remember when we chanted 1940 at the rangers in 1994?
i realized today we are going to hit the same 54 year milestone shortly and i have no expectation we miss it.
the only consolation is the leafs have the record and i expect them to add to it.
No, I don't.
My memories of 1994.
During the playoffs I was working as a diver in the area of the Broughton Archipelago and my shifts were 10 days long. It was unusual in that rather than staying on a barge like we normally did, there were crew quarters on land. This was on Bonwick Island near a place called Betty Cove.
The fishing was fantastic. We could catch and fill our bellies with dungeness crab every day if we wanted. It also wasn't a dry camp. Beer was allowed.
We had a television and a VCR which was used often. We also had an antenna and could get only one channel - the CBC. We got the playoffs. North of 60 was also popular with us.
Every Canucks game was a major event: beer, crab, rockfish, salmon. We lived like kings and watched what was my favourite Canucks team of all time.
I can't remember which team it was we knocked out, but coming home to Port Coquitlam after work one evening, listening to the game on the radio as I drove down Vancouver Island, then losing radio reception on the ferry, then regaining reception as I hit the off ramp and learning that we had prevailed, was pure magic.
When I hit Renfrew and Hastings it was madness. Canucks fans were hanging out of their cars, waving flags. not wanting to disperse far from the Pacific Coliseum.
Game 7
It was crew change day and we would be riding a crew boat into Telegraph Cove. The game would be starting around the same time we got on the boat. Our plan was to hit the bar in Port McNeil where they had a projection TV, settle in there and watch the rest of the game.
The weather was terrible with high winds and the ride into Telegraph took far longer than normal. But we made it partway through the second period.
Then the projection TV broke down so everyone in the bar huddled around a little TV over the bar.
Then about 5 minutes later the projection TV kicked in again and we returned to our seats.
Then it broke down again 5 minutes after that. It was overheating and shutting down, cooling off and then working again.
This went on the rest of the night. It was an entire crowd playing musical chairs. It absolutely sucked. The Canucks lost, yadda, yadda, yadda, and the drive down island and onto the ferry was absolute misery. I felt like we were being punished for all the fun we had watching the games on Bonwick Island.
That's my recollection of 1994. The highest of highs followed by a devastating low.