Vancouver Canucks : So Close, So Canuck (Ep. 18)

All right. Welcome back to Misery Sports Co where dreams go to die. That’s right. We’re so sad inside. We don’t feel anything. So we just keep coming back. If your teams have ever gone on an extended winning streak only to be just outside of the playoffs, you’re welcome here. I’m Zach and I’m Trevor. And if you also don’t know what the playoffs are you’re also welcome here. That’s a foreign concept to me that I can’t even wrap my head around. So last episode we turned our attention to the Sacramento Kings, diving deep into a franchise that continues to live somewhere between real progress and carefully managed chaos. A real gut punch for the fans of the two thousand. Anytime it starts to look normal, like success may be on the horizon, that’s when you know something’s going to go terribly, terribly wrong. So come on back in to Misery Sports Co. We’re clocking in. It’s the same company. It’s the same level of confusion Chaos dysfunction. You’re welcome here. It’s a company, you know, the company you love. And sure, there might be something else better out there, but you’re not going to go find out you love the pain. That’s why you keep coming back. That’s why we’re here. Hey, before we get started, though, Zack, let’s check in with the sponsor, who confusingly keeps sending us money, and we will accept it. This segment of the Misery Sports Company podcast is sponsored by the newest cocktail sweeping the nation. It’s the NBA Fruit Punch out now the favorite drink of teams like Charlotte and Detroit, this cocktail has only three ingredients grain alcohol, testosterone, and pettiness. Forget that old stuff you had had you grabbing jerseys and waiting for your teammates to tell you to get back so you can act tough. This stuff is fighting juice with NBA fruit punch out. Thank you so much NBA for your generous donation and your wonderful and very creative drinks. We’re going to jump into the weekly Performance Review now, where we review progress from our teams, from other leagues, and we just commiserate together. I’m going to start us off, Trevor. I’m going to really dive deep into not the Browns because I can’t talk about the Browns right now. We did have the Super Bowl. Congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks. Well done. You know we’ll never feel that at Misery Sports Co but well done. Won’t even sniff it. Um I really wanted to focus in on the Utah Jazz. Um, the Utah Jazz are just going to levels that have never been seen. They’re elevating themselves in the world of tanking. Yeah they are. They were up something like seven or eight points going to the fourth quarter. And they pulled everyone. They pulled they pulled Jackson. They pulled Lauri Markkanen and they said you’re not playing. We’re not winning. And they went on to lose. So I just wanted to highlight from a weekly performance that is an A plus in Missouri sports. We are here for it. You’re really pushing the bar. I don’t know how you fix this, but we still got a lot of season left. A lot. They’re not even trying. I like that they’re not trying to hide it. Paul, what it is. It’s a broken system, I like it. Go, jazz! Yeah, I guess, uh, on the brighter side. So, you know, we have those teams that you and I focus on and Titans in. The Browns are always going to bring us down. But for me, the Cleveland Cavaliers have actually been a ray of sunshine for James Harden. Uh he has been phenomenal right off the bat. We had two away games Sacramento Kings. They actually played phenomenal. But Harden came in in the fourth and delivered. He was hitting threes. He was clutch. Nice came in. We won that game. Went to Denver. Beat them in Denver. James Watson was awesome. Okay. Um, and tonight he’s got like eleven or twelve assists, like the dudes on fire. He’s everything we’ve ever needed. I’ve always felt a little iffy about him. He’s super old. But I mean, the returns are are good so far. Can’t complain about that. Build that hope up, baby. That’s right. What do you got for us? Well, like Zach said, the NFL season’s over. Um, we can’t talk about the Browns. I’m gonna talk about the Titans. So not directly in the Super Bowl this year. Mike Vrabel got his Patriots all the way to the Super Bowl. And it was a complicated time for Titans fans. On the one hand. On the one hand since the playoffs started, I just hate watched all of his games and hoped he would lose. Uh, because everybody was telling us, oh, don’t you wish you had Vrabel? Um, and so in that way, and I lived for a time in Seattle, got the Seahawks hold a special place in my heart. So I was rooting for them, certainly in the Super Bowl. And Jason’s great. How great is Jason? Oh yeah. Ah. So good. Um, but then Braves lost. And I gotta admit, I was kind of bummed seeing him on the sideline doing his losing face. And I, you know, I, I think in my heart I like him. I think his interviews are still fun. I think he’s a funny guy. Uh, he is a flawed coach. He doesn’t fire his buddies that are coordinators. Um, he maybe doesn’t invest as much in offenses. He should. I don’t know, he’s got flaws. He’s got flaws, but he