Good open ended play so far with the Moose, almost a continuation of the Finland/Sweden game from earlier. Going to suck when things slow down for the Canucks game.

Okay, so Avatar. If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to be spoiled by anything, you should probably skip this post. I’m also going to say that a lot of the issues I bring up in this review are partially or completely answered by an early script of the movie, but that some details are lost in the final product still causes so problems. I don’t hate the film, like some folks do, but I am going to criticize it a bit.

The Canucks were looking to extend their hot start post-Christmas with a win over the Phoenix Coyotes. The Yotes were looking to earn a franchise best 10 straight victories at home. Whatever happened tonight, someone was going to be going home disappointed. Unfortunately, it was some bad decision making in the second period that resulted in the Canucks going to overtime and eventually losing in the shootout to the Desert Dogs.

Well, hell. Looks like this whole thing with Samuelsson is taking on a life of it’s own. For those who aren’t in the know, Mikael Samuelsson, he of the Vancouver Canucks, was not named to Sweden’s Olympic roster. Samuelsson also had some rather choice words about it, stating that Team Sweden brass can go ‘fuck themselves.’

This was sort of a lazy week for me (and presumably most of you folks out there!) There was Christmas, naturally, but also travel concerns cramping my style and making it so that I couldn’t write as much as I wanted to. No plugs and also a condensed look at the Canucks. A little heavier on commentary than straight up news. I’ll try to balance it out for next week.

I’m kicking myself.

You see, I went home for Christmas. ‘Home’ for me is Calgary. I thought long and hard about trying to reschedule my flight so that I could stick around for the Flames/Canucks game. Maybe even score some tickets. But the idiot down in Detroit made me re-think that, as I figured it’d be close to impossible to get rebooked anytime soon.

Naturally, I woke up at 7am to fly home only to find out my flight had been cancelled. Did I mention that my parents had gone down to Cancun the day before and my brother (who drove me to the airport this morning) is busy preparing for a move to BC, which means I was stuck at Calgary International? Yeah.

So I got home around 10:00 PM EST, enough to watch the third period and that’s about it.

I missed Raymond’s hat trick.

I missed Kiprusoff letting in a goal that even Dan Cloutier could’ve made.

I missed the (self proclaimed) ‘best fans in the NHL’ booing their team off the ice. Wait, scratch that last one.

Well, I guess one out of three ain’t bad.

Got an Avatar review in the pipeline, along with some other stuff. Holidays are a good time to slack, yes? Thought so.
Hope Santa was good for everyone!

While tonight’s game against the last place Edmonton Oilers may not appear to have the makings of a changing point for the Canucks, it could very well end up being one for them.

Prior to tonight, the Canucks had fared incredibly well against opponents that were on hot streaks or above them in the standings and were absolutely dreadful against last place teams. Expectations for some fans weren’t really that high against the last place Oilers, so having a convincing 4-1 win against the Oilers may have been just what the doctor ordered.  Add in a Boxing Day victory at home, something the Canucks haven’t accomplished in 35 years, and things are suddenly looking very good.

The Canucks continue with their topsy turvy play as they came into tonight’s matchup suffering an ugly loss to the St. Louis Blues. Sound familiar? Yeah, I realize that these recaps sound like I could have simply did a Find and Replace in Word, but better the Canucks win a game than lose all the time. But, tonight’s game did have two guys dressed in green spandex (see above), so this most assuredly wasn’t a repeat!

A demo for Dante’s Inferno was released on the Playstation Network about two weeks ago, with XBox 360 fans seeing the release this Friday. Like other people out there, I was pretty curious as to how the hell the first portion of the Divine Comedy was going to be adapted into a straight up video game. I mean, it doesn’t exactly lend itself for video game fodder. Then again, Electronic Arts isn’t producing a faithful adaptation of the game: it’s effectively a God of War ripoff: angry male faces off against a deity (Ares in God of War, Satan in Dante’s Inferno) to win back his love. Generic character has ridiculous weapon and magical abilities. Yeah, I mean, I’ve only read the Penguin Classics translated version of The Divine Comedy so there may be something lost in the translation, but I am pretty sure that Dante never wielded a gigantic feck-off scythe. I’m also pretty sure that Beatrice, the woman whom the real Dante Alighieri pined over, didn’t have the body of a stripper, complete with massive D cups.

That said, who cares if the video game companies take creative license with things? There’s money to be made and boobs to animate. We can’t let silly things like ‘respect for the classics’ get in the way of things! After all, Hollywood’s been doing it for years so why not the gaming industry?

Exactly. So, here are some potential candidates for the next Classic that could be remade into video games! To any of my former professors who may have accidentally stumbled across this: I am so very sorry.

The story: Russian player Ivan Vishnevskiy inadvertently scores on his own net after the Dallas Stars had pulled the goalie for an extra attacker.

Reminds me of Shane O’Brien’s own goal during a delayed penalty last season. Yes, Obie’s goal Sunday night wasn’t his first in a Canuck uniform during the regular season…it was just the first that counted for the Canucks.