How Roberto Got His Groove Back

Just for the record, that gust of wind you felt at about 10:25 PM PST last night *wasn't* a hurricane or even a particularly-strong storm.  Rather, it was the collective exhalation of the entire west coast of Canada following one of the most tense hockey games ever experienced within our borders.  When Alex Burrows (#14 in your program, but #1 in your hearts ... at least until his next needless high-sticking penalty) ripped his 'half-clapper, top-cheddar' (thanks to TSN Analyst @armdog Colby Armstrong for that gloriously nonsensical description) past Chicago Blackhawks' goalie Corey Crawford, the entire city - perhaps the entire province, rose to their feet and cheered.

Let me explain something about my favourite team, the Vancouver Canucks.  Things... don't always work out for them.  If you pay any attention to baseball, think the Red Sox, prior to 2004.  Or, for a more apropos comparison (especially given the Chicago connection), those lovable Cubbies.  If they were an NFL franchise, they'd be the Detroit Lions.  If they were a golfer in the early 2000s, they'd be anyone not named Tiger Woods.  You get the picture.  What I'm trying to say is that things rarely work out in the end.

Being a Canucks' fan, you learn from an early age to expect the worst, then be pleasantly surprised when something actually works out the way you hoped it would.  The team has been around for 40 years now and the most enduring memory we have is from two months after Kurt Cobain killed himself - in 1994, they got all the way to seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals... and lost.  That's right, our enduring rallying cry - our most revered memory - is of our team losing.  Knowing that you can begin to understand a few things about Canucks fans.

Then came this season.

I don't know if it was the alignment of the stars, an abnormal concentration of ozone in the drinking water, an Olympic hangover or just a glorious coincidence, but this year things just started going *right*.  From December until February - more than two full MONTHS, the team didn't lose.  They had the best record in the entire league (not surprisingly, a franchise first) locked up by the end of March and then they cruised to the finish line, blowing every single franchise record out of the water.  Instead of finding more creative and painful ways to lose, the team found ways to win.  It was extraordinary.  Local media couldn't understand it.

Then, quicker than you could say "Oh $#!#$", thanks to a bizarre comedy of errors on the last day of the regular season, the Canucks' reward for this regular season of excellence was a date with the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks IN THE VERY FIRST ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS.  The same team that had knocked them out of the playoffs the last two years in the most excruciating and humiliating of fashions.  Of course.  Now *this* was more like what we have come to expect as Canuck fans.

Shockingly, the Canucks stormed out of the gate and won the first three games of the series.  But that's when we were reminded just what it means to be a fan of this team.  The Blackhawks stormed the gates and demolished the Canucks in games 4 and 5.  Our previously rock-solid defence suddenly had more holes than swiss cheese, our ten million dollar goalie couldn't stop a beach ball and our top-ranked offence was about as threatening as an anemic kitten.  Game six was better - perhaps buoyed by sheer embarassment, the Canucks took it to the Blackhawks, creating chance after chance, but they could never pull away.  Three unlucky bounces led to the game going to overtime and then as our ten million dollar man flopped around on his stomach like a beached whale, an unheralded Blackhawk rookie named Ben Smith instantly became a curse-word in Vancouver by depositing a rebound into the open net.  Comeback complete.  The best-of-seven had become a best-of-one, the Canucks' juicy cushion had evaporated and sports media across the continent were poking fun at those hapless, "gutless" (seriously, some dude from the Chicago Tribune called them that.) Canucks from Vancouver.

In other words, it was status quo for us long-time, long-suffering fans.

Game 7.  The local media, never ones to eschew hyperbole, called it the franchise's 'biggest game ever'.  Regardless if that's really how you feel or not, there was a palpable sense of anxious dread around the city.  The Canucks were on the verge of an historic collapse.  The sort of epic meltdown that would cause the team to become nothing more than a punchline going forward.  Only three teams had managed to squander 3-0 series leads before.  None of them had the best record in the league in the year they did it.  That's right, the Canucks were primed to be the best team in history to choke away an almost-insurmountable lead.   And they were set to do this against their biggest rival in recent history.  ... Yup, that's what it's like being a Canucks fan, all right.

As the puck dropped, you could see the Canucks had fire in their eyes and passion in their bellies - they scored the first goal, they hit anything wearing a white sweater and skated like the wind. ... But the Blackhawks hung around.  Wave after wave, the Canucks came at them - firing shot after shot, spending what seemed like eternities in the attacking zone. ... But the Blackhawks hung around.  Young Corey Crawford, the Hawks' rookie netminder was singlehandedly putting together one of the greatest postseason goaltending performances of all-time.  Almost inexplicably, as the seconds ticked away and the clock wound down in the third period, the Canucks still had only one goal.  Then, predictably, disaster.  Hawks' superstar (and 'Good Canadian Kid', thanks Grapes) Jonathan Toews doggedly scored one of the grittest goals you've ever seen with less than two minutes left in the game. ... while the Hawks were shorthanded.  Of course he did.

During the overtime intermission, my stomach decided it couldn't take it anymore and emptied itself into the toilet bowl.  I felt a little better - a little weak-kneed, maybe, definitely light-headed, but no longer nauseated.  I stumbled back to the couch just in time for the overtime period to begin.

Almost immediately, the Canucks took a penalty. ("Oh God...")
And almost immediately, Jonathan Toews took the puck and skirted down the side boards, almost toying with our defence. ("Oh God...")
And then he slid a perfect pass through the seam. ("Here it comes...")
... Right onto the stick of 34-goal scorer Patrick Sharp, five feet from the net. ("I can't look...")
And then something amazing happened.
Roberto Luongo, our much-maligned, ten-million dollar goaltender, made the save he's paid ten million dollars to make.
Buoyed by Luongo's highway robbery, the Canucks killed off the remainder of the penalty without issue and three minutes after that  this happened:

It was all there - the game seemed tailor-made for masochists.  The hockey gods were setting up the Canucks to lose in the most cruel and painful way imaginable...  Only... the Canucks won.  At 10:25 PM PST, that sound you heard wasn't just the entire province of British Columbia cheering as one - that was the sound of the poles reversing, up becoming down, left becoming right and the laws of gravity simply ceasing to exist.  That sound was me, jumping up and down in my living room, pumping my fists, hugging my wife, trying my best to blink away tears of joy.  That sound was me starting to believe, "Maybe they *can* win this damned thing after all."

Ultimately, the victory over the Blackhawks is just the first step.  If the Canucks are truly aiming to bring the wrath of the Four Horsemen upon us (my canned goods are well-stocked, don't worry) and win the championship, they have to win three more rounds (starting tomorrow night against a very disciplined and cult-like Nashville Predators squad).  It's a long, winding road, but for one brief moment in April, the sun was shining on the Vancouver Canucks.

Go Canucks Go.


What I'm Playing: Batman: Arkham Asylum (watch for my review of this coming shortly)
What I'm Reading: Batman & Robin vol. 2, Sweet Tooth