Confirmed with Link: Canucks sign D Akito Hirose to 1-Year ELC

[God]

111, so it fits on a jersey.
Or just to make fun
010- to show it is still a binary world?
(poster ducks, and runs away)

69420

 

[Josepho]

I once wore 2 as a winger just to piss everyone off

 

[Raistlin]

great signing, the depth of this team is slowly improving. make enough of these signings and hopefully one of them will contribute consistently on a bottom pair down the road.

 

[Lindgren]

I'm fully on board with ol' Lou.

- goalies may only wear 1, 30, 31, 35
- 2,3,4,5,6 are for defenders.
- forwards may wear numbers between 7 and 29.
- numbers in the 30s (excluding goalie numbers) are for callups.
- numbers should only be retired in extreme circumstances.

High numbers suck. And I'm sticking to this. *Shakes fist at cloud*

Old uniforms and old highlights looked so much cleaner and stylish compared to 74 passing to 86 passing to 40.

Jean Beliveau says hello. Or he would if he were still alive. (Or does he say "hold my beer"? This stuff confuses me.)

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

I'm fully on board with ol' Lou.

- goalies may only wear 1, 30, 31, 35
- 2,3,4,5,6 are for defenders.
- forwards may wear numbers between 7 and 29.
- numbers in the 30s (excluding goalie numbers) are for callups.
- numbers should only be retired in extreme circumstances.

High numbers suck. And I'm sticking to this. *Shakes fist at cloud*

Old uniforms and old highlights looked so much cleaner and stylish compared to 74 passing to 86 passing to 40.

I disagree entirely. To me, the high number euro players of my youth (Mogilny, Jagr, Fedorov, Bure for a bit, Palffy for a bit, etc) were super intriguing and fascinating.

I think that what you're speaking of is pointless rigidity which our history has a hell of a lot of (not turning this into a bigger issue than personal preference on numbers ftr).

One place I do agree is goalie numbers. Wasn't Koskinen number 17? I hated that.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

I’ve always said with these college/euro free agents just getting good AHL players is a win. Anything better than that is just gravy.

 

[VanJack]

He looks dynamic in those Twitter-YouTube highlights......but his stats are pretty pedestrian....only two goals on the season.

As others have pointed out, Jack Rathbone had better stats as a younger player at Harvard. And I guess it's Hirose that Rathbone he'll be competing with for a job with the Canucks. Don't see how the Canucks could go with three relatively under-sized d-men on their back end though.

 

[MS]

I disagree entirely. To me, the high number euro players of my youth (Mogilny, Jagr, Fedorov, Bure for a bit, Palffy for a bit, etc) were super intriguing and fascinating.

I think that what you're speaking of is pointless rigidity which our history has a hell of a lot of (not turning this into a bigger issue than personal preference on numbers ftr).

One place I do agree is goalie numbers. Wasn't Koskinen number 17? I hated that.

I'm sort of half joking which I hope my tone conveyed.

But old highlights and photos of Rocket Richard in #9 or Bobby Orr in #4 is so much cleaner and crisper and cooler and more classic than guys wearing 43 and 74.

I actually don't mind the double-barreled numbers like 44 and 55 and the backstory behind why guys like Mogilny and Jagr wore their numbers was at least kind of interesting and cool.

But Bure in 10 was great and looked great and Bure in 96 was dumb and crap. Jeremy Roenick going from 27 to 97 was dumb. Guys wearing weird numbers like 73 that look like someone barfed across the back of their jersey look dumb. And thank god Joe Sakic didn't stick with 88.

 

[Albatros]

One place I do agree is goalie numbers. Wasn't Koskinen number 17? I hated that.

Koskinen preferred 19 because it was his first number in juniors (he started as a skater).

 

[ChilliBilly]

Kid looks absolutely dynamic

damn his skating reminds me of Hughes

 

[Hodgy]

I see more Rathbone than Hughes in the offensive zone. But a Rathbone offense player that can actually play defense may be useful.

 

[Bubbles]

Andy Carroll, but only on an AHL ATO.

 

[Diamonddog01]

I’ll let you know in July.

That’s a nice and toasty time to be in Tokyo

 

[Vector]

That’s a nice and toasty time to be in Tokyo

Only going to be there for a few hours. We have designs on heading further north to Yamagata.

 

[valkynax]

His name reminds me of Tenkawa Akito.

A gimpy little shit from the anime Martian Successor Nadesico, turned into a vengeful badass motherf***er when his wife got kidnapped in the OVA Prince of Darkness.

Also, in the OVA, he piloted this:

 

[LordBacon]

glad to more asians playing ice hockey.
Time for asia to pick up this wonderful sport now come on

 

[lawrence]

Another one for dhaliwal.

