Hansen or Lapierre?

I’ve made my fair share of mistakes over the years, last night before I went to sleep there was three minutes left in an epsiode of Rosanne and I watched it.

I’m far from perfect, I admit it. But when you work for the Vancouver Canucks, it’s important to know who the actual Vancouver Canucks are – telling the players apart is essential. No, I’m not talking about the twins, although I did master Hank vs. Dank earlier this year, this concerns Maxim Lapierre and Jannik Hansen.

The photo below appeared in Monday’s Behind the Lens gallery – I captioned it: Maxim Lapierre reads the morning news.

Tuesday the photo below was featured in Behind the Lens – I captioned it: Jannik Hansen reads the morning news.

Moments after each Behind the Lens gallery was posted on Canucks.com and tweeted out via @VanCanucks, fans were all over me for not knowing the difference between the players. I got probably 50 tweets directed my way, including one with head shots of both guys to prove I was wrong, which I laughed off; all one had to do was look at the nameplate above the stall to know what was going on.

A lot of you didn’t. Like jonnycanuck46, who started an entire thread devoted to it on Canucks.com saying: The last two behind the lens installments (Days 2 and 3), The captioner (I’m assuming Jory) has tagged Max Lapierre in all Jannik Hansen’s shots, and Jannik Hansen in all Max Lapierre shots? Funny, I’m guessing this is another behind the scenes joke with the team?

Or like Trudi Alves ‏, aka @Burrowsfan_14, who tweeted: @VanCanucks it’s Max Lapierre not Jannick Hansen. #derekjorypostturbulencesyndrome

So, yes, to clarify: I am an idiot, but I can tell the Canucks apart. I was just Jannikin’ your chains.

THE PILOTS

Trudi’s tweet did make me laugh for the clever hashtag though, which relates back to this feature I did yesterday on Henrik Sedin’s fear of flying. I wasn’t sure if it would end up a blog post or an actual feature, but Henrik was really into it, he’s legit freaked out up in the clouds, as am I, and it turned into a story I’m proud of – or was proud of.

Tuesday night Jeff Vinnick and I met up with the three of four members of the Air Canucks flight crew for supper in downtown Chicago and wouldn’t you know it, they had also invited the Air Canucks pilots. Derek, these are our current pilots, Allan and Gilles; guys this is Derek Jory, the writer for the Canucks. “So you’re the one who wrote about the flights being turbulent…” Allan, sitting across from me, deadpanned. “Interesting story,” added Gilles, seated to my right, even deadpanneder.

Five…10…15 seconds went by before the pilots both cracked up laughing. They were just messing with me and I almost messed myself.

They are both great guys, but I do not recommend hearing horror stories from pilots if you are already uneasy about flying. I will not be relaying their tales to Henrik.

WAR FACE

Saturday night when the Canucks hosted the Columbus Blue Jackets, Jeff Vinnick, who sits between the benches to shoot the game, captured the following image of Zack Kassian.

I asked Zack about this yesterday and he was speechless. Well, not entirely: “I have no idea what that’s about and I’m sorry if I scared anyone.”

Apology accepted.

SPEAKING OF PHOTOS…

Our pals over at Pass It To Bulis broke the story of the year back on March 13th outing Manny Malhotra for once having hair. These photos are not touched up at all, I can confirm no photoshopping was involved as I purchased them off Getty to be sure. I then took them into the Canucks locker room Tuesday to get some reaction from the guys.

Malhotra: “Oh wow, where did you find those? Pretty nice, hey…those were the days.”

Luongo: “Is that Manny, holy cow. Is that photoshopped? Wow, has seen those? Those are out there, I approve of that hair but only if it’s to make fun of him.”

Booth: “Oh my gosh. That’s crazy. I don’t know what do say.”

I know what do say: at least you didn’t have a bowl cut…

RA RA RA Roberto Luongo

I love getting random emails from strangers. But especially when they include a song. But especially when the song is about Roberto Luongo.

Have a listen to this catchy tune by Ehren Salazar. He classified it as folk rock, I think it just plain rocks, but prepare to have this in your head for hours, days, weeks, months and years to come…RA RA RA Roberto Luongo!

