Vancouver Canucks Op Ed

* Turning Out the Lights *

2006-01-22T02:00:00.000-08:00

This site is now officially closed and relocated. Join us at vancouvercanucksoped.com whenever you're ready to leave...

This blogspot address and its archives will eventually be deleted. If you have links you'd like to maintain to us, please update them at the new website. All the archives are now available over there.

Mailing List:

We sent out emails today to everyone who requested that we keep them updated. Hopefully most of you received them. Unfortunately, two people had email addresses that kept bouncing the messages back to us. So, our apologies to Adam and to Trini, if you're wondering why we never wrote to you... We tried!

P.S. It's only hockey. Must the dog die?

New Website Address

2006-01-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

Hi, all. The new website address is vancouvercanucksoped.com. We probably won't be posting there for a day or two still, but the archives are up there now. (Update: Following the link, you'll probably get a blank screen most of the time while we continue to work on things.)

It's a work in progress for the next couple days. For one thing, all the sidebar links are incomplete/inaccurate at this time, but we'll have that fixed a.s.a.p. The site might also be offline a couple times while we get everything finished.

Thanks for your patience. We'd always thought this project would be a big pain-in-the-ass, but we were wrong - it's much, much worse.;-)

Vancouver Canucks Op Ed: Off the Air Temporarily

2006-01-17T22:02:00.000-08:00

UPDATE #3 January 20th

New web address is setup! More info here.

UPDATE #2 January 18th

Those of you that read this blog on a news aggregator (like Bloglines, etc.) have probably been receiving notification of large numbers of "new posts" from this website. I know this is annoying - apologies, apologies. Our 'technical difficulties' should be over shortly.

UPDATE #1 January 17th

Well, there's no way around it: vancouvercanucksoped.blogspot.com is going off the air now. Updates will be provided on this posting in the coming days.

As we mentioned a week ago, we will be resurrecting with a new website, but it will take a few days to get our act together. Please forgive our techno-challenged brains which are unable to make this transition simple and seamless to the naked eye. We have help with this project (thank god) but there's still a lot to do. It could be 24 hours. It could be 200 hours.

Thank you to everyone who joined our email list. You folks will be contacted personally with the new URL address as soon as we're back in business. Those of you that aren't on the list can find out our new address on this posting if you want, when we update it.

The Thursday Quote Sheet will continue without interruption, but will probably be delayed beyond Thursday. (Which is clearly more than a little screwed up. Sorry.)

Thank you to everyone who has ventured onto this blogspot site over 1-1/2 NHL seasons - over 107,000 of you! And we do look forward to hearing from those old friends who decide to visit us at our new website.

Check back to this permanent link for future updates.

Best,

Alanah and Jeff

Postscript: You can still add your name to the mailing list here.

Shark Fans: Undercover

2006-01-17T03:38:00.000-08:00

Chuqui and Laurie have long had season tickets to the San Jose Sharks, and they're generally on top of what's going on at the Shark Tank. So imagine their surprise when Evengi Nabokov didn't show for the game on Monday night, and nobody would say why.

But that didn't stop our pals. Further investigation ensues:

So I went and did some checking. You don't spend a decade sitting next to the tunnel without getting to know people, and they're used to my raw (and rather blatant) curiousity, and mostly, amused.

Anonymous source #1: It's pretty ugly, but I can't talk about it right now.

Anonymous source #2 (actually, Bob, the lead usher): yeah, he's going to have the flu for the next couple of games (one needs to realize that every injury in the universe is the flu with Bob... grin)

Anonymous source #3: I don't have a clue, but he's down in the weight room lifting right now....

Now, there was a second rumor wandering down around section 127, too -- that the Sharks got stuck in customs for 8 hours leaving Montreal, because a player "got caught with something".

Alas, no definitive answers there. So then we turn to the Mercury News:

After the victory Monday, Coach Ron Wilson said that Nabokov had "tweaked his groin the other night" and that the Sharks wanted to be cautious because of the groin problems Nabokov and Toskala endured earlier this season.

Nabokov, though, offered a somewhat different version.

"You ask them and they will answer to you," Nabokov said when asked about his injury status.

Did he pull his groin in Montreal or Ottawa?

"I don't have any comment on that one," Nabokov said. "I don't want to start anything, so just go ask the coaches all that."

He paused, then said: "I feel fine."

So, in summary:

We can almost hear the theme to Jaws starting to play...

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tags: nhl, hockey, san+jose+sharks, evengi+nabokov, goalie, injury, ron+wilson

Problems viewing the site today?

2006-01-16T21:40:00.000-08:00

Problems? Blame our maniacal web host (where we keep our business website, and some of the Op Ed image files) who thought it was acceptable to suspend our account without warning, after eight years of business without a problem. And all this hassle over a $47 bill we never heard a word about before.

Anyway, problem is temporarily resolved, and without violence.

This reminds me, I've been meaning to encourage more people to get themselves the Firefox browser. At least once a day, it will save you from wanting to kick your computer out of a 20th story window.

(If anyone's curious about such things, approximately 25% of the people who come to this website now use Firefox, up from barely 5% in October.)

Now it's time to grab some dinner and watch the Canucks/Pittsburgh game. We've got it on videotape. Don't spoil it for us.

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tags: computers, firefox,

Legendary NHLers and their Mothers

2006-01-16T15:17:00.000-08:00

First Wayne Gretzky goes through the untimely and very public loss of his mother, Phyllis. And now we have Patrick Roy's scary/sad story:

The mother of former Montreal Canadiens star goalie Patrick Roy is fighting for her life in a Quebec City hospital after contracting flesh-eating disease, according to reports.

Barbara Miller-Roy contracted type A streptococcus, and according to the newspaper Le Soleil, the bacteria spread so quickly doctors were forced to amputate her arm over the weekend to save her life.

Miller-Roy fell off an exercise ball while working out and had cut her elbow, the newpaper reported on Monday. She later went to see a doctor because she still wasn't feeling well and was diagnosed with the disease.

Get Well Soon just doesn't really cover it, but we'll say it anyway. That's just awful.

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tags: nhl, hockey, legends, barbara+miller+roy, patrick+roy, wayne+gretzky, streptococcus