Tag Archives: time

Willes: Fans’ anger will be different this time

Posted on January 6, 2013 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

After 6½ months of the most tortured negotiations in sports-labor history, the NHL and the Players Association finally have a deal.

It took a 16-hour bargaining session which, mercifully, ended in the wee hours of Sunday morning. It took umpteen proposals and counter-proposals and as many take-it-or-leave it offers. It dragged the game through one of the most ignominious chapters in its history, holding it up to ridicule and scorn even as it alienated the vast majority of its fan base.

And now it's over but if the league thinks this is the end of the story, they are as clueless as they seemed through this whole regrettable process.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the real impact of Lockout III can't be measured until the games resume and, in the here and now, the NHL is staring at a massive public relations nightmare. If you believe the entries from social media, blogs and various man-on-the-streets, the fans tuned out...

NHL players ready for season, but fitness, injuries are concerns

Posted on January 6, 2013 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

The clock is already ticking for NHL players preparing to return to the ice.

With the end to the lockout pending, there will be time for only a brief training camp before a compressed schedule of 48 or 50 games.

The next few weeks will quickly show whether players who haven’t played a competitive game since last spring are ready for the rigours of a regular season.

“I don’t think it’ll be too tough,” said Montreal Canadiens forward Travis Moen.

“Guys are professionals, so you should have been keeping yourself in decent shape all this time.

“We’ll have some time to skate before, and then you make the best of it.”

The NHL and the players reached a tentative agreement early Sunday morning, but no details on how many games each team would play or when the season would begin were released.

There may be a wide disparity in game-readiness when the season does finally get under way.

About 200 players got game action skating for...

Cody Hodgson aims to leave Canucks behind

Posted on January 5, 2013 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

Talk to Cody Hodgson about his life in the AHL, the lockout, travel, his past back injury or Buffalo, and he’s loose, and downright verbose.

Bring up the Canucks, and, well, he’d rather you not.

That — as he pointed out Friday not long after arriving in Abbotsford — is in the past.

But it’s also in his future. Because Hodgson will never escape the Canucks. That’s what happens when a NHL general manager paints you as a whining diva who can’t play defence, not long after he walks you out the door in a season in which the team was a favourite to win a Stanley Cup.

Hodgson is more comfortable now than a year ago. But that’s as obvious as it is predictable. He’s out of Vancouver.

“I had a great summer. Being off for four or five months, I could really go through the whole [Gary] Roberts program, and I had some time to rest and let everything heal and...

Ex-Canuck Cody Hodgson passes on his past

Posted on January 4, 2013 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

Cody Hodgson is not a big believer in rear-view mirrors.

The former Canuck centre likes to focus on what lies ahead and prefers to leave the past behind him.

That seems especially true when it comes to revisiting his rocky relationship with the team that drafted him 10th overall in 2008.

Hodgson, who is spending the NHL lockout with the AHL’s Rochester Americans, paid the obligatory compliments to Canuck fans and his former teammates before the Americans beat the Heat 5-2 on Friday night in Abbotsford.

But in an interview with a small group of reporters after Friday’s game-day skate, Hodgson brushed back attempts to dig a little deeper into his relationship with his past team.

“No, I try not to look back as much as possible,” he said. “I am here with the Rochester Americans and the Buffalo Sabres organization now and I have moved past that. Since the summer, I haven’t really looked back on it to tell you the truth....

Time for Canada to lose gold-or-bust mentality: Manny Malhotra

Posted on January 4, 2013 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

As the NHL lockout dragged on Thursday, junior hockey players lifted the spirits of some — but not all — Vancouver Canucks’ players.

Canadian-born Canucks were disappointed following Canada’s 5-1 loss to the Americans at the World Junior Hockey Championship earlier in the day. But Vancouver’s American and Swedish players appeared much more chipper following an informal skate at the University of British Columbia.

Forward Manny Malhotra, who grew up in the Toronto area and played in two world junior tournaments, said it’s time for Canada to lose its gold-or-bust mentality at the annual international affair.

