Dave Nonis likes Mattias Ohlund

A snippet from John McGourty's article on NHL.com Sept 29, 2006:

Nonis likes the individual skills of his defensemen. Now, they need to mesh together. He expects Mattias Ohlund and Mitchell to be key to developing that chemistry. Nonis was told that opponents and former teammates speak in glowing terms about Ohlund. One departed Canucks defenseman recently insisted he is one of the top ten defensemen in the NHL. He plays the position so smoothly, he rarely gets noticed.

"I would agree he is among the 10 best defensemen," Nonis said. "He's so quiet. He's not a guy that draws attention to himself. He just goes about his business. He's a very good defenseman that we use against all the top players in the NHL. He's also a guy who puts up decent point totals.

It's too bad I don't have a picture of Dave and Mattias. Hmm.. actually, I think I might...

Blue Jackets win in shootout

2-3 Loss to Columbus last night at GM Place.

Mattias Ohlund:

"Tough game to analyze. I thought we played pretty good at times. I didn't think it was our best game, but certainly good enough to get two points. The last couple of games we haven't played our best. Sometimes you win hockey games... because of Louie. But you have to realize you have to get better. It shouldn't take a big loss to refocus. We played a pretty good game, but not our best. We have to find a way to be our best."

Luongo 3 - San Jose 1

So! The San Jose Sharks lost last night 1-3 but put a ton of shots on Luongo. He held in there until the Sharks tired themselves out from fetching the puck and Morrison was able to put in the empty netter.

Brendan Morrison: "That's a lot of meat out there," referring to the big and tall Thornton, Marleau and Clowe line. (hee hee - He's the one who says "Pee Pee" instead of "Power play") Mattias Ohlund: "When you play a line like that, you try to do a decent job and just make sure they don't get the wide-open ones." Defence did a good job.

Bah. I'm torn. On one hand, it's great to win but on the other, it's so irksome (not to mention humiliating) to watch all of the play in our end of the rink. Sure, it's exciting, if not blood pressure rising, to watch the opposing team pelt Luongo with shots but wouldn't it be more exciting to watch fancy plays or quick skating on the other side of the rink? eh? eh?

Sigh. FINE. I'll settle for the win. =P

Why is Mattias Ohlund so sexy?

Haha! When I saw this link, I just had to click on it. Don't worry, it's not racy, just a few non-Canucks fans wanting to increase their point count on Yahoo Answers. Quite a similar phenomenon occurs on the CDC forum..

But why IS Mattias Ohlund so sexy? Hmm... I think this calls for a photograph!

Ryan Kesler - Always gonna be a 'gamer'

Since Ryan Kesler is always playing video games, it seemed inevitable that he was going to be interviewed by some gamer magazine. Here's the article from Sports Gamer. I guess he'll be playing a lot more now that he's out for the season. I was pretty disappointed. I really like Ryan Kesler on the PK. He and Willie are PK specialists.

A snippet from Jon Azpiri's article from the Georgia Straight back in 2004:

The level of detail is good enough to impress even NHL players, who know the game better than anyone. "I'm a big fan of the game," Canuck defenceman Mattias Ohlund tells the Straight after a team practice at GM Place. "I used to play it all the time....It's definitely getting more detailed. It's unbelievable how good they are now compared to a few years ago. Obviously, it's improving each and every year."

I wanted to find a pic of either Kesler or Ohlund from any hockey game but I couldn't. :( Here's a Sedin though! Trevor looks scary.. Bertuzzi looks undead. Ohlund with his TPS.

Still tied with Calgary

With both Calgary and Vancouver losing post regulation, both teams are at 57 points. Well good for LA though. They played well tonight, taking it 4-3 in OT. It was strange to see Marc Crawford on the visiting bench. Brent Sopel, Mattias Ohlund's ex-linemate, is still sporting the hair, I see. Sean Burke, another ex-Canucks goalie, is still playing and playing well. I looked it up and he played 16 games in 1997-98 with us. Part of our forgettable years..

Mattias Ohlund:

"I don't care who we played, we were extremely lucky to get one point. Most of us have been around long enough to realize if we don't play hard, we're not going to get points. For some reason, we didn't have a lot of jump and if it hadn't been for Louie, we would have been out of it halfway through the game."

