Fan In Van

Bracket 2: Canuck Commercials

Mats Sundin and Wayne Gretzky’s commercial with McDonald’s has secured Bracket 1 and will be moving on to the semi-finals! Thanks to all who voted.

Bracket Two is here, and it features some of the Canucks’ best commercials:

1. The Sedin twins appear in their first of hopefully many commercials. Not only are they talented on the ice but they’re a pretty good dancing duo. This commercial was filmed for the NHL Network’s myNHL.

2. One of the Canucks’ first commercials with Nike-Bauer focusing on one player, Markus Naslund broke the barriers for the team as he teamed up with Atlanta Thrashers forward Ilya Kovalchuk in an advertisement for Nike.

3. Markus Naslund’s air time didn’t end there, as the summer after he joined up with Calgary’s superstar Jarome Iginla to promote Nike’s “Ready for Your :45?” campaign. The commercial gives new meaning to the word “Snipeshow”.

4. In an ad not shown on television, Roberto Luongo does a brief 15-second commercial for NHL.com. Here, he learns how to tackle the opposing player in a shootout with some help from a fan.

5. Sportsnet teamed up with Roberto Luongo last summer to do a nice and clever spot showing that “Perfection Matters”. It was a commercial for Sportsnet’s “Hockey That Matters” promotion that was a big hit with local fans.

Go out and vote!

The Buzz

The other day I got bitten by a mosquito so have so aptly named this post “The Buzz” as a tribute to those blood suckers who have made my nights very itchy. If you haven’t done so already, I recommend going to see The Dark Knight; what a great movie with fantastic acting by Ledger.

Here’s what’s bothering me this Monday morning (Aside from being awake at 9AM):

• Jay Bouwmeester has just re-signed with the Florida Panthers to a one-year, $4.8M deal, but don’t think that Bouwmeester is a lock to start the year with the team. Word around the media is that Bouwmeester has rejected multiple long-term contract offers from the Panthers, including a deal worth over $5M a season for three to four years. It’s clear he’s sick of the Panthers rebuilding year after year and would like to get out of Miami. I’m pretty certain management knows he’s not going to be a Panther by the end of next season either, since they acquired Keith Ballard and Nick Boynton for their blueline.

• I’m very impressed that the Saskatchewan “Roughed-riders” have been able to go an astounding 5-0 despite their numerous injuries. With Marcus Crandell, DJ Flick, John Chick, Weston Dressler, Leron Mitchell all out, things got worse last night when they lost second-string QB Darian Durant and star receiver Andy Fantuz. That is absolutely ridiculous. That is like the BC Lions losing Jarious Jackson, Paris Jackson, Jason Clermont, Javy Glatt and more. The Roughriders’ ability to continue to win with their current lineup shows how deep the team is.

• You know who I’m not impressed with? Casey Printers. The ex-Lion has yet to throw for a touchdown this season, and despite the limited corps of receivers on the Ti-Cats, Printers should have had at least one by now. He continually hands the ball off to leading rusher Jesse Lumsden and opponents are keying in on that. Printers doesn’t seem to have the running game he had two years ago with the Lions. Now faced with a thumb injury and the possibility of missing the next game, Printers’ stock is sagging.

• He may not have won the RBC Canadian Open this weekend, but Mike Weir certainly gave the Canadian hopefuls in the crowd something to cheer about. He finished a respectable 5th and was in the hunt from start to finish. His play in the 2nd round back nine in particular was exceptional.

If you haven’t done so already, make sure you keep voting for the NHL’s Best Commercial!

Bracket 1: The Oldies

Four videos fighting for supremacy:

1. Mats Sundin and Wayne Gretzky w/ McDonald’s. In a commercial that was filmed sometime in the mid to late 1990s, Sundin and Gretzky show off their skills in order to find out who will buy lunch at McDonald’s.

2. Former Buffalo Sabres tough guy Rob Ray (Who once punched out a fan) takes his enforcer skills to a different workplace. Filmed for ESPN, Ray takes the words ’security guard’ to new heights.

3. Another commercial featuring The Great One, but with his old pal Mark Messier along for the ride. The two are squaring off against each other in an intense game of Chess. Filmed for NHL Network during their “Coolest Game on Earth” campaign.

4. Eric Lindros is featured with his Philadelphia Flyers jersey needing to be washed. Except the team geek quickly gets himself into trouble with Big 88. This commercial was filmed for IBM Computers. Like Eric Lindros, IBM also did not live up to the hype.

Vote for the Best NHL Commercials!

