With only a single day left in 2018, The Canuck Way wants to look back on the ten most notable Vancouver Canucks moments of the year.
As the clock winds down on 2018, I thought we could take a look at the last calendar year for the Vancouver Canucks. We had highs, lows, moments of absolute pride and having to say an emotional goodbye to two of the greatest players to ever lace up the skates for this franchise.
This list will have some of what you expect, but also things you would not. That’s why I’m calling this “10 notable moments” and not a simple top ten. The latter tends to be full of only the best moments of the year, but I think that doesn’t capture everything that happened.
Don’t worry, it won’t be 10 negative things either. There should be a good mix of what we see. A lot can happen in 12 months and this year in particular stood out. We had controversies. Plenty of them; things that got Canucks fans fired up and drawing lines in the sand.
We had unity over our star players and Canucks Twitter reminded the Hockey World why they hated us long ago. I would say “poor Oilers fans,” but no self-respecting Canucks fan would give up any ground to that dysfunctional franchise. But hey, at least they have a top five NHL player. Just don’t put him up against Elias Pettersson.
Of course, not everything will make the list. You won’t see Sam Gagner on waivers or how much better the Canucks play with DJ Michael Del Zotto in the pressbox instead of on the ice. Brandon Sutter‘s moronic quote about catching Chicago in an already lost season won’t make it either. Unfortunately, Jacob Markstrom‘s incredible December tear is not on the list either. That might deserve its own separate deep dive.
I don’t even have the major shift in local media coverage when the Provies evolved into the VIP experience that is The Athletties. We were introduced to Boy Genius Harman Dayal (former TCW alumnus, by the way). Canucks coverage has grown beyond the local talking heads on the radio and the hosts on a certain station have adapted to the changing landscape. Much has happened this year and it’s difficult to narrow it down to ten. But here is my best crack at it.