The sensational story today about Vancouver Canuck owner Francesco Aquilini flying across the continent to offer Pavel Bure a jersey retirement ceremony was not only news to fans, but news to the National Hockey League team.
Aquilini has not commented on the report, which quotes only ex-Canuck Gino Odjick, so no one from the organization is speaking on the record about it. But it’s clear people in the Canucks have no knowledge of this plan because, almost certainly, it does not exist.
Only two years ago, general manager Mike Gillis led a Canuck delegation that met with Bure in Florida to discuss the team honouring the Russian Rocket for his seven years of service in the 1990s. Bure, who held out on the Canucks in 1998 to finally force a trade he had been demanding for five years, made it clear he had no interest in returning to Vancouver for an honour at Rogers Arena.
Gillis was Bure’s agent and helped orchestrate the Russian Rocket’s acrimonious exit from the Canucks.
To mark their 40th anniversary season in 2010-11, the Canucks instead celebrated Orland Kurtenbach, Thomas Gradin, Harold Snepsts and Kirk McLean in the team’s Ring of Honour, and retired the No. 19 worn by former captain Markus Naslund.
Bure’s induction in the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday in Toronto has rekindled the divisive issue of Bure’s status with the Canucks. It should not.
The Hall-of-Fame is a statistic-based institution for players. It’s entirely about on-ice achievement: Does a player have enough goals and points and games to merit inclusion? The HHoF selection committee, co-chaired by former Canuck coach Pat Quinn and including former Bure teammate Igor Larionov, decided that Bure’s 437 goals in 702 NHL games warranted the winger’s induction.
But a team honour is about more than numbers. A retirement ceremony is a recognition of the lasting relationship between player, club and community, an acknowledgment of a player’s contribution and impact that goes beyond goals and assists.
Consider the impact on the Canucks and the community of the three players whose numbers have been retired in Vancouver: Naslund, Trevor Linden and Stan Smyl. Now think about Bure. The relationship with was one-sided: fans loved him, but he didn’t love the Canucks or Vancouver.
And to get out, he held out. Bure once listed a shopping list of reasons why he chose to leave the Canucks, almost all of them to do with money and his perceived treatment by management. Fair enough. Hockey is business. But honoring players in perpetuity is about something more.