Wayne Gretzky has been in a ton of them. Sidney Crosby is starting to get his fair share. We’ve seen Markus Naslund in a couple as well. But do you know which one is the best?

Exclusively from FanInVan.Com is the Best Hockey Commercial contest! We’ve got the best 25 NHL commercials and we’re putting them head to head. Your job is to vote for which commercials should move on to the finals and take the prestigious award of Best Hockey Commercial.

Six brackets, 25 commercials in total. Each week I’ll post one bracket and you will vote for the best commercial using the polls section to the right. The winner of that bracket will take part in a semi-final of THREE commercials. The winners of the semi-finals will then go head-to-head in the FanInVan Final to find the one and only winner of Best NHL Commercial.

Starting tonight, the first bracket will be revealed and you’ll have access to four commercials from YouTube. Once you’ve picked the best commercial, cast your vote!

So in case you’re still confused, here’s what you’ve gotta do:

1. Keep checking FanInVan.com for updates on the Best NHL Commercials.
2. Watch the commercials, which will be included in the post. All you’ve got to do is press play and let it load!
3. Cast your vote in the POLLS section to the right!
4. Repeat!

August Not Coming Fast Enough

So while Canuck fans are impatiently waiting Mats Sundin’s decision on whether or not he will return to the NHL and if so to which Canadian club, there’s a lot of other notable news going on around the NHL and other sports.

• It looks like Boston veteran Glen Murray could find himself without a contract in the next while, as according to the Boston Globe he has been put on waivers with the possible intention of buying him out. Murray is a player who’s game was transformed for the worst after the lockout, managing only 69 goals in 186 games. At 35, it may soon be curtains for Murray’s NHL tenure. Sounds like he should take ex-Bruins teammate Jason Allison and Jeff O’Neill to the KHL.
• How bad do I feel for Ryan Didwiddie? Well, pretty bad. The guy has a grand total of two CFL starts at quarterback with the Blue Bombers, and his first came in last year’s Grey Cup final. His second start will come Thursday night against the Stamps, as he tries to right the floundering ship in Winnipeg, his team being 0-4 in the process. Tough odds, and tough luck for Dinwiddie.
• There’s probably not one Canadian athlete more deserving of carrying the Canadian flag than Adam van Koeverden. As one of kayaking’s best, van Koeverden has worked extremely hard to accomplish what he has done in his career. With a gold and bronze medal in his trophy case, he is a sure bet to compete for podium finishes this summer as well.
• With the Olympics fast approaching, look ahead to 2010 and you have to think this will probably be the last time the NHL will allow its players to compete in the Olympics. Having professionals play in the Olympics is a bit of an issue with me; when you have the World Cup of Hockey, what point is there to have pros compete in the Olympics? My solution is to take professionals out of the Olympics and allow young kids from junior leagues to represent Canada, and let professionals compete in the World Cup. It gives other countries a better chance at competing for the podium in the Olympics.
• Who is number one in men’s tennis? Federer or Nadal? After watching one of the best matches in tennis history at June’s Wimbledon final, I have to say it’s pretty close. Federer has held the #1 seed for over five years but so far he’s been beaten in both the French Open and Wimbledon by Nadal. It goes without saying that the number one seed will be revealed after August’s US Open in Flushing Meadows.

All that said… Mats Sundin, make up your mind soon, because some of us are ripping our hair out waiting for your decision. Is it August yet?

3 Weeks Later…

Three weeks ago, there was a lot of uncertainty regarding the future of some of the NHL’s prolific players. We had no gosh darn clue where Marian Hossa was going, a fortune teller couldn’t have seen that ten million dollar offer to Mats Sundin, and boy that four-year, $14M contract which octupled (Is that even a word?) Jeff Finger’s previous salary sure came out of left field.

And if one were to flash forward today, there are a handful of winners and losers. Sure, we can go ahead and say that Detroit’s ability to lure Marian Hossa to their side of the pond was a pretty gnarly deal, but I can also go ahead and tell you that Mike Commodore’s five-year, $18.75M pact with Columbus could be a giant mosquito bite in the rear two or three years from now.

I’m breaking down the current winners and losers of this year’s offseason:

WINNER: Calgary Flames, for managing to retain Daymond Langkow, Craig Conroy and the Vandermeer brothers to modest contracts which should keep their core together.

LOSER: The Calgary Flames, for deciding to bring in Todd Bertuzzi. No offense, Big Bert, but if you were hated in Calgary before what happened on March 8th, 2004, that rings some alarm bells.