Dice & Ice shoot

Wayyyyyyy back in October seven Canucks were attired in suits more expensive than my car for a 45 minute photo shoot. The goal was to come away with some suave pictures of Manny Malhotra, Sami Salo, Ryan Kesler, Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Roberto Luongo and Kevin Bieksa to be used to promote the 13th annual Dice & Ice Benefit, presented by HSBC Bank Canada, that goes down Thursday, January 19, 2012.

The sold-out event features Canucks players, coaches, management and Canucks Alumni, alongside their spouses and significant others, taking part in a casino themed night of awesome, all in support of the Canucks for Kids Fund. Last year more than $850,000 in net proceeds was raised for CFKF.

If you don’t have a ticket to this business formal event, here’s a sneak peak of the artwork behind it.

DJ’s Phone-o-graphs

Those who know me will find this hard to believe, but I’m all out of words. Or I will be after these few brief sentences.

It was a great trip and there’s not much left to say. Instead of leaving you blogless on the side of the road without a spare, I’ve put together an amateur version of Behind the Lens. I now present to you DJ’s Phone-o-graphs, or DJ’s POGs for short – not to be confused with my actual pogs collection featuring the coolest Alf slammer in existence.

Enjoy!

A vegetarian in space

My resume won’t look the same after this road trip.

First it was going to Harvard, that really bulked it up nicely, now this. Flying from Tampa Bay to St. Louis yesterday I was declared the first vegetarian to ever fly Air Canucks.

Whan an honour. I want to thank everybody and anybody who ever had anything at all to do with the making of this picture. But I especially want to thank Clint Eastwood for giving me the opportunity to work with him again.

While not the same as winning Best Supporting Actor for his role in Million Dollar Baby like Morgan Freeman did, this is big to me nonetheless. And by big I mean it gives me something to blog about today.

The food selection on Air Canucks, as I’ve mentioned before, is outstanding, especially for carnivores. Fish, steak, chicken, anything and everything cooked just the way you like it.

Problem is, I don’t like it. Last year during my time on the road I just ate around the meat, I wasn’t about to call for an emergency landing in Possum Grape, Arkansas, because a piece of tuna touched my rice.

This year, feeling more comfortable flying with the team, I told the man in charge of the flight, Robert (he’s French so it’s pronounced Ro-bear), that I don’t eat anything with a face. His response? Order me some special pasta in for the rest of the road trip.

Talk about making this herbivore feel welcome.

Long story short, I typically fly Air Canucks with a huge smile on my face and now it’s even bigger. The flight crew treats everyone on board like family, family that would never forget you in Wal-Mart when you’re six.

Speaking of shock and terror, I awoke this morning to find it snowing in St. Louis. I moved from Manitoba to British Columbia to get away from this white stuff and now it has followed me to St. Louis. How rude.

Good thing I did some touring of the Gateway to the West yesterday.

Like meeting someone new for the first time, you read a lot into that initial interaction when visiting a new city.

We landed here yesterday around 1 p.m., got to the hotel around 2 p.m., I put together Wednesday’s Behind the Lens gallery and then went exploring.

When I’m someplace new, I’m without a map or direction whatsoever and I always start with a right, right, left and just go with where it takes me. In St. Louis that led me to a Subway, sandwich not train, but after doing a good hour of wandering aimlessly, I have a pretty good idea what St. Louis is.

In a nutshell, it’s a parking lot, but not in the insulting way that is typically meant.

There are parking lots everywhere. Big ones, side-by-side and back-to-back, of all different colours. From what I gathered, the baseball stadium, football stadium and hockey arena are all fairly close to each other and fans need somewhere to park. The downtown core accommodates that.

It just doesn’t make for a very lively atmosphere. It was a quiet ghost town the entire time I was out and about, I crossed paths with two people, seriously, and one of them was Keith Ballard.

So if you’re visiting St. Louis and you stay downtown, I cannot make any recommendations on what to see or where to go. Unless you’re looking to park a car.

The Canucks have a game day skate this morning before taking on the Blues tonight. We fly home post-game and I can’t wait to be back where the world makes sense.

