That video brings a smile to my face every time I see it.

I’m glad he pipes up and says that, for all the obvious reasons

When we hang our FOURTH Stanley Cup Championship banner at the United Center this October, I’m sure we’ll all remember how your team courteously self-imploded before we swept the Sharks and never looked back. I normally don’t troll, but until your club has a championship banner at your barn, your just another expansion team.

Fourth and last until 2056-2057

Sean- thanks. I stop by NM every day to keep up with you folks. Very much enjoy the site. (As an aside, I sat next to a group of Canucks fans at the March 5th game in Chicago this past season. Probably the best regular season game I’ve been to in our new(er) building, both because of our 5 goal first period, and the company of your fellow fans. Classy group of fellas, very knowledgeable, and still proud in defeat).

Van City Dan- I must repeat my original comment; we now have four(4) Stanley Cup Champion banners at our rink to your zero(0). We also have a pretty impressive collection of Jordan era banners that look excellent facing our Hawks banners, but that’s besides my point. Maybe one day you too will have more than a Trevor Linden banner t your building. You can only hope. (For some reason, and I have no idea how or why, our banners from the old days are in what appears to be mint condition, which is a miracle considering that they hung for decades in the old Chicago Stadium, which before these modern times was a beautiful smoke filled cavern on most nights)

Chuckles Canuckles- normally I’d abstain from commenting on such a weak response. But since you mentioned the Flames and my tag in the same post, I can respond only by alluding to the fact that Calgary, too, has won a Stanley Cup, which is more than you can say for your club.

Shifty- thanks for the 5/10. It means allot to me. I’m not sure how you folks publishing posts and responses that celebrate a bogus hit that could have ended a young and budding hockey career is non-inflammatory. If I posted a fanpost doing the same for Willie Mitchell’s hit, I’d expect no less of a response. And, I thought I was quite civil in my post. Personally, I think it’s awful and somewhat ironic that Willy Mitchell was on the business end of a similar hit, and now is at risk of becoming a relic of the past because of a patterned lack of respect among players when it comes to blindside/head hits. I hope his career isn’t over, because Willy is a high quality individual on and off the ice, notwithstanding his hit on Toews.

Yoata- If you’re going to open a discussion of comparisons between Original Six franchise legacies, be my guest. Before doing so, read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Six#Corruption

Your point about the Hawks having won the least championships among the Original Six is true. But, I don’t see how a team’s fan base can’t be proud of its club’s success because the other five have more championships under their belt(s). We had an unbelievable regular season, and had to overcome four of the best NHL teams to get there. Regardless of the past, I think, as a fan, I’m entitled to some bragging. Not too much. But some.

Azzy- this past season the Canucks were among the elite teams in the NHL. They had amazingly talented players throughout their line-up, a goalie fresh off an Olympic Gold Medal campaign, and a chip on their shoulder to prove that the 08’/09’ Semifinal loss to Chicago was a fluke. After having out classed a hungry L.A. Kings club that was dangerous to say the least, they couldn’t cut it against the Hawks. Now, if it makes you feel better you can point to my mention of self-implosion and view that as an admission that the 09’/10’ Hawks club was not the greatest team since Moses captained his giant vessel; or you can be honest with yourself and admit that your collapse was far from voluntary. Our checking line(s) and, for the most part, all three defensive pairs shut you down. Period. We outworked you in all but five periods of the entire series. Two of our first line forwards each scored hat tricks in consecutive games, both in front of your home crowd (incidentally, that means that three members of our 09’/10’ roster have scored playoff hat tricks on your #1 goalie). We won all three of the games played in Vancouver, in overwhelmingly dominant fashion. Your team didn’t just have a few bad nights, and weren’t merely on the bad end of a few unlucky bounces. Puck luck had nothing to do with your team’s exit. And, quite frankly, if you’re able to convince yourself that the Canucks were the better team, after watching the Hawks sweep the Sharks and go on to win the whole thing, you my friend are afflicted with more than just cognitive dissonance. I’ll even go one step further: after losing Buff, Eager, Ladd, Versteeg, Sopel, Madden, and quite possibly Niemi, we’ll still be in the chase, and, until proven otherwise, we’ll remain the team to beat in the Western Conference.

