Ben Kuzma of The Province has an interview with Ben Cooper, where the Canucks' new video coach speaks quite extensively about his experience working with Mike Babcock on the 2010 Olympic team:
He’s very inclusive of the video coach and wants to know everything. You’re with him all the time and he breaks down video on his own and he’s watching clips all day, constantly. He’ll start after a game with 100 clips and make comments and then get down to 70 and start the process again and get down to 10 clips.Mike’s video meetings with the players are very short, focused and direct and maybe six or seven minutes. And he’s got a real presence in the room.
Cooper also served as video coach for Hockey Canada when Willie Desjardins coached Canada's World Junior team in 2010, so the two have worked together in the past. It sounds like Cooper has some idea of what will be expected of him this season:
Ten or 15 years ago with VHS tape, it literally took forever to make a video meeting for the next day. Now, technology allows you to do more. The workload isn’t less, but you can analyze scoring chances, special teams and player shifts quicker. Every team is doing it — trying to outwork the other team on the ice and behind closed doors.
Sports Layoffs at CBC
Laura Kane is reporting in today's Globe and Mail that the CBC has now announced the layoffs of sportscasters Steve Armitage and Mark Lee.
Lee has done play-by-play on Hockey Night in Canada's late games for the past couple of years, while Armitage has been a fixture at CBC Sports for as long as I can remember. Here's a great clip of him introducing Game 6 of the Canucks/Flames series from 1989—when the Canucks came within a breath of defeating the soon-to-be Stanley Cup champions in the first round.
Don Taylor's departure from Sportsnet last week reminds us that broadcasting is a tough industry these days, no matter who you work for. Still, it's sad to see CBC budgets slashed to the point where they can't compete in sports, a sector that can still draw live viewers and serious advertising dollars.
Who Wore It Best?
Despite our poll showing Lars Lindgren and Raffi Torres holding down the top two spots for "Who Wore It Best" at No. 13, Canucks.com gave the edge to Artem Chubarov.
That's sort of the point of this exercise—to give us a chance to explore all the options. I can't say I remember there being any sort of fuss about Chubarov's four consecutive game-winning goals. Given that they happened over three seasons, it seems like the kind of record that might have been dug up after the fact.
I figured Mats Sundin would get some write-in votes yesterday. I didn't include him in the poll because he was only here for 41 games, and because he was such a shadow of his former self. I know there's a school of thought that appreciated his leadership but when I think of Sundin in a Canucks uniform, I just think about his skating—by that point in his career, he was slow!
Anyway, on to No. 14. Worn my many, though few made much of an impact. Alex Burrows will certainly be up for consideration when he retires. For now, here are your nominees:
Geoff Courtnall: Courtnall initially wore No. 10 when he was traded to Vancouver in the spring of 1991. He switched to No. 14 in his first full season, leaving 10 open for Pavel Bure when he arrived.
An undrafted player, Courtnall was playing for his hometown Victoria Cougars in the WHL when he was signed as a free agent by Boston in the summer of 1983. After one season in the minors, the left-winger made the full-time leap to the NHL. In 1987-88, he scored a total of 36 goals. Traded to Edmonton at the deadline, he was part of the Oilers' fourth Stanley Cup run, though he had just three points in 19 playoff games.
Courtnall was traded to Washington that summer, then on to St. Louis two years later, which is where the Canucks picked him up. He became a key part of the team that went to the Stanley Cup Final in 1994, scoring the Game 5 overtime goal that started Vancouver's first-round rally when they were down 3-1 to Calgary in the first round of the '94 playoffs.
All told, Courtnall scored 102 goals and 246 points in 292 games with Vancouver. He signed as a free agent with St. Louis in the summer of 1995 and retired in 1999 due to concussion issues.
Despite the concussions, Courtnall's had a good life since retirement. He's an avid runner who ran 3:14:13 in the 2012 Boston Marathon and is now dating Sarah McLachlan, according to a May 2014 article in Maclean's.
Moe Lemay: Drafted in the fifth round in 1981, Lemay was a longshot who played 279 of his 317 career games for the Vancouver Canucks. He was a rookie with just five games of big-league experience when the Canucks went to the Stanley Cup Final in 1982. He didn't see any playoff action but I remember him riding in the celebratory parade.
Lemay's best year with Vancouver was 1984-85, when he scored 21 goals and 52 points.
He was traded to Edmonton for Raimo Summanen at the 1987 trade deadline. Lemay posted two goals and an assist in nine postseason games with the Oilers and got his name engraved on the Stanley Cup.
After leaving the NHL in 1989, Lemay went on to enjoy a long career in Europe, playing his last season with the Hamburg Crocodiles in 1999-2000.
Chris Oddleifson: I talked about Oddleifson back at No. 11, but he played six of his seven seasons in Vancouver wearing No. 14. Oddleifson wasn't a big scorer—he posted just 85 goals in 469 games with the Canucks—but he was a good leader and a key part of the Canucks' young team on the rise in the mid-1970s.
Lots of notable names who passed through for short stints wore No. 14, among them Darby Hendrickson, Josh Holden, Scott Lachance, Brandon Reid, Geoff Sanderson and Doug Wickenheiser.
Looks to me like it's gotta be Courtnall.