WINNER: Tampa Bay Lightning, who have bolstered their forward core with the ilk of Ryan Malone and Steven Stamkos, making them a sure bet to finish top five in league scoring.

LOSER: Tampa Bay Lightning, who, on top of Malone and Stamkos, have brought in another NINE, COUNT ‘EM, NINE forwards along for the trip: Chris Gratton, Brandon Bochenski, Evgeny Artyukhin, Mark Recchi, David Koci, Adam Hall, Radim Vrbata, Vaclav Prospal and Gary Roberts. In other news, I also hear Dave Andreychuk is considering a comeback… Dear God, I hope not.

WINNER: Chicago Blackhawks, who look to be a playoff team with the huge additions of Cristobal Huet and Brian Campbell. A mix of both youth, talent and speed, this Original Six club could find it’s way back into the playoffs for the first time since the mid-90s.

LOSER: The Blackhawks for overspending. And we’re talking real overspending here, folks. On Campbell and Huet alone, ownership was willing to pony up a big wad of cash for their services. And I’m not going to tell you how much it cost, but I’ve never seen $80 MILLION dollars thrown around like that before!

WINNER: The Dallas Stars managed to win the Fabian Brunnstrom sweepstakes and then went out and landed a pretty big fish (and mouth) in Sean Avery. Avery’s on-ice presence and off-ice antics should bring a little more vibrance back into the Dallas hockey community.

LOSER: The San Jose Sharks will not be a better club this year. After being ousted in the second round by Dallas, San Jose lost Brian Campbell and for a replacement signed aging veteran Rob Blake to a ridiculous one-year $5M offer. While it’s only one year, the albatross contract puts the Sharks right up against the salary cap.

Put ‘Em Up

If I had a dollar for every fight the Vancouver Canucks were involved in last season … well, I would probably be a pretty rich man. However if I had a dollar for every fight they won … Well, I could be living on the streets.

Despite the Canucks so valiantly finished first in the league with major penalties (Yes, even ahead of Brian Burke’s Ducks) the team didn’t finish with a very positive record, and a lot of those losses can be credited to the team speed bag, Jeff Cowan.

Nothing against the Brabarian, but when the team delegated him as the heavyweight, they were begging to be disappointed. They might as well have allowed a rabid dog to be feasting on him right from the get go. Sure, he had a few wins against the occasional Zach Stortini and Jared Boll, but the fact remains Cowan is not a good fighter. I mean honestly … Can you say that the Canucks were really that tough as the stats indicate?

With nothing against the likes of Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows, Kevin Bieksa, Mike Brown and Byron Ritchie, the Canucks have been in desperate need of an enforcer since Darren Langdon’s golden days in 2003.

Enter the Mike Gillis area, where we enforce intelligence, integrity and team toughness.

The new general manager obviously carried the same mindset as a lot of teams in the league, and he went out to get the biggest, baddest enforcer possible.

What? What do you mean, we didn’t get Georges Laraque?!

Okay, so Darcy Hordichuk is the second best enforcer available. But if you YouTube this crazy cat by going to his official website, www.darcyhordichuk.com , you’ll see the guy hold his own against some of the biggest brutes in the league. In addition, Gillis went out and snagged Steve Bernier and Rob Davison, those heart and soul type character guys who will battle endlessly for a team.

So while goal scoring may still be an issue for this club, this team will definitely be a tougher opponent to play against next season.

Sundin Is Coming

I’ve got a really strange feeling about what’s going to shake down in the next couple of weeks, or even days. It’s clear that if the Vancouver Canucks somehow manage to lure Mats Sundin to the West, the team is, at worst, a playoff team. Factor in the impending Pavol Demitra signing … and things are suddenly looking up.

Canuck fans folks, are fickle. Hell read my post below and you’d think the sky was falling. But if the Canucks manage to snag both Sundin and Demitra while acquiring Bernier, then Mike Gillis comes out of July smelling like a bed of roses. Only last week the general Canuck fanbase was saying we should trade the Sedins and Luongo and hope to draft super phenom John Tavares next June.

But again, something is up in Vancouver and it seems to be stemming from the depths of GM Place. A couple of things are leading me to believe Mats Sundin will be a Canuck come the end of the month:

1. Mike Gillis has remained confident over the last ten days. Since his blockbuster offer of $10M came out on July 1st, he has vocally expressed that the team has offered the best deal Sundin can receive.
2. There have been rumblings that Gillis, Sundin and his agent JP Barry have been in close contact, speaking as frequently as everyday. Some talk is better than none in this instance.
3. Mattias Ohlund told The Vancouver Sun two days ago that he is prepared to pump up Vancouver to his close Swedish friend Sundin.
4. Sundin’s agent declared today that Mats will NOT retire and will at least return to the NHL.
5. There were rumours this week that Sundin and his fiance Josephine Johansson were in Vancouver earlier, touring the city.