Sfont- the other night on the NHL Network I watched the 94’ N.Y Rangers end their Cup drought against the “Cinderella” Canucks of that same year. Pretty dramatic stuff. I remember watching game 7 of that series and hoping the Canucks would win because my Dad and I absolutely hate(d) Mike Keenan, for too many reasons to list. When do you anticipate your club winning its first? I hope it happens eventually, because it’s a great feeling as a fan, and I think Vancouver is a great hockey city/market, and it would be good for hockey to see them win one. Best of luck on finding an original thought the next time you post.

Niemi gets 1-year, $2.75 million in arbitration. Many speculate Hawks trade him. Many tweeters believe is coming in. But that’s just a wild rumor

Georges Laracques working for the Green Party in Quebec. He wants to see animals treated better.

I love the Van-Chi rivalry now though. Great stuff. It just keeps growing and growing.

The lone citation on the Wikipedia hogwash about the poor, second class Blackhawks in a shady NHL is to a story in the SI Vault that corroborates only that the NHL was sometimes used as an abbreviation for Norris House League.

On the current front page of the SI Vault is a 1999 story on the rising stars in the NHL and highlights two Canucks among the five sure-fire future stars.

Here’s the full excerpt that discusses monopolistic tendencies in NHL ownership of the era:

“Without carping, it should be realized that Norris is an influential man in the NHL, sometimes dubbed the " Norris House League." Besides co-partnering the Hawks with Wirtz, he has a big piece of New York, and his sister Marguerite and his half brother Bruce own Detroit. As a result, he is able to wheel and deal in friendly surroundings. For example, the Hawks got Ted Lindsay, one of hockey’s great left wings, and Glenn Hall, their superb goalie, from Detroit in exchange for cash and a pride of players named Joe. This is not to say this was wrong. On the contrary, any club likes to swing a good deal. Jack Adams, the Detroit general manager, is one of the shrewdest hockey men in the business, and when he made the Lindsay-Hall deal with the Black Hawks he was certain that it would prove an advantageous one for the Red Wings. That it has not, so far, does not indicate anything more than that Adams was, this time, wrong. Still, the circumstances of club ownership in the National Hockey League annually excite questioning about whether a monopoly—ah, there, IBC—exists. The questioners like to apply a baseball parallel and point out that if Phil Wrigley, say, owned not only the Chicago Cubs but Cincinnati and St. Louis as well, he could boost the Cubs’ chances by trading the bat boy for Stan Musial. And, of course, while it is a coincidence, since the trades were made the once-poor Black Hawks have been showing signs of going onward and upward."

The Hawks ended up winning the Cup two years later. Making it their third and only Championship while Norris controlled the ownership group, which began in 1944.

Here’s an excerpt of his wikipedia page, although there are no citations for the pertinent sections:

“In 1931, the Detroit Falcons and their arena, the Detroit Olympia, had been placed into receivership and were being managed by a creditors’ committee. By the summer of 1932, it was being reported that the team might be sold to Norris.4 In the fall of 1933, the NHL formally approved Norris’ bid to acquire the team from the receiver. He changed the team’s name to the Detroit Red Wings. Norris also designed the team’s current logo: a wing protruding from a wheel. The logo was adapted from the old Montreal Hockey Club logo (the team had been nicknamed the “Winged Wheelers”) and was intended to curry favor with the automobile companies.
Norris quickly cleared away the debt left over from past years and gave the Red Wings the financial backing they needed to become one of the most powerful teams in the NHL. Under Norris’ watch, the Red Wings won five Stanley Cups. He rarely saw his Red Wings play due to a heart condition. However, coach and general manager Jack Adams always called Norris after each game from the locker room.1
When McLaughlin died in 1944, Norris helped longtime Black Hawks president Bill Tobin put together a syndicate that bought the team from the McLaughlin estate. It was generally understood, however, that Norris called the shots. He had bought Chicago Stadium in 1936, thus making him the Black Hawks’ landlord. Earlier in the decade, he had bought enough stock in Madison Square Garden to become its largest stockholder, and while he did not buy majority control (he was forbidden from doing so by the NHL constitution), he had enough support from the board that he effectively controlled the New York Rangers as well."

Think what you will.

i’ll probably put up a new open thread in the morning.
in the meantime, i would like to say that Cats & Dogs 2 was good.

If you are in the US and have access to NHL Network on television, you can watch the entire Canucks/Kings first round series in the 2010 playoffs tomorrow, August 1, staring at 7 am ET/4 am PT