Are we the reason the Canucks haven't won a Stanley Cup in 40 years?

[Hammer79]

Old ownership didn't really like to open up their wallets. When they did, it backfired spectacularly (Messier). The culture has changed recently with some strong regular season performances and stabilization of ownership, but for a long time this franchise wasn't a desired location for players to sign.

In the 70's, they mostly played like an expansion team. In the 80's, they were over-shadowed by powerhouse Oilers and Flames teams but managed a fluke run in '82. They started to put it together in the early 90's, but things went downhill right after that '94 run. They tried to keep the core together, but made no progress. The late 90's were a competitive black hole. Burke built a competitive, exciting team, but never managed to address their big goaltending weakness. Nonis pulled a rabbit out of his hat with the Luongo trade, and goaltending hasn't been an issue since. That hasn't stopped some of the fans from wanting to run him out of town of course. The jury is still out on whether MG can lead this franchise back to the finals.

Yes, they've made 3 appearances in the Finals, but the 2011 team was the only one of the three that should have been favorites to win. I think they still have many of the pieces to contend, but I'd be more comfortable if they plugged a couple holes on forward before declaring them favorites again.

Do I blame the fans or media for the problems? No. The fans have been selling out that arena for years, and I doubt the media's negativity has that big of an impact on the play on the ice.

 

[stickside]

carl crawford just ripped on the boston red sox media for being very negative and basically contributing to one of the worst experiences of his life.

definitely takes a certain kind of personality to play in markets with a bright spotlight, especially if you're a person who reads the critics and takes it personally.

i guess this is the reason why alot of players say they don't read the papers.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

I blame Dan Cloutier.

We should have won the Cup (or atleast made the Finals) in 2003.

I also blame the league for screwing us out of Bertuzzi in 2004.

Sometimes there are just teams without luck.

Just look at Buffalo for ANY sport.

 

[Nuckles]

It's Cam Barker's fault.

 

[Reign Nateo]

Fans are negative because this team was the laughing stock of the NHL for a long time. And the Canucks have let us down in every concievable way since their inception.

It is not the fans fault. It's not easy to win the Cup and we've only had decent managment recently. The 30 years before that were pretty brutal from that standpoint.

 

[Seattle Totems]

I blame Dan Cloutier.

We should have won the Cup (or atleast made the Finals) in 2003.

I also blame the league for screwing us out of Bertuzzi in 2004.

Sometimes there are just teams without luck.

Just look at Buffalo for ANY sport.

It wasn't just Cloutier. Our defence was not very solid.

 

[Angry Little Elf]

It's all because of the shoddy management of the past. We could've had Sakic, Niedermayer, Whitney, Kariya, Selanne. With those players, we would've had a cup.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

It wasn't just Cloutier. Our defence was not very solid.

Oh I agree.

I just couldn't stand Cloutier nor his stupid helmet.

 

[lush]

Because the players scrounge around on the internet to see what people are saying about them.

Gotcha.

The media OP is referring to is not limited to the internet, and certainly not areas of the internet one must scrounge to find.

Topics of discussion surrounding this team on these boards and the internet in general are usually quite aligned with the discussion taking place between members of the media that are team facing, in the locker room, doing interviews between periods etc. It's not identical but the burning topics and concerns from the local marketplace aren't limited to one branch of the media.

 

[lush]

As for the actual topic at hand, I seem to recall a post from a guy named Wetcoaster put up a few years back that went over (in extremely painful detail) the 'bad luck' experienced by the Canucks franchise from day 1 when the wheel spun for the first pick in our inaugural draft. It goes on to discuss another several decades of misfortunes and rough luck. I do think those events have an impact on the fanbase and the fanbase here is extremely reactionary, overly sensitive and painful to hear. This of course is an extreme generalization and that needs to be understood. Additionally, in my opinion, this type of behavior is most typical of a casual fan. The analogy I'd like to use is of that girl who has been heartbroken so many times she has basically become a broken doll and when tries to date again, each time her suitor does not call her the very next day starts to panic and claims it was never meant to be and generally reacts poorly when it was never necessarily to do so.

 

[Eddy Punch Clock]

Montreal fans better smarten up too or else I'm going to take away their 2 Stanley Cup banners.

 

[stickside]

As for the actual topic at hand, I seem to recall a post from a guy named Wetcoaster put up a few years back that went over (in extremely painful detail) the 'bad luck' experienced by the Canucks franchise from day 1 when the wheel spun for the first pick in our inaugural draft. It goes on to discuss another several decades of misfortunes and rough luck. I do think those events have an impact on the fanbase and the fanbase here is extremely reactionary, overly sensitive and painful to hear. This of course is an extreme generalization and that needs to be understood. Additionally, in my opinion, this type of behavior is most typical of a casual fan. The analogy I'd like to use is of that girl who has been heartbroken so many times she has basically become a broken doll and when tries to date again, each time her suitor does not call her the very next day starts to panic and claims it was never meant to be and generally reacts poorly when it was never necessarily to do so.

the acronym tl;dr was invented because of wetcoaster

 

[ddawg1950]

Kids,

It all started with the spin of a wheel.

