By Mark Leiren-Young I’ve figured out Gary Bettman’s grand master plan for the NHL. He’s decided to run it without players. No players means no games. No games means no overhead, no pesky salaries, no arena rentals, no worrying whether superstars get concussed, no superstars, and, best of all, no hockey. Now Bettman can focus […]
sports
Pavel Bure: Love at first shot
By Mark Leiren-Young When Pavel Bure sat down in the stands beside me, my brain vanished as if he’d snapped it away with his lightning fast wrist shot. This was training camp, 1992, just after he won the Calder Cup for Rookie of the Year, becoming the first Canuck ever to win an NHL Award. […]
Should the CBC boot Cherry and O’Leary?
By Frank Moher It’s not at all a bad thing that CBC loudmouths Don Cherry and Kevin O’Leary have agitated some viewers lately, Cherry with his rant against former NHL enforcers who have come out against violence in hockey, and O’Leary with his interview of American journalist Chris Hedges, in which he told the Pulitzer […]
The lost art of imagining retribution
By Jan Drabek Probably the most bizarre attempt to deal with the Stanley Cup riots to date was the announcement of a group getting together to sing O Canada at the corner of Georgia and Hamilton. But other unusual takes abound, among them that of the bicycle-loving mayor of Vancouver who is apparently convinced that […]
The Vancouver riot: thugs are not anarchists
By Frank Moher Memo to Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu: idiots and anarchists are two different things. I know being a political scientist isn’t a prerequisite for becoming a cop, not even the top cop, but playing the “anarchist” card last week, as you did in defending your force’s handling of the Stanley Cup riot, […]
Where is Brock Anton?
By Frank Moher Having owned the Brock Anton story sufficiently on Thursday to crash our server for awhile — we’ve now moved to a nice big new one — it seems necessary to provide a follow-up, although much of the web has moved on to other riot tales, like the kissing couple. And even though, […]
The face of Vancouver’s Stanley Cup riot
By Frank Moher Overnight, a certain Brock Anton became the face of the Vancouver Stanley Cup riot on the internet. Downtown for the abortive festivities yesterday, Mr. Anton apparently took time out from his busy schedule to post this on his Facebook page: It reads: Maced in the face, hit with a Batton, tear gassed […]
Me and Macho Man
By David Bitonti Macho Man is dead. Who’s next? Hulk Hogan? The Ultimate Warrior? Jake The Snake Roberts? In fact, how the hell did Jake with all his drugging and boozing outlive Randy Savage anyway? As more of these forgotten heroes enter their 50s and even 60s (yikes!), I guess they’re going to start dropping […]
Vancouver celebrates for real
By Bev Schellenberg A year-or-so after the Winter Olympics torch got snuffed out, community spirit is back in Vancouver, thanks to the Canucks. Where the many official attempts to reignite our sporting fervor failed, a simple hockey playoff series has done the trick. Greater Vancouver has decided it will party when it wants to, not […]
The Pacioretty effect
By David Bitonti Hockey has been a huge part of my family for generations. When I was a kid, back in the ‘80s, every Saturday evening after my brother and I played our own minor league game, we’d all pile up in the living room to watch the Montreal Canadiens on the CBC French-language affiliate […]