I leave you with a joke I made up on the plane and yes, I know it’s awful: What would you get if Old McDonald and St. Louis rapper Nelly owned a farm? E I E I Uh-oh!

Note: If you didn’t find that funny it’s because you aren’t with it anymore. Or because it wasn’t actually funny.

DJ

The secret is out

First off, I’d like to sincerely apologize to anyone staying at the same hotel as the Canucks here in Tampa Bay. I wasn’t lying in yesterday’s blog, remembering your room number can be difficult for the sharpest of minds, which does not include yours truly.

So, upon exiting the elevator on the seventh floor (I remembered that much), I proceeded to try roughly 12 doors before the light finally flashed green and allowed me to enter.

Why not just go down and ask the front desk what room I’m in?

Where’s the fun in that!

There’s a lot of pressure on today’s blog seeing as how it will be one of the only fresh pieces of content on Canucks.com. It’s a travel day; we spent the night in Tampa Bay post-game and are flying to St. Louis this morning. The Canucks aren’t scheduled to practice, so this could be all the team insight you get today.

Good thing I’ve been saving up some goodness just for an occasion such as this.

I see and hear a lot of things on the road, things I’m not privy to at home. I’m part of the inner circle right now, and by that I meant I eavesdrop on its conversations. It’s all for not, though, as I can’t do anything with any of it. It’s in one ear and out the other.

But it got me thinking: what crucially important information can I find out that I can also report?

Oh boy have I got a scoop for you. It’s worthy of a discount double check.

Alain Vigneault is a quiet guy. Personal, keeps things close to the chest. Little is known about him as a head coach in the room, even less about him personally.

Until now.

Vigneault chews Trident gum.

If you’re thinking to yourself, I don’t care, you clearly haven’t been following the yearlong saga of gum comments regarding Vigneault following every Sportsnet, TSN or CBC close-up of him behind the bench.

This is big news. Maybe not ESPN.com front-page news, but in this poorly written, rarely read blog, it’s gold Jerry, gold!

The Canucks always have three types of gum available in the dressing room: original Double Bouble, Juicy Fruit and Trident. It’s a smorgasbord of chewing gum really, with something for even the pickiest of palates.

My inside source (I’m such a poor man’s Bob McKenzie) tells me Vigneault gravitates towards the Trident gum, which is typically flavoured original or Tropical Twist. And here you thought coach V was all business all the time.

I’m also told he’s a big Halls man, which makes perfect sense for the amount he yells during a game. Listen for it Thursday night and you’ll hear him shouting from the bench, straining his voice more and more with each instruction.

What you choose to do with all this hard-hitting information is up to you, just know this: while Marshawn Lynch may enjoy being showered in Skittles after a touchdown, I highly doubt Vigneault wants gum thrown at him after every Canucks goal, even if 4 out of 5 dentists surveyed would recommend Trident.

Are you free tomorrow morning? If so, let’s meet here again Thursday around the same time. It would be nice if you carried the conversation for once though…

DJ

So many questions…

It’s about this time every trip things start blurringtogether.

What day is it? What city are we in? What time is the bus? When is the game? What room am I in? Who am I?

For my own sake, let’s review: It’s Tuesday. We’re now in Tampa Bay. No need for a bus, the rink is within walking distance for even me. Game time is 7:30 p.m. EST. I don’t actually know my room number. I have no idea who I am, either.

The questions from Vancouver’s 2-1 loss to Florida last night are difficult to answer as well. How do the Canucks go from knocking off one of the NHL’s best teams to losing a winnable game? Meh, it’s one game. If they won them all, being a fan wouldn’t be exciting. We’d have nothing do debate. And tonight’s game against the Lightning wouldn’t be as good.

Am I just breathing hot air? Probably, but it sounded nice!

Winning is definitely the way to go on the road. Winning makes everyone happy, which makes for comfortable and even fun bus and plane rides. Otherwise it’s like last night. You remember going on long road trips growing up when your dad would get in a sour mood? You knew not to push his buttons. Sit down and shut up.

That’s my mentality after losses. Sit down and shut up.