Mattias Ohlund on Kesler being out for the rest of the season:

"We've had people out before. Sami [Salo] was out and Willie [Mitchell] is out now. I mean, Kes is a big part of our team. But we still have to find a way to get better. We should be able to handle this."

Cabbie on the street: Linden and Naslund

Haha! This is hilarious. Check out Trevor and Markus et al getting interviewed about hockey bag smell: The Sweet Smell of Hockey

Trevor on wearing suspenders: "It's old school. There are a few of us left.. It comes from the Harold Snepsts school of hockey attire."

I wonder who else has the suspenders on the team? Hmm.. looks like Mattias does too. I think I remember Bert did too.. hmm I'd have to check on that.

EDIT: Yes, Bert did, and so does Nazzy. (Thanks Canucks<3)

Some Canucks quotes and Levesque revisited

Trevor Linden on playing a round of golf at Whistler in September:

"It was black when we finished and it was freezing too. Danny and Henrik just had shorts and t-shirts on, but they didn't seem to care. I guess they're Swedish and that makes them tough. They're good at the cold."

Adrian Aucoin on Mattias Ohlund:

"The guy is so naturally big and strong."

Crawford on when Johan Hedberg went down and the UBC call up Levesque looked like he might have to play:

"Mike Keane was on the bench and yelled down at [Levesque] 'Don't worry, he'll get up,'I started laughing. I thought that was pretty funny."

Hedberg kept playing even through a fractured wrist. Here's Levesque's interview. He got 88% on that geography final..

The uglier side of hockey

A 2000 article on hockey and tacitly ignored affairs by Laura Robinson of the Globe and Mail. Reminds me of the rumour of the affair between Jeff Brown and Kirk McLean's ex-wife and the alleged resulting McLean divorce and Brown trade.

Interview with Amanda Tapping

A snippet of Gateworld's interview with Amanda Tapping (Samantha Carter)

GW: The spoofs that you guys did for "200" I've seen them. But which one was your favorite?

AT: Star Trek was pretty fun. Especially having Brad Wright do 'I canna get any more juice out of the engines'. He was great. That was fun. And the puppet thing was really fun. Gosh, you know what? The whole Rick reappearing…the wedding.

The scene that's not shown, well you'll never see, that Rick adlibbed in the wedding was aah, Daniel turns to O'Neill and goes 'you know, if she doesn't show up, folks will think that….' And then of course, I beam in. But in the one take that we did, Michael turns to Rick and says 'You know, if she doesn't show up folks will think that…" and Rick said really loudly 'WE'RE GAY???'

Claudia and I were back in the bushes waiting to come on, laughing our heads off. It was just so funny.

(Here's the actual scene)

Some more Stargate news: The 1st of 2 Stargate movies will start filming in April. Stargate: The Arc of Truth. Hopefully Rick Anderson will play a part in both.

It feels like playoff hockey

Chuckle. That Buffalo game was tight. Though I'm not a big Luongo fan, I was quite uneasy when I saw Sabourin out as starter against the best team in the Eastern conference. Uhh, isn't that insulting to Buffalo to put our backup against them? In retrospect, it was a great idea. 1. It showed Vigneault's confidence in Sabourin. 2. It boosted Sabourin's confidence in himself - playing well against the best in the east 3. It rewarded Sabourin's hard work - Alain's motto all season 4. It gave Luongo a night off to rest.

Sitting on the edge of my seat, I could've sworn we were playing in the playoffs. What an exciting game! It's still way too early for me to jump on the playoffs bandwagon though. Canucks fans are more leery after the disappointment of last season. Any happiness at how far we do go, however, will still be tempered with the feeling that it should have been achieved with our 2005/2006 core group. We should've gone all the way! Robbed of our Stanley Cup! :'( No, not bitter and disappointed..

Gino Odjick owns Musqueam golf course

So what do hockey players do when they can't play hockey anymore? I guess some go into broadcasting. Others invest in businesses.. and causes. My friend mentioned that Gino Odjick owned Musqueam. Sure enough, here's an article at www.firstnationsdrum.com by Joseph O'Connor that says exactly that.

Burrows and Vigneault en francais

So we have a lot of Moose up as Canucks this season. Among some of those are Kevin Bieksa, Josh Green and Alexandre Burrows.. and Alain Vigneault. Alain and Alex did interviews in French there. I wonder if they do them in French while they're with the Canucks?