made it really far. Congrats to him, I guess. But all we’ve heard is the schedule around the Patriots. Guess who had the easiest schedule in the entire league this year? The Patriots. Yes they did. Uh, by quite a ways. Zach. Guess who had the hardest schedule in the NFL this year? The Browns. The Titans. The Titans had the hardest schedule after having the number one pick and should get the easiest schedule in the NFL. We had based on last this past year’s records, we had the hardest schedule in the NFL. It’s so unfair. It’s so unfair. But whatever. I’m not bitter. Um. It’s fine. Congrats to the Patriots for getting there. One more note. Uh, the Patriots averaged, uh, just under seventeen points in the postseason. Not great. To put that in perspective. The Jets were averaging almost eighteen points. Uh so good job. Their defense is great. Benefited from, uh, Bo Nix breaking his leg. Right? Denver. Right. But I mean, Vrabel squeezed everything he could out of him. I hope that one of our teams or a team at Misery Sports Co, for those of you listening, can get that luck. Someone else needs that luck. It’s always the Patriots. It’s always the Patriots. Yeah you know what me and Zach’s luck is in the playoffs. Running into Patrick Mahomes prime. Mahomes prime Kelce prime Andy Reid. What what were we supposed to do about that. I’m so sorry. Anyways I’m not bitter. It’s fine. Oh, and the Mavs have lost eight in a row after winning four in a row. So yeah man. Oh that’s what I got. Hang in there. Uh, you know, here at Misery Sports Co we, we really live by by the the motto here. Misery loves company. So come on in, guys and gals. You’re welcome here. Let’s be miserable together. That’s right. Before we go to the mail room, Our next stop, we’re going to have a word from our next sponsor. Uh, ironically, have you ever watched a completely normal basketball game and thought, you know what? This needs a brawl. Call Detroit Pistons conflict initiation services, specializing in hard fouls. Longer stairs than necessary. And that one teammate who always arrives way too fast from the weak side. Detroit Pistons sis escalating situations since tip off. You know, it really stands out from conflict avoidant packages out there. We’re looking to bring the conflict. I like that they’ll corner that market, I think. Yeah I mean from the malice in the palace on if you need a fight. It’s the Pistons got your back. We’ll start that. That Hornets one was real. That was a good one. Oh yeah that was a good one. They were throwing some punches. Yeah yeah. Just looking. That was a great fight. Highly recommend. We haven’t had one like that in a hot minute. That was great to see. Mhm. Um so like Zach said well first of all thank you Detroit Pistons for what you’re doing. Uh for our entertainment and for the league in general. Uh, let’s step into the mail room. Uh, we are going to look at the landscape. We’re going to see what’s out there. Uh, well maybe talk about awards that would theoretically be given and maybe shared or not, but, uh, let’s step on in. Um, what do you got, Zach? What do you got for us? So I have a little. I’ve got one tweet. Um, I was kind of perusing the Twittersphere, and I came upon Boban Marjanovic, probably mispronouncing it. Uh, fan favorite. He’s out of the the league. He was in the NBA. For those who don’t know, he is enormous. He’s like, what, seven foot five on a bad day? Um, typically came off the bench. He’d give you a couple points, a couple rebounds, but typically, you know, your eighth or ninth player, um, he was showing up. So I noticed he’s starting to show up at college basketball games and go into the student section. So there’s this seven foot, I don’t know, five guy just huge in these student sections. So he was actually a UConn game with literally a digital camera trying to take pictures. Oh my gosh, in the stands. And so I came upon this gem. And it was it may have been Boban’s last game, um, in the NBA, but he was with the rockets. And all you need to know is that, um, he was playing the Clippers. It was a game that really didn’t matter and the score wasn’t close. And so the Clippers fans, if the opposing team misses two free throws, they would get free chicken sandwiches and so on. I want that first one and you’re not going to be able to see it. We’ll repost it on our Twitter. But he starts to like get the fans going even though they’re the opposing fans and he’s going to intentionally miss it. Be some free chicken on the board. If he misses the second, he’s telling the crowd, I’ll miss this one for you. A little, little frothy. Oh, they’re pointing, playing with the crowd. Say you want chicken. Here’s your job. He gave him chicken. He’s a man. He did that on purpose. He did. He gave out free chicken. What a legend. Absolute treasure. Oh my gosh. You want free chicken? I’ll give you free chicken. He was such a vibes guy. He, um. Fun fact he started games for us in playoff series against the Clippers. Actually okay. We didn’t win those. But he was fun. Well that’s probably not a good sign. You know it’s fine. Um, well I’ve got two tweets and they are themed because last