It’s not like the players, coaches or management are so angry they’re throwing chairs, but a loss is a loss and if they’re in a sour mood the last thing they need to see is me on the plane having a jolly old belly laugh to some insanely childish movie I’m watching when I should be working.

Think of it as stubbing your toe. You just need a few minutes for the sting to wear off and whilst in that throbbing period, laughter is the worst medicine.

So far all I can tell you about Tampa Bay is that is has some buildings and that I’m in one of them. As you can see from the photo above, Tampa Bay is a black and white city, there are palm trees here too, and the rink is a stone’s throw away, but I couldn’t actually throw a stone at it this morning. That’s either because I have a noodle for an arm or the rock was too heavy. It was a pebble after all.

Big shout out to all the Canucks fan who made the trip to Florida for last night’s game, the team heard and more than appreciated your cheering.

Here’s hoping we see you all at the game tonight.

Until tomorrow, I’ve got to find some pants, actually go for breakfast instead of settling for the Aero bar in my bag and figure out what room I’m in. Oh, and who I am.

Should be a busy day.

DJ

The great gator debate

Good morning from Florida – or should I say mediocre morning from Florida.

As I opened the curtains in my hotel room and readied to be blasted by the sun like a Care Bare stare, I was disappointed to find the sun hiding behind some big puffy white and grey marshmallow looking things. Not only that, the wind was blowing hard enough to move a napkin and I just don’t think it’s going to be a beach morning.

#firstworldspoiledhockeywriterproblems

I’m just teasing, it’s definitely not beach weather, yet, but it’s still very nice out. All the time too. I’ll be back sometime to enjoy it properly, you can count on that.

Sunday was a great day and it began with a photo you might or might not have seen in yesterday’s Behind the Lens: with Jannik Hansen claiming to spot an alligator in a swamp across from the Florida Panthers arena before practice.

Photographer Rick Collins got a shot of Hansen pointing to something, with Maxim Lapierre and Mason Raymond hustling to catch a glimpse. Lapierre and Raymond did not back up the gator claims, yet Hansen swears he saw it.

Naturally this led to a full scale alligator hunt post-practice with almost every Canucks player getting close, but not too close, to where the alleged gator resided.

As I made my way over to hopefully catch a glimpse of a beastly reptile, the driver of Vancouver’s team bus told me that in seven years of driving teams to and from the rink, he’s never seen a gator, not even an itty bitty one.

Ten minutes later we were all on the bus, no alligator sightings to be reported.

Did Hansen actually see what he thinks he saw? It’s cooler to believe he did, so I stand by the Honey Badger.

When we got back to the hotel the guys split up, everyone did their own thing and the Denver Broncos upset the Pittsburgh Steelers led by more oh-my-goodness-what-just-happened-did-you-see-that-how-is-this-possible heroics from Tim Tebow.

My son, Denver, was not named after the city or any of its sports teams, but if the Broncos somehow win the NFL Championship, my little man will earn some kind of Super Bowl nickname out of it.

That’s the latest from Florida. I’m off to sulk that I can’t scare the locals by making an appearance on the beach. Casper would have been alive and well!

DJ

Flo-Rida

I am not on vacation, I am not on vacation, I am not on vacation.

When I woke up Sunday morning and opened the blinds in my hotel room forgetting what city I was in, I expected to be face-to-face with an apartment or office building, no view whatsoever. Then I remembered we’re in Florida. My balcony faces the ocean. It’s practically beach front. There’s a palm tree nearby with a branch that comes close enough that it seems to be looking for a fist bump. I obliged.

I’ve often wondered how people could play hockey in a place like Florida and now I know. It feels like you’re on vacation. All the time. And if that responsibility-less feeling of being on vacation is the norm, think of what life is like. My word.

I’m just now coming down from the high of the win over in Boston. Talk about a hockey game. That might have been the best game I’ve ever been to live, the atmosphere was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Judging from the fans alone, there seemed to be more on the line Saturday than last June. Obviously that wasn’t the case, but they were into it big time. Seven deafening LLLUUUOOONNNNGGGGOOOO chants and Roberto wasn’t even playing.