Perhaps the reason why Sundin hasn’t yet come to a decision is because he is still mulling over his options. But my personal hunch is that maybe the Canucks are waiting on Demitra’s contract status so they can introduce the two together?

Either way, should Mats Sundin come to Vancouver, it will make for a very interesting season in the future. The Canucks can become a very good team with Sundin and Demitra in the fold.

What are your thoughts? Weigh in at the comments section!

A Cruel Summer

I’m normally a pretty positive Vancouver Canuck fan, but these last three months have been extremely hard for me, and I’m sure it’s equally trying for every single fan in this town. In my own view, this is probably one of the most darkest summers this franchise has ever had.

First we lost promising defenceman Luc Bourdon to tragedy, and then we lost the greatest player this franchise has ever had to retirement. And in a span of three days, we’ve struck out on some big name free agents and signed plug hockey players. But possibly one of this team’s greatest losses came today when we lost captain Markus Naslund.

This offseason has been an absolute disaster with the exception of the NHL draft. GM Mike Gillis has not done enough to bring that “winning tradition” owner Francesco Aqualini hired him for. In fact, Gillis has done the exact opposite. By swinging for the fences in trying to lure Mats Sundin for an appalling $20M over two years, Gillis has missed the boat on Marian Hossa, Kristian Huselius, Sean Avery and a hell of a lot more. In the three days since free agency has opened, Gillis has spent only 2.5M of the estimated 21M he had in salary cap space, signing Ryan Johnson, Darcy Hordichuk, Nolan Baumgartner and Curtis Sanford.

Now it’s all well and good for him to address those depth issues and role player voids that will be left by Brad Isbister and Byron Ritchie, but this sounds an awful lot like something ex-GM Dave Nonis did. At least with Nonis, the Canucks seemed to be headed in a direction with a plan: Build through the draft and succeed with strong goaltending and defence with a mediocre offence. But Gillis has been making moves which has left me scratching my head: The unprecedented 10M-a-year offer to Mats Sundin left me shell shocked for days.

And Markus Naslund’s now certain departure has sent this franchise in a downward spiral. Up until yesterday things didn’t look so bleak with the Canucks still having the chance to reel in Sundin and possibly have Naslund play alongside him for a legitimate two-line threat. But with Sundin putting playing plans on indefinite hold and Naslund gone, this franchise faces even more uncertainty than they did before the offseason began.

What happened in the span of three months? This fanbase though having Naslund and Brendan Morrison off the books would bring in new blood and fresh talent. But now it appears this club is headed for something much, much worse than that.

Post Your UFA Predictions!

Alright folks, this is it: Christmas in July. The time for talk is over for teams who wanted to retain their players from last season, and now everyone is up for grabs. Who’s going where? It’s your time to call the shots. Post your free agent predictions. The person with the most correct predictions will be declared the winner. Good luck!

THE BIG NAMES (3 PTS per correct answer)

Joe Sakic - Colorado

Pavol Demitra - Vancouver

Kristian Huselius - Atlanta

Wade Redden - San Jose

Mats Sundin - Montreal

Ryan Malone - Tampa Bay

Brian Campbell - Ottawa

Marian Hossa - Vancouver

THE (EX?) CANUCKS (2 PTS per correct answer)

Brad Isbister - Los Angeles

Aaron Miller - Retired

Brendan Morrison - New York Islanders

Markus Naslund - Pittsburgh

Byron Ritchie - Europe

Curtis Sanford - Edmonton

THE REST (1 PT per correct answer)

Todd Bertuzzi - Atlanta

Teemu Selanne - Anaheim

Doug Weight - Retired

Alex Auld - Vancouver

Andrew Brunette - Colorado

John Michael Liles - Philadelphia

Jose Theodore - Tampa Bay

Brian Rolston - San Jose

Michael Ryder - Vancouver

Mark Streit - Montreal

Sean Avery - Florida

Jaromir Jagr - Russia OMSK

Michal Roszival - Ottawa

Brendan Shanahan - Retired

Ray Emery - Los Angeles

Cory Stillman - Minnesota

Ty Conklin - Pittsburgh

Georges Laraque - Columbus

Darcy Tucker - Philadelphia

I’ve got Vancouver making a serious splash, getting Marian Hossa, Pavol Demitra, Alex Auld and Michael Ryder.