This week, a day after the Canucks’ sweat-prone, rosy-cheeked president and GM Mike Gillis was given the boot, retired player and fan favourite Trevor Linden was introduced as the new president of hockey operations for this city’s underachieving, soon-to-be-golfing NHL team.
Almost immediately Twitter, Facebook and other online venues for the lonely and outspoken lit up in celebration. “Welcome back, Trevor! Now I can follow the Canucks again” seemed to be the predominant theme — so much so that Canucks brass saw fit to extend its deadline for season ticket renewals to get a little taste of the Linden bump.
All we can say is it was nice knowing you, Trevor. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from following the Canucks for most of our chubby lives, it’s that Canucks fans are the worst, and anything good and pure will eventually spoil, get doused in gasoline or be torn apart, eaten and spat out like unfortunate prey.
It goes without saying that Canucks fans are bad losers — just check out some of the thousands of smoke and fire-filled selfies taken after the team’s loss to the Boston Bruins in the 2011 Stanley Cup final to remind yourself — but they’re even worse winners.
When the Canucks are winning, their fans are insufferable. They pay some of the most exorbitant prices for tickets in the league, which then makes them feel entitled to see a winning product every night. And if that winning product fails to meet fans’ perennially high expectations, then they will turn. They will boo their Olympic gold-medal winning goalie who took the team to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final just a quickly as they’ll howl his name when he makes a routine save. And when he’s gone, they will bemoan his absence and ask, “How could this have happened?”
Perhaps it’s symptomatic of Vancouver as a whole. Vancouverites expect nice weather and whine when it rains. They expect their condos and fixer-upper homes to appreciate in value so they can flip them for a tidy profit and whine when that doesn’t happen fast enough. They expect all the amenities and well-oiled machinery of a “first class city” but rarely pay attention, let alone vote in municipal elections. And they expect their highly paid, highly profitable professional hockey team to win.
Which is why we’re a little worried that golden boy Trevor Linden will eventually lose his luster. Who knows. Maybe he’ll turn the team around and the Sedins will get their mojo back and untested goalie Eddie Lack will help us forget that the team traded away two elite starting goaltenders for very little in return. Maybe the Canucks will become the winners that their fickle fans have come to expect over the past six years. But if the Canucks don’t win and their kingdom continues to crumble, their fans will demand blood, a pound of flesh and fresh meat. And for a cannibalistic Canucks fan, Trevor Linden has some of the most tender and inviting flesh around.