I continue to have an odd respect for the fans in Boston. I like that you can’t go into their building and out-cheer them the way Vancouver supporters do in Phoenix, San Jose and hopefully Florida. There were, I kid you not, maybe 10 Canucks fans at the game, or at least 10 brave enough to sport Canucks gear. Ten. Out of more than 17,000. That’s really saying something. I still haven’t had an opportunity to sit amongst them to see what it’s like down in the trenches, but even from the press box what I heard is enough to haunt your dreams. We’ll leave it at that.

Other than all the insanity on the ice, there isn’t much to report. I did not end up wearing the press pass issued to me, the one with Zdeno Chara hoisting the Stanley Cup. I know they won and they’re happy and we’d be milking it for all it’s worth as well, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Or wear it. I will keep it though, it lights a fire in the belly. After last night’s game I can envision a Canucks/Bruins rematch for the Cup. Can you imagine.

We’ve got a busy day in store, practice late morning/early afternoon, after which Canucks.com will have a new Behind the Lens gallery, Canucks Report and hopefully a feature or two. Then I believe it’s my journalistic duty to check out the beach. I will report back with my findings.

Stealing Harvard

Out of sight, out of mind.

That’s my goal when I’m on the road with the Canucks; I take the fly on the wall approach to everything. I want the guys to be themselves and act as if I’m not there at all.

There’s a certain trust that comes with that and by now they know I’m not out for blood. I’m out to figure out what makes them unique from each other and the team as a whole unique from other teams.

Freeing them from their routine is a way to accomplish both. A scheduling conflict took care of this Friday as TD Banknorth Garden was primed for a Boston Celtics/Indiana Pacers game last night and otherwise unavailable for the Canucks to practice.

Bring on Harvard University.

The Bright Hockey Center, home of the men’s and women’s teams, is a cozy rink, red bench seating, a few banners in the rafters, a good feeling of history and character, you know the kind. The Canucks do too. It was the track and field facility next door, a 30 second hallway walk from the locker room, which made for an interesting story.

Put a group of professional athletes, men in this case, on the sidelines of a track and field facility while actual track and field athletes are warming up, practicing and cooling down, and the discussions are hilarious.

“One-hundred meter race, right now, me and you,” I overheard three or four times. No one actually raced, but David Booth took it upon himself to prove he could run a four-minute mile, and he did (pictured above).

Alex Edler did a few laps as well, but only after demonstrating proper form for the hammer toss. Someone was doing it wrong on the field in the middle of the track and Edler, who actually competed in hammer toss growing up, had a few tips.

He also did high jump in his younger days, but those days are clearly behind him as he attempted a jump and immediately became one with the mat.

Cody Hodgson, eying up the long jump, wasn’t interested in competing.

“Think they’d let me make a sand angel?”

Kids today, I tell ya.

Hodgson actually dressed for the occasion and was vindicated at the track. Let me rewind to breakfast earlier in the day: Hodgson had his back to me at a booth across the restaurant so I couldn’t see what his shirt said, but midway through my delicious omelet I heard a tap at the window in front of Hodgson. I looked up to see Hodgson look up at the window, where six or seven teammates were giving him a hard time for his shirt. It was a white t-shirt with HARVARD written across the front in red letters.

Now out of his shirt and in Canucks workout gear, Hodgson was surrounded by people sporting Harvard shirts.

“See, everyone is wearing shirts!” he said to everyone and no one in particular.

Some of the athletes approached the Canucks and three girls inevitably asked the Sedins if they were twins. “Nah, second cousins,” laughed Daniel, before telling the truth. One girl looked over at Cory Schneider and I could see she was ready to announce triplets were in the house, but she thought better and walked away to begin a stretch routine that would put Gumby to shame.

One by one the Canucks made an appearance in the training facility before practice, each with that twinkle in his eye that he could do what they were doing, but better.

Who am I to say they couldn’t. I’m just glad they have that swagger.

On a side note: Congratulations to my parents, who can now officially say, without a word of a lie, that their son went to Harvard. No need to mention I was in and out in three hours.

Game day, Canucks vs. Bruins. Follow @CanucksGame, aka me, for all the action. I’ll touch base from Florida Sunday or Monday.