Thank you fans!

There’s not much to say right now, it’s still too fresh, but we’ll start with a nice hearty thank you for your unparallelled support all season.

Moko the Canucks fan

If you haven’t checked out ThisIsWhatWeLiveFor.com yet, you are truly missing out. It’s the biggest, bestest, baddest collection of Vancouver Canucks fan media around, and without it, we may have never heard from Moko, the African Grey, who is a HUGE Canucks fan.

Don’t forget to tag your media with #TIWWLF to have it included at ThisIsWhatWeLiveFor.com.

Volleyballin’

I received an interesting email from a Canucks fan named Erin yesterday, she’s trying hard to convince her non-hockey fan of a roommate to cheer for the Vancouver Canucks and she had a couple of questions.

One query in particular caught my attention and the answer may be part of the reason the Canucks are clawing their way back into the Western Conference Quarter-Final.

From Erin: Yesterday Kevin Bieksa tweeted, “Good re-group day today for the boys! Lots of team bonding….Got these guys right where we want them!!” Do you know what they would do on their day off? Obviously Booth and Rome ate breakfast together, but do you know what anyone else did? My roommate thought they should go to Disney Land or the beach.

Disneyland wasn’t in the plans, but time at the beach certainly was.

Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault gave his team this past Monday off to clear their heads and the players took him up on that.

Hockey, and the most epic comeback in franchise history, were not the focus; Roberto Luongo and Alex Burrows rented bikes and made their way through Venice Beach, Mason Raymond and Kevin Bieksa did some shopping, and a group of Canucks, 10 to be exact, made their way down to the beach to play an intense game of volleyball.

I wasn’t there, neither was photographer Jeff Vinnick, so there are no photos of the guys kicking up sand, but according to Keith Ballard, it was quite the show.

The guys split up into two teams of five and played with only one rule: underhand serves only – Ballard joked the rules was put in place because of his lethal overhand serve. Turns out Dan Hamhuis can hang up his skates anytime because he’s basically a professional volleyball player, although he did later admit to having a court at his home in Smithers, BC.

Ballard said the guys bonded and had a lot of laughs, especially at the different approaches to volleyball from the North Americans compared to the Swedish players. When a ball came flying over the net, Ballard and others reacted by diving into the sand to bump it up, while the Swedes, when faced with the same dilemma, kicked a foot out to save the ball.

Interesting.

This, of course, has nothing to do with anything, other than it’s good to know the Canucks didn’t spent the days between Games 3 and 4 moping in their rooms. They moved on, bonded, and it certainly showed Wednesday as Vancouver rallied for a 3-1 win to stay alive.

No word on if a volleyball game is scheduled prior to Game 5, Kits beach may not be ready for all the underhand madness.

A hero will rise

If the Vancouver Canucks hope to play another day, someone needs to step up. Thanks to Derek Toye for sending out the signal. We’ll see who responds.

Dragon support

Jim Treliving is at it again. Last year the Dragons’ Den and Vancouver Canucks fan backed his team all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, now, during the tough times, Treliving is back with a message to the team for Game 4.

Hold the phone

Fred Ewanuick isn’t only a great actor, he’s a great actor who loves the Vancouver Canucks. Every now and again he puts pen to paper and writes about his team and yesterday he emailed me the following to show his support going into Game 4.

Hold the phone. Nobody’s won anything just yet.

Why is it crazy to think the Canucks won’t win this series? I don’t think it’s so nuts to think that. 

It’s fair to say the Canucks have a very good chance to take game four.  They were the better team for the majority of game three. They didn’t score, sure, but the good news is, they haven’t forced Quick to make that huge save, either. And, I believe, that with this extra long break, the Canucks get a chance to step back and think about what they need to do to make it even harder on not just Quick, but all of the LA Kings.

So, if the Canucks can pull out a victory in Game 4, I think it’s just as reasonable to think that they have a great chance to take the next game in Vancouver. The Canucks, all season, have been able to stop those negative streaks, and then take that momentum and roll with it. So, two wins could very well lead to three. It’s not so crazy of a thing. It happens all the time. Then we’re at a game seven, winner takes all.  Then, my fellow Canuck fans, anything can happen.

I know the stats seem to be against them. Something like 160+ series starting in a 3-0 lead, the team with the lead has taken the vast majority of those series.  However, I see it this way, in the history of the Stanley Cup playoffs, three teams have comeback to win a series being down 3-0. There’s no question in my mind, that the Vancouver Canucks have a group of guys that can boost that stat to Four. Four teams that have come back from a 3-0 deficit.

Keep faith fellow Canuck fans, it AINT OVER YET.

Go Canucks Go!

Beyond awesome art, courtesy of Brenden Mersey.

— Daniel Sedin, post-practice Tuesday, on how he’s feeling and if he’ll dress for the Canucks in Game 4.

LA fun times

Monday started off on a somewhat hilarious note. Canucks cameraman Rory McGarry, Team 1040’s Dave Tomlinson and myself went for breakfast to this great place called Jinky’s Cafe in Santa Monica.

We walk into the restaurant and Aaron Rome and David Booth are, coincidentally enough, in a booth eating breakfast. We said hi and sat down and didn’t hear from them until Booth yelled over ‘Boo,’ to which I turned and smiled, thinking he was just being a dork.

Turns out the waitress, who happens to be from Vancouver, recognized Rome and Booth as Canucks, so she was chatting them up when Booth decided to deflect the attention to us. Booth wasn’t yelling ‘Boo,’ he was yelling ‘Lu,’ as in Roberto Luongo. He told the waitress I was Luongo and that Rory was Cory Schneider.

Rome and Booth finished eating and stopped for a quick chat before taking off and leaving us with our new fan Norita, who suddenly became the greatest waitress in the world. She eventually worked up the courage to come talk to us about our play and wasn’t long into her spiel about what a big fan she is when Rory broke the news that we aren’t players. Things got awkward when she still asked to have her picture taken with us.

What a way to start the day!

Monday was busy in the morning and early afternoon after the news of Daniel Sedin joining the team surfaced and I worked until about 3:30 p.m. before trading my make-believe work hat for a make-believe play hat. That’s when Rory, Dave, Jeff Vinnick and I rented bikes and made our way down to Venice Beach - one of the coolest places anywhere ever.

We watched some hockey before heading over to the Santa Monica pier to play air-hockey before heading over to some incredible pizza place for a slice to end the night with.

Monday truly was funday, but now that we’re re-energized, players too, it’s time to get back to work. The Canucks practice this afternoon in preparation for Game 4 Wednesday.