 

[heutZe]

You have to be both good and lucky to win the cup. In '82 and '94 we were lucky, but not good enough, in '11 we were good enough, but not lucky. Simple as that.

 

[mrmyheadhurts]

If you want to take the blame, that's fine with me.

 

[Kuzmenkshow]

I'm sure the media/fan pressure doesn't help at times but I'd say these are two much bigger factors..

 

[deadinthewater]

During the finals, every game I watched at home (1, 2, 5) we won, and the other ones we lost. I watched game 7 at a friend's house. I take full responsibility.

 

[D0ctorCool]

People are ignorant to think that fans don't influence how teams are built. There are teams like Philly who have a 'tough' team identity with which the working class can identify. Teams like Montreal which have more francophone players to appease their french speaking supporters. Us Vancouver fans, well we love our Linden's and don't always appreciate our fancy players. Do I think we've screwed ourselves out of a cup? no. But ya never know.

 

[JuniorNelson]

The reason we have never won a cup is that Vancouver is the best place on earth to be young and rich. How many teens in Lambos (actually, most like the 12 cyl. Mercedes coupes, but I don't know what they are called) do you see here, every day? Those aren't hockey players, they have come to the same conclusion independently.

 

[Jinsell]

It has been over 40 years, but let's face it during much of that time this franchise was a laughing stock that was nowhere near contending for a Stanley Cup. You might as well disregard the 1970s and much of the 1980s. Yeah I know they went to the Cup Finals in 1982 but that was pretty much an abberation in a dismal era in Canucks history.

1987 is the year where the Canucks started on the long road towards respectability. That's when Pat Quinn came in as GM and tried to rebuild this sorry franchise from the ground up. Even then it took the team nearly five years before they could even put together an above .500 record or division title. Under Quinn, the Canucks only showed marginal improvement from 1987 to 1991. Then 1991-92 came along and the team was finally turning heads.

I look at it this way:
1970 - 1987: Nowhere near a contender for various reasons.
1987 - 1997: Rebuilding (1987-1991); Contending (1991-1995); Pretending (1995-1997)
1997 - 2000: Nowhere near a contender and can't even pretend to be one anymore.
2001 - 2004: Competitive and eventually a contender from 2002-2004.
2005 - 2008: Definite pretenders. Were competitive but a longshot against real contenders.
2008 - Present: Probably the best I've felt about this franchise as a contender ever or at least since the early 1990s. The fact that 1994 and 2011 are the closest we've come to the Cup confirm this.

The above is just my view, but if you look at it the Vancouver Canucks have really only had a few years here and there where they can actually be considered legit contenders. 40 years doesn't fell as bad when you realize 20+ of those were marred by poor management/ownership etc; At least this school of thought helps me maintain my sanity.

I'd just like to see at least ONE Vancouver Canucks Stanley Cup Champion team during my lifetime though.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Because the players scrounge around on the internet to see what people are saying about them.

Gotcha.

Players definitely can't hear the boos during games.

 

[Barney Gumble]

People are ignorant to think that fans don't influence how teams are built. There are teams like Philly who have a 'tough' team identity with which the working class can identify. Teams like Montreal which have more francophone players to appease their french speaking supporters. Us Vancouver fans, well we love our Linden's and don't always appreciate our fancy players. Do I think we've screwed ourselves out of a cup? no. But ya never know.

Interestingly enough, the Canuck have more players born in the province of Quebec than the Habs. Even if you exclude Luongo (who is fluent in french), we'd still have the same number of players from QC as the Canadiens.

 

[Lundface*]

Personally I feel I could have chipped in a goal or two to help the team. I really let them down. It's something I continue to lose sleep over, hopefully I can redeem myself this post season

 

[Jack Tripper]

I thought I remembered reading somewhere that the players can feel nervous energy from the fans in the building... One can only wonder if that was the case during Game 7.

there'd be nervous energy in any building for a game 7

alot of team identities are baseless in reality and are just lazily superimposed on teams...the flyers are a perfect example, their recent iterations have nothing at all to do with their 70s broad street bully teams yet they seem to carry the reputation as a tough team supposedly to satisfy the bloodlust of their fans

 

[vanuck]

there'd be nervous energy in any building for a game 7

For sure. I just wonder how much they get affected by it. Maybe it was just because CBC likes to turn down the crowd noise but I don't remember if the fans cheered all that much... of course my memory of that game is all but a blur by now.