week we talked about the Sacramento Kings. And I have two Sacramento Kings related tweets. So the first one is from, uh, a muse account for Dylan Cardwell. This says it’s got a video of a fan doing a contest. You know, sometimes you’ll win cash. Sometimes you’ll win a lease on a car for a year. This says the Sacramento Kings are giving away season tickets if you hit a free throw. That’s where we’re at. So just hit a free throw and you can have season tickets. Desperate place right now. And, uh, my tweet of the week, this one from res twenty three on Twitter. There was a tweet that asked which NBA team deserves the number one pick this year the most? And res twenty three replied with a picture of the Kings players on the bench saying we the most ethical tank in the league. No benching star players, no tanking gimmicks, just pure ass hoops. Just pure ass. And I agree, I love ethical tanking, but I kind of love unethical tanking of the jazz where they’re just doing it out in public. What I don’t like is the the BS around like fake injury reports why we’re sitting people like just be honest. Yeah, they gotta change it. They gotta figure something out the NBA because I just put myself in the fan’s seats. Right. Even if you were like a Utah fan and you wanted to see the players, but you knew at some point they’re going to pull them and they’re not trying to win that. That kind of sucks if you’re paying money for a ticket and stuff. So yes. I don’t know if they, you know, figure out the seating like mid-season and then they’re like, okay, well, this is the order. Go play. You know, no more tanking. I, I don’t know how you fix it, but it’s they are finding new levels of tanking. Yes. New levels. Well that was our mail room. Seems a little bit more orderly in there. I feel like, uh, the union hasn’t been sending us as many messages. We. We kind of scared that away. Yep. Our message was delivered, which is kind of rude. Gestures and looks. That’s right. And before we go to our next segment, uh, Trevor, who do you have for our next sponsor? Check out our new sponsor this week. It’s Mike Vrabel’s thousand yard stare at the scoreboard while he processes the dumb thing his team just did, and wishes Christian Gonzalez could play both sides of the ball, and his left tackle had long enough arms to wipe his own nose. Thank you for sponsoring this segment. Vrabel you know the look I’m talking about where he’s got his hands on his knees and he’s looking up like this. Yeah, he kind of looks constipated. He’s. Yes. Like yes, yes. Trying to get it out. And just like I was doing the Leonardo DiCaprio point at my TV, like I know that I know that I see that every game. I know, I know that, yep. I’ve seen that. Good deal. Yep. Shout out. Thank you for sponsoring that. Let’s get into some moral victories. All right. Well, in our office of Moral Victories, we always take a look at some employees of the week. Um, so taking a look across the NBA, I actually landed on the Charlotte Hornets. So speaking of a team that’s been streaking, they’ve won nine of their last ten. Uh they’re pushing for a playoff spot I think they’re around the ten seed. Yeah. And of course you know they unfortunately lost their last game. But they fought tooth and nail literally for it. So he really did. Yeah they did. Their young team, they got some good players. Uh, seems like their, their drafts are starting to hit. Uh, I’m going to screw his name up, but Connubial or Connubial. Yep. He’s hitting threes. He’s doing great. Um, he’s entertaining to watch. Absolutely. And as we saw, those fans deserve some respite from their misery because it’s been a long, bumpy ride. Congrats, Charlotte Hornet. Well, my employee of the week. Last time it was Cooper Flagg. He’s still doing Cooper Flagg things. He’s definitely could be employee of the week. But this week we are going to a team that I know very little about, even though I root for them. It’s Ohio State senior guard Bruce Thornton in a win tonight against USC to keep those classic bubble hopes alive. They do this every year, Zach. They drag us along. Oh maybe. And then they’re gonna trip down the stretch in the past two years. Look back on a buzzer beater loss to Pitt and a close loss to UNC. I swear to goodness, it’s the same story these past two freaking years. But anyways, uh, that’s not what this is about. This is about Bruce. Uh, Bruce had, uh, twenty one, six and eight, and he moved tonight. He moved into fifth all time in scoring for the Ohio State Buckeyes all time. So he is now, uh, forty points behind the next spot that is shared by Jerry Lucas and William Buford. And I could give you a hundred guesses as to the top two spots, and I don’t think you’ll get them. I’ve never even heard of these people. You know more about this than I do, though. Um. They’re old. They are old? Yep. There’s Havlicek up there. Uh, he is, but not in the top two. Okay, Jerry. Lucas, it’s gotta be around that same time there were some dudes back then that like because Bob Knight was a coach for Indiana, but he played for us. Uh, it’s going to drive me nuts. Who is it, Trevor? It is. I was going to give you