Am I not a Canucks fan if I like Mark Messier?

[ververgaert]

Trevor was a stand up guy who had brought our team to the brink of the holy grail. He with Pavel was the reason the Canucks became so popularin this town ! They wern't selling out too many games before those two came along. Plus the charity work, we had never seen someone so commited in this town like him(Tiger was close). Not to mention the ladies didn't find him to hard on the eyes( my girlfriend would see him and then trow bricks at me!). I wasn't too surprised with the reaction! The trade yes, but the reaction no.

[MarkMM]

Trevor was a stand up guy who had brought our team to the brink of the holy grail. He with Pavel was the reason the Canucks became so popularin this town ! They wern't selling out too many games before those two came along. Plus the charity work, we had never seen someone so commited in this town like him(Tiger was close). Not to mention the ladies didn't find him to hard on the eyes( my girlfriend would see him and then trow bricks at me!). I wasn't too surprised with the reaction! The trade yes, but the reaction no.

Agreed, Trevor represented a shining time in the Canucks history which emerged out of a very dark period, added to that the fact that he is a character player, community role model and (unlike an unmentioned star) never made us feel we had to apologize for being Vancouver, he was proud and happy to play here. When (okay, I'll mention it) Bure shined in the league, as much as I was proud, I had a nagging sense that if he had his choice, he wouldn't be doing those highlight reel goals for us, but Linden I could feel unabashedly proud of.

[Soapy]

I hate Messier for his help in dismantling the Canucks. He broke up a fun team to watch in a short period of time.

I don't agree with you one little bit here. It was long overdue for that core of players to get a one-way ticket outta town. Have you forgotten the fact that the season before this fun team to watch missed the playoffs? And they got off to a horrible start when the dismantling of that core occurred. That group of players was almost exactly like our group of players last season. A group of guys on long-term deals that felt they had nothing to prove and became complacent. I hate Messier as much as any Canuck fan. But the Linden-McLean core had to go.

The ROCKET MATH looks good now but at the time I stll had a bit of faith. I would have rather watched that group go down in flames & re-build than have to watch the Messier-Keenan scramble to scrape up a team that hated its captain drama. As for missing the play offs...lots of fun teams miss the playoffs..even more play only 3 or less playoff games & don't explode.

[supercanuck]

I'm not to fond of the love shack that Linden has in this city either I remember people crying when he was traded, just crying.

What's wrong with that? I for one became a Canucks fan a large part because of Linden and I know many people my age who were the same. He is respected in the city on and off the ice. I didn't cry but I was quite disappointed when he was traded, and its one of the main reasons I truly, truly dislike Mark Messier and Mike Keenan.

[DavidPratt_]

In your guys opinions of course.

I like the Canucks I do, I wouldn't say i'm a diehard but I cheer for the Canucks because I've lived in Vancouver almost all my life ( I won't state what my first team was but it isn't the Rangers or Oilers)

Anyways I always get sh*t from friends for having this Mark Messier poster ( He is my favorite player after all..) saying I can't be a Canucks fan if I like him.

What do you guys think?

Here's a photo of your hero:

[randymeeks]

The ROCKET MATH looks good now but at the time I stll had a bit of faith. I would have rather watched that group go down in flames & re-build than have to watch the Messier-Keenan scramble to scrape up a team that hated its captain drama. As for missing the play offs...lots of fun teams miss the playoffs..even more play only 3 or less playoff games & don't explode.

That's your opinion if you wanted to see that core go down in flames before the dismantling began. In my humble opionion, the team had already gone down in flames. I also don't agree with your belief that was a fun team to watch, either. I don't see what's so fun about seeing a team underachieve. Last year's team could be fun to watch at times. But they didn't even make the playoffs and didn't have the fire in their belly anymore. That core of players back in the mid 90's certainly had lost a lot of the drive to win. Did you forget the fact they were in the middle of a franchise record 10 game losing streak before the dismantling of the core finally began? I don't see what's so fun to watch about that. I was actually embarrassed to be a Canuck fan at that time when they were in the middle of that losing streak. And I haven't felt that feeling very often.

I'm not to fond of the love shack that Linden has in this city either I remember people crying when he was traded, just crying.

I'm not too fond of it, either. I like Linden and the game he has brought to the table. Linden is a likable guy, been fantastic in the community and has had some great years for the Canucks. but I absolutely can't stand it when people make him out to being the franchise player that he never has been. It's even worse when people try to make it sound like he can still be an impact player. When he got traded, I was relieved. The whole core had to go, Linden included.

[randymeeks]

Everyone loved Gino, Trevor, Kirk, etc. but by the time Keenan got to them, the team was admittedly stale. How Keenan broke up the team was probably a bigger issue to many fans in comparison to why.

By the time Keenan broke up the core, I personally didn't care how Keenan broke it up as long as he broke it up. I wasn't satisified with a team that sleepwalked their way through the regular season, finished .500, and only worked as hard as it had to to make the playoffs. Sure, we had the great run in 1994, but from the regular season of the Cup run all the way until 2000 or so, it wasn't easy to be a Canuck fan most of the time.

[DavidPratt_]

Everyone loved Gino, Trevor, Kirk, etc. but by the time Keenan got to them, the team was admittedly stale. How Keenan broke up the team was probably a bigger issue to many fans in comparison to why.

