YOU WOULD THINK that all true Canadians would be behind the Vancouver Canucks in their quest for their first Stanley Cup win.
But apparently that’s just not true. In the lengthy period of time that it has taken to get the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup final between the Canucks and the Boston Bruins going, the media has been turning over all kinds of rocks looking for trivia to keep up the interest.
Naturally, one of our ubiquitous public opinion surveyors (Ipsos-Reid) picked up the phone to ask how much support the Canucks have from the rest of Canada.
Surprisingly they came up with a figure of only 62 per cent – while 10 per cent were rooting for the “original six” Bruins.
Still that’s only 72 per cent of the 1,002 asked – so the remaining 28 per cent, we can assume, are hard-core Leafs or Montreal fans – or have simply planned to be “gone fishing” rather than watch our winter sport drag itself to a conclusion perhaps as late as June 15, a week before Midsummer’s Day.
Let’s hope the Canucks can bring the series to a merciful end a lot earlier than that so we too can get on with summer.
I heard on TSN that three million BC homes tuned in to the final game between the Canucks and the Sharks – while about two-and-a-half million Americans “from sea to shining sea” tuned in.
It serves as a much-needed reminder that hockey is very distinctly a Canadian affair: the Canucks have 17 Canadians listed on their roster, the Bruins 16. Canucks have six Americans and the Bruins only three to cross their hands on their hearts for the `Star Spangled Banner“ anthem.
Canucks also have five prominent Swedish players, the Bruins none. Canucks international cast also includes a Dane, a German, a Finn and a Russian – tho’ not all are playing. Boston’s supporting cast includes one giant Slovakian, a German, a Finn, two Czechs and a player from Kazakhstan.
One thing remains to be seen. Will Swedish Canucks captain, Henrik Sedin, double the number of European-born NHL players to hoist the Stanley Cup in victory?
In fact, only two non-Canadian team captains (Nik Lidstrom for Detroit, a Swede, in 2008 and US-born Derian Hatcher, for Dallas Stars, in 1999) have done so.
All other captains that raised the cup in victory since the NHL became the guardians of Lord Stanley`s Cup have been Canadians.
Check it out yourself if you don’t believe me.
I CANNOT SAY I am very impressed by the callous use of our own money — $5 million more – by the B.C. Liberal government to convince us that the HST is a good thing for British Columbians.
I have been opposed to the harmonized tax because of the large number of items that were previously not taxed under the PST, but which were swept up under the giant money-grabbing broom of the HST.
Nothing has changed my mind since that this was a cash grab by the feds and the BC Libs.
Is this premier Christy Clark’s idea of doing something about the HST, an expensive but simplistic ad campaign that both patronizes and, frankly, insults the majority of British Columbians who oppose the tax, as well as the way it was introduced.
I just hope that when the July referendum comes around there will be enough people in BC to participate in opposing the tax.
Then we’ll see if a simple majority will in fact be enough to push the Liberals into reinstating the PST.
I doubt it – but I’ll have to wait and see, like the rest of us.
ahewitson@telus.net