"We’ve looked at the world juniors as gold or bust for Canada for so many years," said Malhotra, who captained Canada to a bronze medal in 2000. "It puts a lot of undue stress on the guys going over there. It’s a global game. Everybody’s catching up (to Canada.)

"Everybody’s adapting to a different style of play out there. Obviously, we have such a large...

Gallagher: NHL takes, players give, league says ‘We want more’

Posted on December 19, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

There is always something strangely odd about lockouts in professional sports.

But this latest NHL effort, in which hockey played at its highest level has disappeared from view, has really set new standards in bizarre.

Take a look at what happened just right here in Vancouver on Wednesday.

The Vancouver Canucks are head and shoulders the most prestigious sports franchise in the city, yet here were the team’s general manager Mike Gillis and his assistant Laurence Gilman asking the TEAM 1040 radio station whether they could appear for one hour on the B-Mac and Taylor afternoon drive program to essentially let people know that their team still existed.

And they were quick to let the fans know they appreciated their patience.

“When the time comes that there will be hockey played again, and we certainly hope that it is sooner than later, we will do everything in our power to assure our fans that they have not been taken for granted in this...

Blue-liner Jason Garrison rejoins locked-out Canuck teammates

Posted on December 18, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

Jason Garrison figures he couldn’t have picked a better time for his worst injury.

The National Hockey League defenceman, who joined the Vancouver Canucks in July on a six-year, $27.6-million free-agent contract, began skating with out-of-work teammates Tuesday at the University of B.C. after spending the first three months of the lockout rehabilitating a groin/abdominal injury.

Garrison revealed he has had similar injuries before, but not to the extent that he missed more than a few games.

Ironically, the player Garrison essentially replaces, departed free agent Sami Salo, had chronic groin problems and many other injuries during his time with the Canucks.

“There were things torn up there,” Garrison, 28, said after skating with a handful of teammates and players from the UBC Thunderbirds. “Previous to the summer, there was talk (about surgery) but this was something that doctors told me wouldn’t take too long to heal: ‘Just give it some time and it will go away’ kind of thing. But that...

Ryan Kesler’s return ‘pushed back several months’

Posted on December 13, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

Ryan Kesler's return from offseason shoulder and wrist surgeries has been pushed back several months, according to his agent.

The Vancouver Canucks beg to differ on the extent of that timeline provided by Kurt Overhardt, but it's not a stretch for anyone to suggest that the centre won't be back next month as forecasted earlier this fall.

When Kesler was re-evaluated two weeks ago at the Cleveland Clinic to assess progress from a May 8 procedure on his left shoulder and June 27 surgery on his left wrist, it was determined the rehab load placed on one side of his body was taking a toll and that progress has been slow.

"The re-evaluation was positive in that the surgeries were successful," said Overhardt. "However, the compounding nature of both of those surgeries being on the same side of the body, it's been very hard to properly rehab either one of the them — particularly the shoulder — because that's obviously...

Manny Malhotra has had it with NHL labour talks

Posted on December 10, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

VANCOUVER - Manny Malhotra has had a front-row seat for the emotional roller-coaster that the NHL labour talks have become, but will now watch the proceedings from afar.

"I'm done," Malhotra said Monday.

Not done because he's angry or frustrated by the stalemate -- and he most certainly is -- but because his wife Joann is expecting a baby next month and he wants to wait out the rest of her pregnancy at their Vancouver home.

Malhotra reckons he has made 10 cross-continent trips to participate in CBA talks or NHLPA meetings. He's done more travelling than he would have had the season begun as scheduled. He calls the experience both invaluable and frustrating.

There have been lots of highs and lows, none more so than last week in New York City.

"I think you run the whole gamut of emotions throughout these talks," he said after skating with a few of his Canuck teammates at UBC. "Right from the get-go Don...

NHL lockout: And boom goes the dynamite

Posted on December 6, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

t’s been a week in the NHL that outpaced the 2012 playoffs in emotion, mood swings and even entertainment.

When talks disintegrated late Thursday, it left more people slack-jawed than anything the L.A. Kings did on their run to the Stanley Cup.