 

[docbenton]

He looks dynamic in those Twitter-YouTube highlights......but his stats are pretty pedestrian....only two goals on the season.

As others have pointed out, Jack Rathbone had better stats as a younger player at Harvard. And I guess it's Hirose that Rathbone he'll be competing with for a job with the Canucks. Don't see how the Canucks could go with three relatively under-sized d-men on their back end though.

Just depends how good he is...I'm sure everyone would be pretty happy if we had 3x Quinn Hughes on the left side.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Just depends how good he is...I'm sure everyone would be pretty happy if we had 3x Quinn Hughes on the left side.

Plus worst case scenario you trade one of the non Hughes 3 for another player if they all work out. But it’s highly unlikely all 3 work out.

 

[RobertKron]

I'm sort of half joking which I hope my tone conveyed.

But old highlights and photos of Rocket Richard in #9 or Bobby Orr in #4 is so much cleaner and crisper and cooler and more classic than guys wearing 43 and 74.

I actually don't mind the double-barreled numbers like 44 and 55 and the backstory behind why guys like Mogilny and Jagr wore their numbers was at least kind of interesting and cool.

But Bure in 10 was great and looked great and Bure in 96 was dumb and crap. Jeremy Roenick going from 27 to 97 was dumb. Guys wearing weird numbers like 73 that look like someone barfed across the back of their jersey look dumb. And thank god Joe Sakic didn't stick with 88.

I don't really care about numbers, but I do kind of miss the rite of passage where players would have like 63 as a callup or fringe player, and then would get to choose a "real" number when they made the team.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

No one cares if some hockey player in Canada has Japanese ancestry. The league tried that with Paul Kariya and it went absolutely nowhere.

not exactly

in the fall of 1997, the ducks and canucks were starting the season with two games in tokyo. we brought our doomed first year of messier team, with bure, linden, young naslund, rookie ohlund in his first two NHL games, and holdovers like lumme, gelinas, and mclean in net. mogilny was holding out, so he didn't make the trip.

for the ducks, kariya was holding out.

that was the great missed opportunity. when kariya did eventually sign, he was taken out for the year by a gary suter cheapshot and missed the nagano olympics.

i'm willing to bet that if kariya had played those two games in tokyo, that could have generated some real excitement about the olympic hockey tournament. exciting japanese-canadian superstar, disney tie in, it should have worked. and then if he was on that olympic team, and they don't lose in the shootout to the czech republic, and assuming they beat russia in the gold medal game, i think that could have really been something for the sport in japan and, i'm guessing, east asia more broadly.

and if i was gary bettman staring down a potential yao before yao situation, i would have locked don baizley and the ducks GM in a room together and not let them out until they got a contract signed. but of course, bettman was more interested in season two of the phoenix coyotes.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

damn his skating reminds me of Hughes

can i be a downer and also point out the way him reverting to the spin move all the time reminds me of garland? hard to see that working so often in the pros

unrelated, but if abby rolls out a woo/hirose pair and it sticks, that's going to be legendary.

 

[Bubbles]

i'm willing to bet that if kariya had played those two games in tokyo, that could have generated some real excitement about the olympic hockey tournament. exciting japanese-canadian superstar, disney tie in, it should have worked. and then if he was on that olympic team, and they don't lose in the shootout to the czech republic, and assuming they beat russia in the gold medal game, i think that could have really been something for the sport in japan and, i'm guessing, east asia more broadly.

The Japanese don't care about half-Japanese guys that were born and raised in Canada. They pay a lot of attention to homegrown stars that make it big outside Japan (Ohtani, Hachimura, Osaka)

Just because a star and some teams show up for a few games, doesn't make sport any more popular.

It took 20 years or so, but Gretzky's journey into California has shown some results in hockey players coming from California. But that involved a lot of local kids adopting the sport, rinks being built and coaches popping up all over the place.

Baseball and soccer are so dominant in Japan that hockey will always be a regional sport.

 

[B-rock]

I'm fully on board with ol' Lou.

- goalies may only wear 1, 30, 31, 35
- 2,3,4,5,6 are for defenders.
- forwards may wear numbers between 7 and 29.
- numbers in the 30s (excluding goalie numbers) are for callups.
- numbers should only be retired in extreme circumstances.

High numbers suck. And I'm sticking to this. *Shakes fist at cloud*

Old uniforms and old highlights looked so much cleaner and stylish compared to 74 passing to 86 passing to 40.

I agree with the “numbers should only be retired in extreme circumstances “ part. For a franchise that’s never won it all, the Canucks have a lot of sweaters in the rafters. At what point does an unretiring ceremony happen??

 

[ziploc]

I agree with the “numbers should only be retired in extreme circumstances “ part. For a franchise that’s never won it all, the Canucks have a lot of sweaters in the rafters. At what point does an unretiring ceremony happen??