Anyway, contrast Burrows and Vigneault speaking in French and in English. Style and intonation are the same, non?

On the Road Again..

After awhile, travelling must really be a pain in the ass. I know someone who's always on the road/plane and I don't think I could hack it.

About the new NHL uniforms.. we'll get a peek at them being worn at the All Stars.

Ohlund is the complete package

Oh, we won again. Ho hum.

Hahaha! No, I'm not getting blase about it; I'm still ecstatic whenever we get a win. The Leafs, the Habs and now the Sens have failed to get wins at home against the Canucks.

I'm starting to have more respect for Luongo. He not only played with a banged up throat but played well enough to get a shutout in the Habs game and a win in the Senators game. Gary Valk in a Sportsnet interview called him the most durable Vancouver goalie. Chuckle. True true!

Here's some paragraphs on Ohlund from the NHL.com's preview of the Canuck defence back in September:

Ohlund, 30, is the complete package: A 6-foot-2, 220-pounder with great skating ability, strength and anticipation who has a cannon for a shot. Ohlund gained a reputation as injury-prone early in his NHL career, but that thought should be dispelled. Ohlund has missed only four games in three of his past four NHL seasons, sandwiched around his 59-game season in 2002-03. Ohlund led the Canucks last season with 25:40 minutes of average ice time, just ahead of Salo's 24:29.

Teammates, former teammates and rivals speak with great respect for Ohlund, the 13th overall pick of the 1994 draft. An eight-year veteran, Ohlund has played most of his career in Jovanovski's shadow, although he was a finalist for the Calder Memorial Trophy in his rookie season. Fans last season voted him the best Canucks' defenseman and at age 30, he's ready to take an NHL leadership role. He set an NHL career high with eight power-play goals. Ohlund has 67 goals and 178 assists for 245 points in 558 NHL games.

I hope Mattias doesn't feel bad

I was so happy when Willie Mitchell was given the role as the shutdown man. I felt like it took the pressure off Ohlund and freed him to be more of a play reader and puck shooter. It never occurred to me that he might feel displaced. But the team is doing well, he's putting pucks in the net and his numbers are looking better. He shouldn't feel bad, right?

Anyway, what got me thinking was this article by Jason Botchford in the Province, a snippet of which is below:

For most of the early season, Mitchell said he struggled mentally to find "his niche" with the team. He was a big free-agent acquisition brought in from the Wild, with who he was always matched against the opponent's best forwards.

It's the role Mattias Ohlund has shouldered in Vancouver for years.

"That's what I was doing in Minnesota, but I didn't have the same role when I came here," Mitchell said.

He said he felt lost. He felt like he wasn't earning his $3.5-million-US salary because he was simply playing a regular shift every night and not being matched against top lines.

Mitchell took it upon himself to meet with assistant coach Rick Bowness before the Canucks' Boxing Day game in Calgary.

"Playing against the top lines gets me in the game, allows me to do what I was brought here to do," Mitchell said. "If I don't play against the top lines I find that I'm OK out there, but I don't get the same feel for the game as when I'm line-matching. That's when I feel I'm doing my job."

The meeting presented Bowness and the Canucks coaching staff with an interesting dilemma while opening the door for some new possibilities at the same time.

"That's why we signed Willie, but what we talked about is that Mattias had that role all these years and you can't just take [Ohlund] out of that role because he's a wonderful player himself," Bowness said. "But we weren't scoring goals and I thought if we free [Ohlund] up that might help us more offensively. So I took him away from that role of playing against the top lines -- you know Jarome [Iginla] and all those guys -- and I gave it all to Willie."

The results were immediate. Mitchell was paired with Kevin Bieksa and the duo shut down the Flames' top line in the first game with the new defensive alignment. The win sparked the Canucks seven-game win streak.

"Things went really well after the meeting," Mitchell said. "We won seven games in a row and Kevin and I did pretty well against the top lines. Obviously, things were going well."

The move has paid dividends offensively. Ohlund has nine points in the nine games since Mitchell and Bowness sat down together.

I missed posting Ohlund's breakaway

I was reviewing some of Mattias Ohlund's goals on nhl.com and I totally missed posting Ohlund's pretty breakaway and subsequent goal on Markkanen back on Dec 30, 2006. Very pretty!