Moments after Don Fehr used the words "agreed to" in a New York presser when outlining several issues, suggesting the sides were within days of an agreement, a voice mail he got from Bill Daly self-destructed the whole procedure like a scene out of Mission: Impossible.

Somewhere, Vince McMahon was smiling. But NHL fans sure weren’t.

The ebb and flow of this negotiation, as it inches toward its conclusion, took positive vibes and twisted them into stomach knots with more turns than a Spanish soap opera. It climaxed when Gary Bettman melodramatically proclaimed everything that had been offered this week was off the table.

Suddenly, all those Kumbaya feelings that there could be an agreement this week turned...

Canucks Ryan Kesler, Kevin Bieksa taking it to the streets (with video)

Posted on December 6, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

VANCOUVER — Ryan Kesler refereeing road hockey is like Arthur Fonzarelli jumping a shark on water skis. Things have gone way too far in the National Hockey League lockout.

And lest there was any doubt about this, the @NHLPodium account on Twitter – profile description: “I am always bad news” – was nearing 10,000 followers its first day of inanimate existence.

In New York, 18 millionaire players and six billionaire owners finally mustered enough goodwill and urgency to begin what appeared to be earnest give-and-take of negotiations to end the NHL's labour war.

And on a basketball court under the Cambie Bridge in Vancouver, dog walkers and skater kids were disrupted Wednesday afternoon by the outbreak of a road hockey game hastily announced and officiated by Kesler.

The Vancouver Canuck star refereed the stockinged Green Men, anthem singer Mark Donnelly, 50 road hockey players of varying ages and athleticism, and Canuck defenceman Kevin Bieksa.

“It's just a good time,” Kesler said....

Kesler, Bieksa help provide a good time

Posted on December 5, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

VANCOUVER - Ryan Kesler refereeing road hockey is like Arthur Fonzarelli jumping a shark on water skis. Things have gone way too far in the National Hockey League lockout.

And lest there was any doubt about this, the @NHLPodium account on Twitter – profile description: “I am always bad news” – was nearing 10,000 followers its first day of inanimate existence.

The Vancouver Canuck star refereed the stockinged Green Men, anthem singer Mark Donnelly, 50 road hockey players of varying ages and athleticism, and Canuck defenceman Kevin Bieksa.

“It's just a good time,” Kesler said. “Obviously, the...

Ballard, NHL season both on ice

Posted on December 4, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

The hockey homecoming novelty has worn off for Keith Ballard, but the benefit could be lasting.

An alum of the University of Minnesota, the Vancouver Canucks defenceman has taken to a sheet of ice at the Minneapolis campus three to four times a week with as many as 30 players during the NHL lockout.

Far from casual gatherings, they have been run by former European and college coach John Harrington, who assisted on Mike Eruzione’s go-ahead goal for the U.S. in the famous 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics triumph over the Soviet Union.

Now you know why they call it the State of Hockey.

From former Golden Gophers like Erik Johnson, Kyle Okposo and Ballard to current Wild players Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu, Niklas Backstrom and Cal Clutterbuck and a host of other NHL players who reside in Minnesota during the offseason, the lengthy sessions may give them a leg up if there’s a shortened season.

“We’ve got ice every day and after...

Manny Malhotra’s sense of justice may be costly, but rewarding

Posted on December 3, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

VANCOUVER — The son of a Pakistani father and francophone mother, Manny Malhotra grew up barely aware of racism.

“Yeah, there was the odd comment on the ice,” the Vancouver Canuck explained recently. “But growing up in Toronto, which was so multicultural, I think I was blind to it. Jamaicans lived across the street, Asians were over there. It was a melting pot.”

So Malhotra’s fierce beliefs in justice and fairness were created not by skin colour or language, but by birth order. He was the youngest, by three years, of four children — two big brothers and a sister. Life was not fair.

“When your brothers and sister pick on you, that’s always unfair,” the 32-year-old said with a smile before travelling to New York for meetings Tuesday that could salvage the National Hockey League season.

“I remember being so angry that they could do stuff better than me, or wouldn’t let me play or wouldn’t share. That kind of built my...