years. Um, both from the eighties. So in number, the two slot. He is sixty one behind Herb Williams. Oh. Who played late seventies to early eighties. And then he is one hundred and forty six behind number one scorer all time Dennis Hopson from eighty three to eighty seven. So there you go. Congrats. Congrats Bruce. Bruce Thornton, way to go. Uh, we hope that you receive our award in the mail and that it brings you hope in this dark, dark time. Um, we all need a little bit of hope. Tournament. That’s it. I just want to go back. I just want to go sixty eight teams. Trevor, how are we not in the tournament? I don’t oh my gosh. We can be a ten seed eleven seed I don’t care whatever you want us to be. Just get us in. Yeah. That’s. Wow. Didn’t know he’s going there today. Well, sorry. Well. Congrats, Bruce. Well, it’s deep dive time. This is a part of the show. Step back, connect the dots, and just take a hard look in the mirror and see. Is our situation that bad? Let’s check out somebody else’s. Last week, Trevor covered the Sacramento Kings, as we mentioned. Uh, this week, I am taking the lead as we take a look at a team from the NHL. Oh, okay. I was thinking, you know, with the Winter Olympics, we should give a little bit of love to Canada. So we’re going to go back to oh Canada. Mhm. Um, and we’re going to visit the Vancouver Canucks. Uh Vancouver. Vancouver. So this team was founded in Nineteen forty five, they were part of the PchA before the NHL. They jumped to the NHL in nineteen seventy as an expansion team, and they were named the Canucks. Um, I have no idea if this is correct. Someone from Canada is going to have to correct me because it may not when I do research the Google’s. Canucks is similar to what Yankees would be in the US, so it’s like a term of endearment for Canadians. All right. All I see is that shark thing on their on their logo with the C, and I was like, is it a another term for a, I don’t know, a shark. I don’t it is shark. It kind of looks like tribal, like it’d be from like First Nations or something. It’s really cool. They have a cool logo for sure, for sure. So I didn’t know this, but Vancouver is the third largest metro in Canada at two point six million people. Little did I know, doing a little, little research. So all right so we’re going to go through. They started in nineteen seventy as an expansion team. And they were bad. Didn’t make the playoffs for a while. The first four years were rough. Um and their owners sold. So he sold to Frank Griffiths for nine million dollars. Trevor. What a deal, a bargain. What a deal. Uh, a couple winning seasons to to start off, you know, those mid seventies and then sixteen years below five hundred in my gosh, sixteen. But here’s the crazy part is the NHL was so desperate for playoff teams. They made the playoffs nine different times during that time period. Good gracious. So some some kind of interesting seasons nineteen eighty two they went thirty wins, thirty three losses and seventeen ties. So they did not have a winning record, but they made the Stanley Cup. Um, so they ended up getting swept. But they made the Stanley Cup. And so hey, that should be celebrated. That’s should be there’s a few more times where they went to the Stanley Cup and it just becomes more gut punches, one gut punch after the other. So a ninety four they go forty one forty and three make the Stanley Cup. Yep. And they lose. But in ninety four Trevor they beat the New York Rangers in Game seven or no. They lost to to the New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup. But they beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in the conference finals. And do you remember who the goaltender was? Gretzky hockey Potvin. And they scored on Potvin in double OT. Oh I love it to go Stanley Cup. Yep. So popping can suck it. Yeah but they did lose to the New York Rangers in Game seven. So they were actually in a really tight series. That’s that’s a super bummer. Uh, the nineties were pretty good to them. So they signed Mark Messier. Uh, they had Daniel and Henrik Sedin. I think Sedin might have been popular in that, that era with the, uh, the NHL games that we played growing up. Yeah. Um, Robert Luongo was a good player. Love him. Um, phenomenal. They actually go to one more Stanley Cup in in twenty eleven. Um, they, they went up three two in the series to the Boston Bruins and end up losing four three in a game seven loss at home. Oh, man. And you know, that place was ready to pop. Yeah. So this this team I feel for the fans. It it seems like they built towards something but then couldn’t get over the hump. Couldn’t win the big one. And then there wasn’t the consistency after. So it was like you get to the top and then you’re falling right back down. Um, when I look at since two thousand, they’re pretty much five hundred, roughly eight of the last ten seasons. No playoffs for this team. So that’s Vancouver. Um, I remember him when we were playing Wayne Gretzky’s NHL. Yeah. Uh, on N64, we would always go up against them, and I just, I just remember the big C with the, uh, the orca on it. Mhm. And they are up in the corner middle of well not middle of nowhere bc it’s beautiful. But like those forgotten teams in the Pacific Northwest. Mhm. Mhm. They’re just I don’t know unless you live there, it’s so far away that you just don’t meet a lot of those fans. And I know that’s kind of it is a smaller franchise in the NHL landscape. But you just don’t run into a lot of Canuck fans. