12 Canucks thoughts after 12 days without the internet

Put me down for Cheech to the RoH!

What makes an arena easier to sing in than others?

While I was away, my wife and I attended a concert at Rogers Arena of my favourite band: The Strokes. It was a fantastic show, but about three songs in, it was clear that the band was having some technical difficulties of some sort. Frontman and lead singer Julian Casablancas apologized, then said “happy to be here… home of the Canucks. It’s probably a lot easier to play hockey in here than sing.”

So that was one thought: What makes an arena easier to sing in than others? Musicians please chime in below if you know the answer to this question. The show was awesome, for the record.

When will Caleb Malhotra sign his ELC and join the Canucks?

Caleb Malhotra won’t be at Canucks training camp thanks to rules surrounding NCAA athletes’ ability to attend pro camps, which we covered extensively here.

The Canucks are obviously going to take their time with Malhotra, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him spend the entirety of this season in college. The big question: if he lights it up with Boston University this season, would the Canucks sign him to an ELC and get him a handful of NHL games at the end of this season? They certainly could, but the club sure seems keen on slow-playing things with Malhotra, which is likely the right call. Technically though, he could be in Vancouver as soon as the end of this season, following the path of Quinn Hughes and Brock Boeser as Canucks first round selections who signed on at the end of their first D+1 NCAA seasons. Let’s see how his freshman year unfolds first.

Who will be the Canucks’ next DJ?

Also in the news: the Canucks are looking for their next in-arena DJ. They’ve had some struggles with this position in the past, but with their most recent hire, DJ Tom Fleming, most agree they absolutely nailed it and hit a home run. The team put out an open hiring post on social media, and I’m eager to see how they do with their next hire.

Adam Foote’s tenure already feels like a fever dream

As I watched Dan Wilson go out after yet another disappointing loss for the Seattle Mariners on Monday night and not be able to offer up much more than “yeah, tough one tonight,” as an answer in his post game press conference, I remembered sitting in Adam Foote press conferences this past year. I also remember how insistent Foote was that the Canucks’ system and philosophies were working basically right up until the very end, when they finished dead-last in the NHL standings with a 14 point cushion between them and the 31st-place Chicago Blackhawks.

Honestly, I know that Foote was behind the bench for the last Canucks game any of us watched, but that year is going to go down as such a forgettable season that I wouldn’t be surprised if Adam Foote is the trivia answer that stumps people when they’re asked to recall Canucks head coaches even 10 years from now.

That JT Miller Chiclets video is… something

I really don’t have much interest in getting into the whole JT Miller-Pettersson debacle again. But during my catching up of what I missed while I was away, I saw the clip of JT Miller playing golf with the Spittin Chiclets crew where Paul Bissonette made a reference to the situation with Pettersson and Miller, that eventually led to Miller being traded to the New York Rangers.

“Getting bullied more than Petey on the Canucks,” Bissonnette said during Miller’s backswing.

“In my backswing is crazy. Listen, this doesn’t need to be edited out, but Petey in my backswing is crazy. I went to rehab for that,” joked Miller.

“Is that what we’re calling that?” responded Vincent Trocheck, Miller’s longtime friend and now former New York Rangers teammate.

So that’s out there. Here’s the full video.

I’ve got a few thoughts on this clip, but they’re probably not wise to put into print since folks aren’t yet ready to talk on the record about what actually happened between Miller and Pettersson. So we’ll leave it there.

Is Quinn Hughes going to sign in Minnesota?

Have you ever heard a media member ask a GM to pledge to resign from his post if he can’t re-sign a player? Now you have:

Minnesota GM Bill Guerin is in a tough spot as he heads into the final season of Quinn Hughes’ contract without an extension in place, something the Wild technically have been able to get done since July 1st. Of course, the big reason the Canucks traded Hughes in the first place was because it was made clear to them that their captain didn’t plan on extending in Vancouver. The Canucks decided that they couldn’t let Hughes walk in free agency, and had to maximize his value. If the Wild get a similar indication from Hughes that he doesn’t plan on re-signing in Minnesota, the club will likely try to do the same. There’s been all sorts of varying information out there, but quotes like this sound quite similar to what we heard before Hughes eventually left Vancouver:

How many times have the Ruck brothers visited the Osoyoos Home Hardware?

The Home Hardware in Osoyoos is the stuff of legends. If you haven’t been, the Home Hardware on Main Street in Osoyoos operates out of a surprisingly spacious three-story building and is something of a tourist destination thanks to their famously unique and sprawling inventory. Case in point: My wife and I had been looking for months to try to buy expansion packs of the music timeline building card game Hitster (Great game if you haven’t heard of it), and were unable to find any at local stores or even online, where it only appears the German version of the game is available for purchase. As we navigated from the art supplies, past the baby clothes and toy sections (after a brief stop to check out the Lego sets they had on hand), we stumbled upon two of those elusive expansion packs staring right at us as we approached the well-stocked board game section. Because of course those items we legitimately couldn’t find anywhere were sitting in plain sight at the Osoyoos Home Hardware.

As I so often do when I’m at this store, I thought to myself “man, this place is great,” but those feelings were quickly replaced by bitterness when I realized that, because the Pittsburgh Penguins drafted the Osoyoos-born identical twin brothers Markus and Liam Ruck, they likely won’t be asked to speak much publicly about their experience growing up in Osoyoos, and almost certainly won’t be asked how often they frequent the iconic Home Hardware location right in their backyard. If you see me making a beeline for the visiting locker room when the Penguins visit Rogers Arena in a couple of years, you’ll know why.

Who really cares if Thatcher Demko is ready for training camp?

Another thing I saw in my catchup was that there’s some uncertainty about whether or not Thatcher Demko is going to be ready for training camp. The thought I had was: Who cares? And that’s not meant as any sort of shade toward Demko or a comment on the interest level people have in this team.

Instead, it’s a comment on the fact that we’ve seen Demko rush back from injuries before, and the end result is rarely a good one. So if he needs a bit longer to ensure he’s really ready to go after getting hip surgery? So be it. The question for Demko isn’t so much if he can get healthy and return, it’s if he can get healthy and finally stay healthy.

Besides, the rebuilding Canucks need another high first round pick (or two or three), and a Vezina-calibre goaltender is a great way to prevent that from happening. They certainly don’t need him rushing back, so if he’s not at training camp, who really cares?

Hockey season is CLOSE!

Finally, September has arrived, which means hockey is back. The Canucks are back on the ice at Rogers Arena already, training camp begins later this month, and the Canucks open the regular season on September 29th in Edmonton. We take pride in bringing you Canucks content year round, but there is just something different about temperatures dropping and the feel of hockey season that comes when the calendar flips to September.