Hi everybody, Alex Burrows here. I’m in Helsinki, Finland for the World Championships and I thought it might be fun to keep a blog during my time here.

My writing resume will double with this blog, the only other time I’ve done something like this was when I wrote a blog for Canucks.com, but that was a long time ago. Disco might have still been popular.

Anyways, welcome to Finland, as I’m sure you noticed, it’s cold here. I packed for the occasion thankfully and am now adjusted to the weather. What I’m struggling to adjust to is the 10 hour time difference from here to Vancouver. We landed in Helsinki on Wednesday after a few days spent practicing and bonding in Zurich, so we haven’t been here too long. I’m hoping to feel more at home Friday.

It’s Thursday night for me and we play our first game tomorrow against Zdeno Chara and Team Slovakia. I can’t tell you how excited I am to put a Team Canada jersey on and hit the ice. Dream come true.

I practiced with Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins today, so I think we’ll play together tomorrow. Should be interesting. Lots of nickname possibilities for us ha ha. I’m focused on playing a solid 2-way game with a lot of the forecheck, and providing net presence. I’m also hoping to play a big role on the PK.

It’s odd coming together with NHL rivals like this, but there’s no hard feelings or grudges, we’re all here to win Gold for Canada. One guy I’ll get to know well is Marc-Édouard Vlasic, the only other player from Quebec. We’re roommates.

That’s about all I’ve got right now, hope to have you cheering on Team Canada tomorrow!

Have a good rest of your day. Bedtime for me now.

Burr

*Photo credit to Jeff Vinnick, who is at the World Championships shooting for the IIHF.

LUUUUUUU

The base of the Roger Neilson statue outside Rogers Arena is taking on a life of its own. A few weeks ago three framed photos of Rick Rypien, Luc Bourdon and Pavol Demitra were placed below Roger’s epic towel powerness, and this morning the three posters above were found.

It may be the summer and Roberto Luongo’s future may be in question, but it’s clear true Canucks fans support him no matter what.

Top 20 moments: the Great Ones

The bosses just realized I haven’t done a lick of work since Vancouver’s season ended, so they told me to do something. Challenge accepted.

To kickoff every off-season I make a list of the top moments of the year, then the Canucks.com team debates them and ranks them, before we post them. I’ve never reached out to you, our super dee duper fans, before, so I’d like to give that a try.

What were the Top 20 Moments of the Canucks 2011-12 season? And I’m not talking about this goal or that save, I want the Great Ones. Leave your moment as a comment below and if I use it, you’ll be entered into a draw for a Canucks team signed flag, a biiiiig one.

All good? Any questions? No? Good, it’s time for my afternoon nap it’s time to get some more work done.

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!