Mattias:

"I scored like that seven or eight years ago against Calgary when Mike Keenan was the coach," "Ohlund said. "That's the last time. I had no idea what I was going to do before I got to the net."

Leafs Fans Boooooo

Isn't this familiar? Fans who boo their team. This time, however, the Canucks weren't playing at GM Place and the fans weren't booing them. I'll bet the Canucks were all thinking, "Ha! You Leafs have fickle fans.. just like we do!"

Well, no one was booing in BC last night as everyone rejoiced at the 6-1 win. Goal scorers were Mattias Ohlund (2nd star- nhl.com), Daniel Sedin (1st star - HNIC, 3rd star - nhl.com), Trevor Linden, Taylor Pyatt, Sami Salo and Markus Naslund! Mattias looks more happy in this picture with Henrik than he was in the previous photo posted with Bieksa. I like seeing Ohlie happy! Now if only we could see Naslund happy too..

Some bad news though: Calgary won their game against Edmonton to bump us off 1st in the division.

Portrait of Mattias Ohlund

me hockey player, you nobody
Originally uploaded by hernandez photos.

Thank you to all photographers who are better than me! What a shot of Mattias Ohlund. He don't look too happy though.. He probably knew that we were gonna suck tonight. Guh, and at the game I decided to go to too!

Ever wonder about the White Towel?

I confess that I didn't know about the origins of the white towel waving tradition during Canucks playoff hockey.

Surprisingly, it wasn't started by a Canucks fan intent on showing his/her support - like it's used today. It began in 1984, with the head coach of the Canucks, the late Roger Neilson, making a cheeky protest against the referees.

Here's an excerpt from a CBC article on Mr. Neilson dated June 23, 2003:

Back in 1982, behind the bench of the Vancouver Canucks, Neilson staged his most visual rebellion against the establishment when he placed on a towel on a stick and lofted it high in the air in mock surrender in a conference final playoff game against the Chicago Blackhawks.

He was making a statement against referee Bob Myers calling too many penalties against his team.

He got kicked out of the game, but the incident became a rallying point for the Canucks and when they returned to Vancouver everybody was waving a white towel.

The Canucks went on to win the series, but lost in the Stanley Cup final to the New York Islanders.

Random Trevor Linden photo from 2005

As there was no hockey tonight, I surfed the net. If Ohlund scores 8 more goals this season, he will tie Lumme for the most goals a Canucks defenseman has scored. Wow! Only 8 more. It was only last season that we celebrated Mattias surpassing Lidster to become the 2nd highest scoring defenseman at 67 goals.

RE: Linden photo.. uh, he looks a bit dirty after going through a bike race.. Trevor! Such a dirty boy!

Florida outplayed us but we took the 2 points

3-2 Canucks in shootout. Luongo wasn't pleased with his performance, but at least he and Josh Green took home the win in the shootout. Although in this pic, it's hard to tell if he's celebrating or the opposite.. The Canucks weren't spectacular tonight. Hopefully these days will recharge them for the upcoming Minnesota game.

BC Place Stadium Roof Collapse - After

BC Place Stadium Roof Collapse - After
Originally uploaded by chest-hare.

Cool, eh? When would we ever see this happen again?! BC Place Stadium is expected to be reinflated in 10 days.

Crazy Vancouver weather this year.. :|

Mattias Ohlund is on a points streak

He's earned 10 points in the last 12 games and has scored in 5 of those. Whew! In 42 games, Mattias has scored 8 goals and 14 assists. His record number of goals scored in a season was 14 in 2003/2004.. Maybe this will be a breaking year.

Luongo's old team is playing at GM Place tonight. The Panthers will be coming without Bertuzzi, who is still recovering from back surgery. Fans are now cheesed at having paid the double premium rates for this game. Auldy probably will not be starting and Allen will be defending against the Sedins and Naslund.

Here's the link to Yahoo's Mattias Ohlund photo album: http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/players/1456/photos

Jarome is injured after fight with Bryan Allen

The article:

Flames forward Jarome Iginla leaves game after fight with Bryan Allen
Canadian Press Jan 5, 2007

CALGARY (CP) - Flames captain Jarome Iginla left Calgary's game against Florida Thursday after suffering a lower body injury in a fight with Panthers defenceman Bryan Allen.

