Vancouver Canucks: Pleading for Patience From Fellow Canucks Fans

During the organisation’s difficult transition phase, Vancouver Canucks fans will have to be patient and believe in the process.

On this typical soggy day in a Vancouver suburb, I am pleading for patience from my fellow Vancouver Canucks fans. It won’t be easy, nor will there likely be a short reprieve. But as a fan since the year before the Russian Rocket arrived in Vancouver, and having experienced the highs of the 1994 run as well as the lean Keenan years of the late 1990s, I am fairly certain it will all pay off in the end if we are patient.

A Bit of Nostalgia

I remember my first experience involving the Canucks was around 1988, when I received second-hand pajamas bearing the beloved “skate logo” (beloved to me, anyway). At the time, it was “only a hockey logo,” as few members of my family were hockey fans, and my strict, ultra-conservative father felt (and in many ways still feels) sports fanaticism to be a waste of time and energy.

Patience was indeed the order of the day, as only a few years later, in 1992 (without retelling my entire, tedious life story in monotonous detail), I almost lost the guy to lung failure – but at the same time was introduced to the game that would be my off-ice passion (I could never play the game due to spina bifida hydrocephalus acquired at birth).

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I obviously did not have very long to wait for the team to grow from divisional champions to an unforgettable run at the Stanley Cup in 1994 (June 14 being the day the NHL as a league lost me with the real arrival of the Commish – Gary Bettman – as a force in league affairs to the detriment of all real fans). It was something I would never forget, and ultimately drew me back to the league in the early 2000s, particularly with the return of Trevor Linden.

Lesson Learned

But enough nostalgia.

Having been a fan all these years, I have learned one thing: Good things come to those who wait. I know it’s frustrating, both for fans young and old – whether it be new fans, people like me, or even die-hards from the early 1970s. But the only way out of these lean years we are experiencing – the only way to accelerate their necessary passing – is patience.

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I get it. Tickets in Vancouver aren’t necessarily always for the most avid fan in terms of affordability.

It stings even more with the knowledge that your team will probably lose, or worse, get blown out of the rink before things really start to improve with respect to wins and losses. Many bandwagoners will abandon the arena anyway. I can’t help that.

But for fans like me, if they can spare the change and winning a championship matters, it will be worth it to send a message to ownership and the franchise that we are on board with a management system that will ultimately garner results. At least as long as they stay the course and don’t try to make the playoffs next year at the expense of something special possibly soon after.

We are educated-enough fans to know how patience pays off around the league. Rebuild the right way and we’ll have something to cheer about soon. That’s why I’m pleading for patience from fellow fans who might be discouraged and rightly sick of losing.

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These 37 years have been long enough to wait for a cup run. Let’s wait a few more and get the job done right (perhaps, with any luck, after Bettman’s departure).

Keep it together, Vancouver Canucks fans. The journey has just begun. Let’s have some fun with it.