Trust me, this is a soccer column. All right, then why am I jumping on the "let's complain some more about the Vancouver Canucks Hockey Team bandwagon"? Well, stick with me and you'll see the connection. I should point out at the outset that I consider myself a limited hockey fan with limited knowledge and yet a limited appreciation of the finer points of what is a great game.
It all started just a few short days ago when I had the good fortune to be offered at the last minute two club seats to the NHL game at General Motors Place between Vancouver and the Chicago Blackhawks — free gratis. Now these seats are worth $150 before popcorn. So I jumped at the chance and brought my 10-year-old son (a soccer fan but interested in hockey too) for some quality time at GM Place. The scene was set nicely. A full house in good Christmas cheer. The usual pre-game anticipation of entertainment and excitement. Well, as is sadly customary these days, the Canucks showed their incredible teamwork with the entire bunch taking another night off in perfect tandem while displaying a callous disregard to the paying customers who presumably were made up of a fair sprinkling of home team fans. Quality time, indeed. As a soccer coach to young kids, I was completely unable to explain to my 10-year-old what was happening right in front of our eyes.
Not only did the home team lose 5-0; not only did the Blackhawks have the first, second and third star ratings in an away rink; not only was Vancouver dominated in every area of play by a team that was not superior in talent but simply wanted "it" more, but the rather lame performance I saw rewarded, by my calculations, Mark Messier to the tune of more than $70,000 for his "efforts." Now I could just as easily have said Pavel Bure's $60,000 or Trevor Linden's $50,000 or Kirk McLean's whatever, (Kirk only had to sit in a seat and watch like the rest of us that night) or etc., etc. — wouldn't dream of just singling out Mighty Mark.
I'm thinking it could well be that you still don't see my point. After all, the same Canucks take off 50 per cent or more of the time they're supposed to be working, and as long as the seats in the stadium are sold, this behavior is apparently acceptable. Nobody in a position to do anything about it is going to care what quality of product is on display. On this particular point, I will mention in passing a suggestion I have for the Big Whales at Orca Bay. Pay your players a set game rate (to be determined by John Macaw) but along the lines of $1,000 each. If Vancouver wins, give the guys a bonus equivalent to the difference between $1,000 and the individual's current game rate. In other words, Pavel collects considerably more than Gino, and so on. If they lose, they just collect the base $1,000 — after all, I wouldn't like to see them starve. In a season such as this one with a record way below .500, the Orca could save $15 million in silly payments to these pretenders. Maybe ticket prices could reflect this and ordinary folk could afford to go watch them if they wished, but I realize that's stretching it a bit.
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