By the time Keenan broke up the core, I personally didn't care how Keenan broke it up as long as he broke it up. I wasn't satisified with a team that sleepwalked their way through the regular season, finished .500, and only worked as hard as it had to to make the playoffs. Sure, we had the great run in 1994, but from the regular season of the Cup run all the way until 2000 or so, it wasn't easy to be a Canuck fan most of the time.

I hate to say this....but I agree with you somewhat. I didn't like Messier and I didn't like Keenan (I didn't like Burke either, but that's a different story). The truth is the team was a Country Club in the years after the '94 CUP run. The playoff records and fired coaches (Ley/Renney) before Keenan illustrate that....

dp

[randymeeks]

I didn't like Messier and Keenan, either but the country club atmosphere at the time drove me nuts. After the 94 Cup run, the reaction of the Kirk McLeans and Trevor Lindens after they played like crap during a regular season game reminded me of the same way the Todd Bertuzzis and Markus Naslunds of last season were reacting after a poor effort last season. No sense of urgency and they always seemed to have a who-cares-as-long-as-we-make-the-playoffs-attitude. It got to the point where for a couple seasons, I had a hard time watching the Canucks on t.v. back in the late 90s. It was just too painful to watch a bunch of underachieving millionaires go through the motions.

Yeesh, I almost hate going on this rant. It just brings back way too many painful memories for me as a fan. I just hope that when this new core comes back that they don't waltz into town with the same no sense of urgency attitude that last year's team developed.

[DavidPratt_]

I didn't like Messier and Keenan, either but the country club atmosphere at the time drove me nuts. After the 94 Cup run, the reaction of the Kirk McLeans and Trevor Lindens after they played like crap during a regular season game reminded me of the same way the Todd Bertuzzis and Markus Naslunds of last season were reacting after a poor effort last season. No sense of urgency and they always seemed to have a who-cares-as-long-as-we-make-the-playoffs-attitude. It got to the point where for a couple seasons, I had a hard time watching the Canucks on t.v. back in the late 90s. It was just too painful to watch a bunch of underachieving millionaires go through the motions.

Yeesh, I almost hate going on this rant. It just brings back way too many painful memories for me as a fan. I just hope that when this new core comes back that they don't waltz into town with the same no sense of urgency attitude that last year's team developed.

I don't think you have to worry about that this coming season. They may not be as talented, but guys like Bertuzzi have moved on and the team's chemistry is more of a lunch-bucket one. We'll see how it goes.

dp

[randymeeks]

I don't think you have to worry about that this coming season. They may not be as talented, but guys like Bertuzzi have moved on and the team's chemistry is more of a lunch-bucket one. We'll see how it goes.

I sure hope that that's the case. I just want to be proud to be a fan of my team as a fan. Last season was horribly painful to watch.

[DavidPratt_]

I don't think you have to worry about that this coming season. They may not be as talented, but guys like Bertuzzi have moved on and the team's chemistry is more of a lunch-bucket one. We'll see how it goes.

I sure hope that that's the case. I just want to be proud to be a fan of my team as a fan. Last season was horribly painful to watch.

It's funny. I was thinking of that Canucks team after '94. Lot of things happened....Bure became a bigger prima donna....Mogilny joined the team and the chemistry changed even more....Jeff Brown caused a lot of problems in the locker room. That team just went downhill for a while after that...

dp

[randymeeks]

It's funny. I was thinking of that Canucks team after '94. Lot of things happened....Bure became a bigger prima donna....Mogilny joined the team and the chemistry changed even more....Jeff Brown caused a lot of problems in the locker room. That team just went downhill for a while after that...

I know Orca Bay was probably pulling the reigns on Pat Quinn to a degree but I just couldn't understand why he was refusing to change the dynamics of the team even after they missed the playoffs. If I recall correctly, the only two real changes they made to the team after they made the playoffs was signing Messier and Grant Ledyard. I knew right there that was really just sticking with the status quo, which in my mind, should never even had been an option. Everyone seemed to be shocked when they went on the 10 game losing streak the next season after signing Messier before they finally obliterated the core. I sure wasn't. Pat Quinn paid for it with his job and rightfully so.

[ververgaert]

Mark Messier orchrastrated that 10 game losing streak to get Quinn fiered and have Keenan come in at his suggestion. The guy played ownership like a fiddle.

The year after the 94 run the Canucks played 11 playoff games , hardly throwing in the towell.

[SRsez]

I know Orca Bay was probably pulling the reigns on Pat Quinn to a degree but I just couldn't understand why he was refusing to change the dynamics of the team even after they missed the playoffs. If I recall correctly, the only two real changes they made to the team after they made the playoffs was signing Messier and Grant Ledyard. I knew right there that was really just sticking with the status quo, which in my mind, should never even had been an option. Everyone seemed to be shocked when they went on the 10 game losing streak the next season after signing Messier before they finally obliterated the core. I sure wasn't. Pat Quinn paid for it with his job and rightfully so.

Randy, how old were you when this was happening? "Pulling the reins...to a degree" is the understatement of the offseason. Quinn lost control ages before that. He was a lame duck GM at least a year previous, and it was ownership's stupidity (with Jeff Brown's antics) that led to the demise of the team. Quinn wasn't the guy that brought Messier in and overpaid him.