respected all throughout the league, minus one David Bolland and a few Bruins, but thats another blog for another time. The fact of the matter is, these are special players, players that the NHL hasn't ever seen before, and I doubt this league ever will again after their retirement. Stanley Cup, or no cup, they will long be remembered for quietly going about their business, donating to local charities, playing their game, staying away from badmouthing opponents, and bringing hockey fans to their feet with their dazzling mind boggling abilities on the ice. Enjoy them hockey fans, they wont be here forever. Follow us on Twitter: @BrowntoBure

Thanks guys, appreciate the comments. And don't worry, if there's one team that understand your pain through the years of being completely inept in the goaltending position it's the Canucks.

I thoroughly enjoyed that thrashing tonight!

Luongo has a NTC which he can opt out of if he wishes next year, with a team option the following year and Gillis has already said that he will not ask a player to waive a no trade. So with that, and his contract it would be pretty tough to move him... I agree though, the only way they should move Schneider now is if they get an offer they simply can't say no too. With Schneider being a RFA they will most likely not get much better than a 1st and 3rd rounder... but if they can ride both of these guys to the cup nobody in Vancouver will care what happens .

Did Gaustad go after Leopold atleast?

Lets fire this bad boy back up again. Definate risks to both options here, Schneider's value will never be higher, but with the Canucks being up close to the cap already it really handcuffs them as to what kind of player they could bring in without having to clear salary as well, and they'd have to find a backup... Don't think Eddie Lack is ready to fill that role quite yet. Luongo though very strong again this year does have the occasional game where he gets roasted in the playoffs, whether it be from the team in front of him or his own performance, but I for one feel a lot more comfortable with the safety net of Cory Schneider to fall back on, should things go south again. Gillis has a very tough decision to make leading up to the deadline, thoughts?

The Wild over achieved big time in the first few months of the season, I was very impressed with how long they kept it up too. In a western conference that is so tough this year I think it would be a huge mistake for Minny to be buyers at the deadline and risk another set back.

We're just now entering what are known as 'the dog days' of the NHL season, but for the Vancouver Canucks it seems to have started much earlier this year. At first glance at the standings you may think that is just a typical Vancouverite looking for something to complain about, but when you dwell a little deeper there are some glaring things that stick out like a sore thumb, knee, groin or whatever other injury Sami Salo has been able to rack up over the years. Undoubtedly the game of the year in the NHL to this point was the Stanley Cup rematch between the Boston Bruins and the Vancouver Canucks, the Canucks were pushed around all series last year vs. the Bruins which ultimately let to their breakdown and defeat in the cup finals. They can say all they want about it being just another game on the schedule, but it was fairly evident to anyone who tuned into this game that the Canucks came to play, and made it a point to show that they weren't going to be pushed around by the Bruins this time. The Canucks went on to win that game 4-3, and showed a heck of a lot to their fans in the way they went about it, but there were two guys who were completely absent for the most part so we'll start there. In the 10 games following that victory over the Bruins back on January 7th the Canucks have gone 6-2-2, racking up 14 points. Outside of their one dominating win over the San Jose Sharks on January 21st they have looked mediocre at best, and down right awful in a lot of the games. If not for the outstanding play of both Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider who have had to stand on their head seemingly every single night during this stretch, racking up 35 plus save performances, there's no doubt that the Canucks deserve to be 1-9 over this stretch, and sliding down the Western Conference standings. There are two ways of looking at this last month's performance from the Canucks Either they are a great team doing what great teams tend to do, which is finding ways to win on any given night even when they aren't at their best, or this team is missing something that they better find in a hurry or the luck is going to run out and they will start falling in the western conference, where home ice for the duration of the playoffs seems to be the only way to get through. Tomorrow night is the perfect opportunity for the Canucks to get back on track as they take on their second round foes from last year, the Nashville Predators. Over the same 10 game stretch the Preds have gone 8-2, they aren't doing it with smoke and mirrors like the Canucks either, these guys are on a roll and are playing like a team itching to get back into the playoffs and take another step forward as a franchise. The Preds have been known since their inception under head coach Barry Trotz to be a team that brings it every single night and if you think you are just going to show up and skate your way to an easy win, you will get blown out. The Canucks must take this mindset into tomorrow night’s game and start playing like they are capable of or they will not be leaving Nashville with any points, but rather a massive reality check. Which, at this point may not be the worst thing. Follow us on twitter @BrowntoBure https://twitter.com/#!/BrowntoBure Also, this being our first blog post on this site, we'd like to thank all the members who helped us get set up and for making us feel very welcome, it's not too often Canucks and their fans are greeted with much hospitality these days... as you can imagine. If you would like to read some of our blog posts from earlier this year you can check them out here: http://my.hockeybuzz...?user_id=133534 BrowntoBure