VANCOUVER — As fans arrive at Rogers Arena here, on the kind of spring day that makes every superlative ever used to describe this wonderful city seem understated, they are greeted by a statue.
The statue is of the great Roger Neilson waving his white towel.
It is, on one hand, the one statue-worthy moment this franchise has to celebrate. On the other hand, it is a travesty.
One of the smartest, most engaging and innovative coaches in our sport’s history, immortalized for the rare moment emotions got the better of him. Of all the great things Neilson accomplished in the game — and there were so, so many — here in Vancouver, they have eternalized him for whining about some rough calls one night in Chicago.
En route to the game, the local media personality is on the car radio, warning fans about one of that night’s referees and how he holds a grudge against the Canucks. The message is clear: We’re not getting a fair shake tonight, folks. The hockey establishment is against us, and it’ll be a miracle if we can overcome it.
Eventually the Canucks, one of the best teams in the NHL this season, take the ice in front of perhaps the loudest building we’ve been in on the playoff trail. But before we get going, let’s meet the Towel Kid, who waves a white towel before puck drop.
Institutionalized surrender.
People know what waving a white towel stands for, don’t they?
This is the culture that the Canucks players must overcome.
This is why nary a press conference passes here without poor coach Rick Tocchet being asked to comment on the officiating. Why players are peppered with questions about calls, and non-calls.
Why social media is as stocked with posts about officiating as it is with love for the Canucks, or shots at Nashville fans in Round 1, or Oilers fans in Round 2.
It’s the culture, and dare we say, a culture that has produced a 50-year team without a Stanley Cup banner in its rafters.
Let’s be clear: This isn’t on the fans. Not one bit.
Fans in every city see the game through goggles tinted to the colour of the home team. They’re supposed to be irate when a high-stick on Quinn Hughes get missed, and oblivious to the six Canucks skaters on the ice seconds before a Vancouver goal.
Fans have every right to cite Connor McDavid’s alleged embellishment, but gloss over the giant oak tree that is Nikita Zadorov, toppled by a love-tap from Warren Foegele. Or the knee taken by Quinn Hughes.
Canucks fans? God bless ‘em.
They’re rabid, hockey-lovin’ Canadians, and I’ll admit that back in 2011 I’d have preferred to chronicle a different ending to that woeful Game 7 against Boston. Fans pay my salary, and after two years of empty rinks during COVID, nights like the ones we just had in Rogers Arena is a reminder as to why we all love the game the way we do.
But in hockey, they say that if you arrive at the rink already wondering about the officiating, you are halfway to being beaten. And I’ll guarantee you, Tocchet and the Canucks are not willing participants in this. Victims, perhaps. But not willing ones.
Let the record show, the players and coaches are neither whining nor waving any white towels in Vancouver.
J.T. Miller’s post-game address Friday was accountable on a Hank and Danny Sedin level. Hughes too. Outstanding.
I don’t hear any references to officiating from any Canucks player or coach — until they are asked about it by media. It’s not their fault, this fixation.
So, from where does it come?
How did we get to a place where a media member is tapping his sources at the Department of Player Safety to see if Derek Ryan is due a suspension for a drive-by slash for which he was rightly given a minor penalty? As if that play has ever met the threshold of a even double minor, let alone a suspension?
How does the “Kelly Sutherland hates us” theme that fans lap up — but accredited media should laugh off — get legitimate traction here?
Must we go all the way back to the great Vancouver hockey columnist Tony Gallagher — Dear Leader of the Tinfoil Hats Brigade — an old friend and able wordsmith who taught this market that Gary Bettman would rather they lose, and the referees were microchipped to slant games in the direction of whichever team was in town that night?
How is it that, of the 32 press boxes I’ve spent the past 35 years in, this is the one where the intermission topic of conversation is officiating. Night after night, after whiney, complaining night?
So, here’s the deal: As an Edmonton-based writer, you can write me off as a homer. Go ahead.
I’m also the guy who has heard from colleagues around the NHL about how the Oilers were going to mop up the Canucks in four or five easy games, an opinion I never shared. Today, I’m vindicated to see a series that is in no way lopsided.
Hell, it could easily stand at 2-0 for Vancouver. Lopsided, indeed.
I picked the Oilers in six and I’ll stay with that, but already we can see how equal these teams are. How neither team requires a break from the zebras to win, and frankly, how a series with fewer power plays dotted throughout probably favours the Canucks.
But the Oilers do have an edge in this series, as does every team who ever played Vancouver.
They are not surrounded by the Great Conspiracy, the way Canucks teams have been for so many years.
They are not burdened by institutionalized surrender, the haunting knowledge that the deck is stacked against them. That if they are able to beat that night’s opponent, the referees will still have to be conquered. And after that, perhaps the league office.
They’re not waving a white towel even before the game begins, because nobody in pro sports celebrates surrender — except for one franchise.
Here, they quit before they play. Because who has a chance with these refs, anyhow?
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