At 9:35 of the second period, the Flames' leading scorer challenged Allen to a fight in retaliation for Allen's heavy hit on Chuck Kobasew earlier in the game that knocked the Flames forward from the game.

It was a spirited fight that ended up with Iginla on top of Allen. Nothing appeared wrong initially as Iginla served his fighting major. However, upon exiting the penalty box, Iginla went to the Flames' dressing room.

Iginla has been one of the league's hottest players of late. He was named the NHL's first star for December after racking up 10 goals and 16 assists.

Iginla entered the night fourth in the NHL in scoring with 22 goals and 30 assists.

He scored his 23rd goal in the first period, deflecting in defenceman Dion Phaneuf's shot from the blue-line.

Bieksa and Ohlund's streak due to Sedins

Here's a snippet of Elliott Pap's article from The Vancouver Sun,

Vancouver Canuck captain Markus Naslund hasn't scored a goal in 14 games. Taylor Pyatt has been blanked in eight. Alex Burrows -- poor Alex -- is still looking for his first of the season.

But defencemen Mattias Ohlund and Kevin Bieksa are hotter than a night with a bleached blond heiress in Paris.

Ohlund has collected five points in his last two games, including a pair of goals in Saturday's 6-2 Vancouver trouncing of the Edmonton Oilers. Bieksa, his partner on the power play, has five points in his last four games and 10 in 10.

Who'd a thunk these two, along with the Sedin twins (of course), would be at the forefront of Vancouver's offensive resurgence? The Canucks have scored 15 times since Christmas.

"As a defenceman, scoring goals is not the focus, but for some reason the puck is going in," Ohlund noted Monday prior to the team's departure for Calgary and tonight's date with the Flames. "Earlier in the season, I had chances and the puck wasn't going in.

"The main thing is that, as a team, we're playing better and obviously you'd like to think you're doing a few things better, too."

Lately, even when Ohlund is bad, he's been good. On Saturday, he received a third-period hooking penalty that might have given Edmonton some life. Instead, he emerged from the box, received a breakaway pass from Brendan Morrison and scored on a backhand deke.

The goal made it 5-1 Canucks and it was game over.

"My last breakaway? It was my second season eight years ago and the same thing happened," Ohlund recalled. "I came out of the penalty box in Calgary and went five-hole. I've been in the penalty box a few times and, if you go there enough, sooner or later you're going to get something, I guess."

Canuck head coach Alain Vigneault figures the surge in scoring from Ohlund and Bieksa has pretty much coincided with their work as a power-play pair, especially on a unit featuring the Sedins and Trevor Linden.

The twins are making things happen for everyone, it seems, and now Ohlund and Bieksa are aboard their bandwagon.

Canada squeaks out to the IIHF final

After 3 shooters at the shootout, everyone finally let out the breaths they were holding. The Canadian juniors team took the win from USA at 2-1. But the win for Canada did not escape without some controversy. Here's goalie Jeff Frazee with his fellow team USA players. =(

Mattias Ohlund has just scored the first goal in the first period of the Dallas game and it sure looked like a mighty fine shot. *whistling in appreciation*

Catching Up on the hockey scene

Well, the Canucks are winning. Saturday's game was another 6 goal game for the Canucks against the Edmonton Oilers this time. Yet another game I totally missed. =( Aha! the secret to the Canucks winning spectacularly is my not watching! *shake head*

Anyway, 6 goals!! 2 from Mattias Ohlund, 2 from Daniel Sedin, 1 from Salo and 1 from Bulis. And what is with the newbie on the team always having to prove his stuff by engaging in fisticuffs? Jeff Cowan, taken off of waivers from LA, started up with Jean-Francois Jacques seconds into the first period. I knew a Geoff Cowan once. It always seemed like people beat up on him though.

So, Peter Forsberg is back up and skating, Ryan Smith is able to hold his stick with his thumb again and now Chris Pronger out, limping with a broken foot.

A snippet from J. Botchford's article in The Province:

The low point for the Oilers had to be watching Mattias Ohlund channeling Paul Coffey as he burst out of the penalty box and scored on a pretty breakaway to make the score 5-1 at 15:02 in the third.

"I scored like that seven or eight years ago against Calgary when Mike Keenan was the coach," "Ohlund said. "That's the last time. I had no idea what I was going to do before I got to the net."