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who is like, I’m a huge Canuck fan, right? I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone who’s even been from Vancouver, let alone visited. It’s it’s very far away. Mhm. We used to um, like you can go across the border into Canada from, you can take a train up to Seattle. And I always wanted to go because I would see the pictures and it looked great. I would love to someday do a giant road trip. Not driving but like flying around to each of the different Canadian uh hockey venues and go to a game in each one. I think that would be a blast. I think that would be so great. Yeah. Vancouver Canucks. I know we were talking about this. Uh, it’s another maybe mini segment, and it’s a ratings system. So, Trevor, do you want to open up kind of what we’re thinking with this rating system? Yeah. We talk we talk about so many teams. We do these deep dives. And one thing in common everybody is miserable when it comes to the fans of these teams. But how do we compare these? Uh, we talk about different kinds of misery, like with the Canucks being so close to closing the deal and then being unable to do so with the Kings, uh, finally getting the team together, you’re going to beat the bad team and then the refs take it from you. The Hornets are just kind of a special brand of ass. I don’t really they got their thing going on. So we thought it would be interesting to um, for the person who does the deep dive to share based on their research and readings and everything, where they think those teams would land. So, for example, um, we have the Hornets. Zach, you did the Hornets. And I gotta believe it’s pretty high on our on our misery meter of zero to one hundred. It’s got to be up there right. Yeah. Yeah it’s it’s pretty high up there. Um, I had the Kings last week. Certainly lower than the Hornets. Nowhere approaching that. Um, been bad for a while. Stinks to see Haliburton in the finals. I’m gonna put them at, like, uh, somewhere in the sixties. Pretty miserable, I think. I don’t think they’re higher than that. Yeah. I’m gonna put Vancouver just behind the Kings. Maybe in like, the upper fifties. I think going to Stanley Cups means something like you’re in the championship hunt, even if it’s once every ten, twenty years. Yeah. Uh, the Hornets are never in the hunt. The Kings have had, you know, one trip, maybe twenty years ago. At this point, um, I think Vancouver is going to be somewhere in the fifties. I’ll give him like a fifty fifty six. Okay, I like it. Yeah. So we’re gonna fill this out as we go. Um, as it gets bigger, maybe we can, uh, I’ll take a screenshot and we’ll post it on our website. But we have had several teams that we’ve talked about so far, and I think it would be we’ve thought it would be fun to just kind of quantify, compare different levels of misery. It’s going to be hard. We’ll, you know, we’ll periodically go through previous teams like we did the Kings and the Hornets going to be hard to unseat the the Hornets up there. The Hornets have a special place at Misery Sports Co. It’s it’s a lot in power to. Well before uh before we lock up let’s uh thank our last sponsor here. So did you accidentally sound like you wanted out call Giannis Antetokounmpo’s walk it back. PR specializing in translating. I just want to win into I absolutely said I never said I wanted to leave. our team works fast, issuing clarifications before the morning shows even finished packing. Walk it back PR because what you meant was open to interpretation. Incredible. Nobody’s walked a tightrope and sat on the fence quite like Yannis. Thank you for wanting to leave Milwaukee right like that. At this point, like, I don’t think so. Would have been gone. I, I don’t think so. But then he comes out and says stuff like, it’s time to move on. Right? Well, what does that mean? I don’t know. It’s all it’s all too much to follow. I hope Milwaukee keeps him forever. But what are you going to do? Well, another work week in the books here at Misery Sports Company, where the effort is, you know, around, and the results are there. That’s. That’s fair. There they are. There, there, there. Follow us. Give us a a like a retweet, a repost. Visit our website Misery Sports co com. And we’re also on the twitters at Misery Sports Co. Um, let us know what you think. What you think about the Vancouver Canucks, any of the, uh, prior teams, as well as any future teams that you’d like us to cover. We’ll be back next week with more evaluations and just telling you, hey, it’s going to be different next time. Until then, shut the laptop. Or maybe it’s your your phone. Turn that phone off. Just stop watching that highlight reel from twenty eleven. And remember you’re not suffering alone because misery will always find company.