Tonight’s game actually motivated me to write a blogpost, as I wanted to go over something that has been infuriating me for a while now.

Specifically, Alain Vigneault’s treatment of Keith Ballard. I could go back even further and trace this into his attitudes about Brendan Morrison, but that ship has sailed, fought in a few wars, been decommissioned and is now used as an artificial reef somewhere off the coast of Australia. A digression.

A lot of talk is being made about Aaron Rome’s hit on Nathan Horton. While I don’t want to get into that, as it’s going to be discussed ad nauseum over the next couple of days, I will say that I hope that Horton is okay and makes a full recovery. Bruins fans have already had their hearts torn from their chests with Marc Savard’s concussion woes and it wouldn’t do to see another talented player get sidelined. Imagine losing Ryan Kesler and Daniel Sedin to injuries. Yeah.

Anyway, I found Alain Vigneault’s decision to put Andrew Alberts into the lineup to be an intriguing one, mostly because I really didn’t get why a sometimes effective, bottom pairing defenseman was getting put into the Stanley Cup Finals over Keith Ballard, a guy who has shown he’s capable of being a second pairing defenseman. I guess Vigneault was getting cute and figured what’s the worst that could happen? Andrew Alberts could log significant minutes if needed…right?

Well, with your top blueliner, Dan Hamhuis, out potentially for the entire series and another defenseman getting ejected tonight Canucks fans got the answer to those questions. Respectively, 8-1 and no, absolutely not.

Alberts was on the ice for 4 goals against, 2 even strength, bringing his +/- to -5, tied with Henrik for second worst on the team. (Christian Ehrhoff, who hasn’t had the best playoffs this season, has the worst at -10.) He looked slow and ponderous out there, with shades of his whistle chasing behaviour rearing it’s ugly head in front of Luongo’s net.

This makes me wonder: why is Keith Ballard not seeing any icetime? Ballard has been on the ice for 2 even strength goals against in 9 playoff games. The Canucks are 7-2 with Ballard in the lineup. He’s played more hockey than Alberts has, both in the regular and post-season. Heck, Alberts hasn’t seen regular icetime since February.

Ballard has provided huge hipchecks, including an awesome one on Jamie McGinn in the Sharks series. He’s a guy who can log more icetime than Alberts and, in a situation like tonight where Rick Bowness was forced to shuffle his lineup because of Rome being ejected, could have handled those minutes, even if Vigneault is loathe to give him any playing time.

Vigneault’s fascination with grinders and guys with size has been one of the things that has annoyed me immensely since he’s been the Canucks bench boss. I don’t know if Alberts being 6′5 and Ballard being 5′11 is one of the factors in Vigneault’s decision making process, but frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.

Unfortunately, this is the Stanley Cup Finals. This isn’t a regular season game where a single loss can be shrugged off and adjustments can be made. Everything matters. One win can swing the momentum back in favour of your opponent and you can’t take chances in putting questionable players into your lineup when there are better options available to you. It’s not as though Ballard has been injured or is off rescuing kittens from burning buildings in Madrid. He’s right there on the team, has shown he can contribute and be a positive addition.

So the question is, why doesn’t he play? Your guess is as good as mine. It could be size. It could a personality clash with him and Alain Vigneault. But, barring a serious injury of some kind (and there has been nothing to indicate that such is the case) Ballard should be playing, especially with Ehrhoff looking like a mess and Dan Hamhuis being out of the lineup.

Instead, Vigneault opts to go with Andrew Alberts and Aaron Rome. Potentially burning bridges with Ballard. Maybe eroding some confidence.

And now, with the Canucks getting a thorough jolly rogering from the Bruins, Vigneault may just have to turn to a player he has alienated for no discernible reason or purpose and expect him to provide a high level of play in most important set of hockey games in Vancouver Canucks history. This, while leaving his star goaltender to languish out on the ice for the entirety of those 60 minutes, leaving two huge question marks/messes on the Canucks hands going into Game 4.

The word that comes to mind, when thinking of Rome and Vigneault? Stupid.

Let’s hope it’s not too late.

The Stanley Cup FINALS?

The Canucks are in the Stanley Cup Finals?!

Yes, we’re all perched on the precipice of what could be Vancouver’s Greatest Hockey Moment. Less than 24 hours from puck drop and I’m still having problems processing it. This entire season that I’ve watched, sometimes in pubs and bars with friends, sometimes after long shifts at 4 in the morning thanks to the wonders of PVR, other times with the folks I know through Twitter, has been utterly surreal.

A second consecutive Art Ross title for the franchise.

A Jennings trophy shared between (arguably) the best goaltending duo in the league.

A President’s Trophy, the franchise’s first.

A Hart trophy nomination.

A Vezina trophy nomination.

A Jack Adams trophy nomination.

A Selke trophy nomination.

An absolutely amazing team, an absolutely amazing season, with the potential to bag the most coveted of hockey trophies: the Stanley Cup.

I guess now would be a good as time as any to make a return to blogging!

100 games, with as many as 7 left to go for this season, all on the 40th anniversary of this club’s founding.

There’s been talk, lately, of ‘Canada’s Team.’ Despite throwing that term around jokingly on Twitter and to razz a few Flames fans, it’s not really something I’ve given a lot of thought.

On the one hand, yeah, given that the nation has shared in the return of NHL hockey to Winnipeg and there’s some sort of national pride behind the sport of hockey, you’d think that the Canucks could get in on that. If you go off what Ipsos-Reid has to say, support is running pretty high for the Canucks. Good on ya.

On the other hand, does it really matter? Since when has assimilation ever been a desired Canadian trait? There’s no need to press gang everyone from Alberta to Ontario onto the Canucks bandwagon. If they want to come along for the ride, great. If the folks in Manitoba want to fret over the  Winnipeg NHL Team, more power to them.

But this sense of entitlement? I don’t get where ANYONE is coming from on this. Who gives a good goddamned if Toronto is or isn’t cheering for the Canucks. Last I checked, there was a great deal of moral outrage when this musical abomination was forced upon us.

The presumption that any NHL club could dare to speak for the rest of Canada (particularly the widely loathed Toronto Maple Leafs) ticked off lots of Vancouver faithful.

So why, then, is it okay to embrace this silly melting pot style behaviour and try and inflict it upon the rest of Canada?

I’m not from Vancouver, heck, not even from British Columbia, but one of the things that has always struck me, an outsider, about Vancouver is how inclusive and varied the whole city is. To me, that sense of multiculturalism, that there’s Hockey Night in Punjabi, that the team’s captain is a Swede, one of the most important players on the team is an American and that there are Finns, Germans and people from just about every region of Canada is something that is uniquely Vancouver and should be celebrated as part of the hockey culture. (Except for Keith Ballard, cause man, AV seems to hate that guy…)

I could be out to lunch with this, I’ll freely admit. I’m an Albertan who spent a lot of his time in Ontario, so I might just have a distorted view of how things ‘really’ are in Vancity. But bottom line? Who cares if the Canucks aren’t accepted as being ‘Canada’s Team’? They’re Vancouver’s Team, a team which is uniquely Canadian.