Former Canucks Thread 2023-24 Off-Season Edition

[HelloCookie]

Going to see Ilves vs Tappara today. Toni Utunen plays for former and Olli Juolevi for the latter. Defensemen need more time, just be patient!

Neither are in the lineup, i think more patience is needed lol

 

[RobertKron]

Neither are in the lineup, i think more patience is needed lol

Held out due to pending Canucks deals.

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

McSorely hasn't changed since 1998. Still a f***ing moron that blames Brashear for what happened.

 

[HairyKneel]

McSorely hasn't changed since 1998. Still a f***ing moron that blames Brashear for what happened.

Brashear was a scumbag too. He beat the shit out of a guy in a bar fight in Yaletown years ago and then strangled a security guard in his apartment complex. He used to dust his hands after a fight and taunt the other team and players. Marty is a meathead. So is Donald.

Give me Gino, Delorme, Fraser or Hunter.


Marty is punch drunk though. I mean, he won a lot more than he lost, but he sounds so brain dead.

 

[Strangelove]

Brashear was a scumbag

OUCH

C'mon Hairy, he gave us some of the best years of his life, bled for us...

 

[MS]

Brashear was an absolute cancer that I hated almost as much as Mark Messier. Addition by subtraction when he finally left.

 

[AlainVigneaultsGum]

Brashear was an absolute cancer that I hated almost as much as Mark Messier. Addition by subtraction when he finally left.

Yup. Total f***ing meathead.

 

[HairyKneel]

OUCH

C'mon Hairy, he gave us some of the best years of his life, bled for us...

Scumbag was strong. I shouldn't use that word so liberally. He was definitely a jerk though.

I I'll definitely apologize the next time I'm at a Timmy's in Montreal and chip him off a solid tip

 

[Breakers]

Damn
Hunter Brzustiwics or however you spell it, is struggling in the AHL for a pure offensive d-man

 

[Josepho]

Damn
Hunter Brzustiwics or however you spell it, is struggling in the AHL for a pure offensive d-man

It's still too early to tell for sure, but I think the Canucks absolutely had to sell high on him because it seemed likely that his value would fall off a cliff this year.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

Marty is punch drunk though. I mean, he won a lot more than he lost, but he sounds so brain dead.

I don’t know if we listened to the same interview. Marty sounds coherent, his recall is strong, and he’s clearly relived this incident a great many times. Doesn’t sound impaired in any way or fashion from where I sit.

Also, I don’t think he comes off as blaming Brashear, so much as he still feels this was all an accident that happened in the scope of players doing their jobs. He said Vancouver scored an empty net goal, that Crawford threw Brashear onto the ice with 22 seconds left, turned to the Bruins bench and smiled / smirked, and Burns immediately instructed McSorley to get out there. McSorley felt/knew his job in that moment was to get Brashear to fight, and that he wasn’t aiming for his head - he said if you watch the video, Brashear turns to the right, his right shoulder drops, and McSorley’s stick initially strikes Brashear’s shoulder, rides up and hits him in the head.

He also said he felt for Bertuzzi for what happened to him - he felt in that moment Bertuzzi was doing his job, that he was likely instructed to do his job, and that he never intended for what happened to Moore to actually happen. But that he felt, like his situation, they were two guys instructed to go and do their jobs and it had unexpected ramifications - and when those ramifications came down on them, McSorley at least felt like he was left out in the cold by his team and the league.

Brashear was an absolute cancer that I hated almost as much as Mark Messier. Addition by subtraction when he finally left.

I don’t know how much of Brashear’s attitude was really public knowledge until after he was traded. He was certainly cocky and disrespectful as a fighter, but his attitude on the team and in the room was certainly a problem as well. The Canucks got off to a lousy start that season, and when Brashear was dispatched for Hlavac, a big turnaround began almost immediately.

 

[Breakers]

It's still too early to tell for sure, but I think the Canucks absolutely had to sell high on him because it seemed likely that his value would fall off a cliff this year.

Yeah for sure too early
But he should be upwards of 3x as many points. Apparently he is on the PP

 

[Vector]

I don’t know if we listened to the same interview. Marty sounds coherent, his recall is strong, and he’s clearly relived this incident a great many times. Doesn’t sound impaired in any way or fashion from where I sit.

Also, I don’t think he comes off as blaming Brashear, so much as he still feels this was all an accident that happened in the scope of players doing their jobs. He said Vancouver scored an empty net goal, that Crawford threw Brashear onto the ice with 22 seconds left, turned to the Bruins bench and smiled / smirked, and Burns immediately instructed McSorley to get out there. McSorley felt/knew his job in that moment was to get Brashear to fight, and that he wasn’t aiming for his head - he said if you watch the video, Brashear turns to the right, his right shoulder drops, and McSorley’s stick initially strikes Brashear’s shoulder, rides up and hits him in the head.

I listened to this part of the interview and watched the video of what happened as he was describing it. He tries to downplay what happened to Brashear by saying the stick hit him in the cheek (and blames the league for a lot of the backlash). Which isn’t true. It smacked Brashear on the side of the head. He’s willfully twisting the specifics to make it seem like a softer incident. He also said Brashear made a hard turn to the right which is an exaggeration. Brashest slightly skates to the right while still going in a straight line and McSorely slashes him in the head from behind. It has enough force to knock the guy out.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

I listened to this part of the interview and watched the video of what happened as he was describing it. He tries to downplay what happened to Brashear by saying the stick hit him in the cheek (and blames the league for a lot of the backlash). Which isn’t true. It smacked Brashear on the side of the head. He’s willfully twisting the specifics to make it seem like a softer incident. He also said Brashear made a hard turn to the right which is an exaggeration. Brashest slightly skates to the right while still going in a straight line and McSorely slashes him in the head from behind. It has enough force to knock the guy out.

Oh, I’m not saying his version of events is gospel/accurate, just how he saw it. And I agree, there was no hard right turn, maybe kind of a lazy glide right. His shoulder did drop, so maybe McSorley was aiming for that, but he hit him square in the head with force. And in my opinion, based on the way McSorley went down, that knocked him senseless. Banging his head on the ice for good measure didn’t help.

 

[RobertKron]

Oh, I’m not saying his version of events is gospel/accurate, just how he saw it. And I agree, there was no hard right turn, maybe kind of a lazy glide right. His shoulder did drop, so maybe McSorley was aiming for that, but he hit him square in the head with force. And in my opinion, based on the way McSorley went down, that knocked him senseless. Banging his head on the ice for good measure didn’t help.

What we all need to keep in mind is that the truly ugly part of the whole incident was that people threw things on the ice.

McSorley has consistently acted like the classic dude-who-did-a-bad-thing-and-can't-admit-that-he-did-a-bad-thing about all of this. It's quite sad that he still can't own and take accountability for his actions after all these years, and I sort of feel bad for him as it's basically never fun internally to be that person.

Like, the idea that he was giving him a whack on the shoulder to get him to turn and fight makes sense until you actually watch the play. That's not at all what that type of swing looks like, and his immediate reaction absolutely does not look like that of a guy who just two-handed someone in the head on a freak accident.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

What we all need to keep in mind is that the truly ugly part of the whole incident was that people threw things on the ice.

McSorley has consistently acted like the classic dude-who-did-a-bad-thing-and-can't-admit-that-he-did-a-bad-thing about all of this. It's quite sad that he still can't own and take accountability for his actions after all these years, and I sort of feel bad for him as it's basically never fun internally to be that person.

Like, the idea that he was giving him a whack on the shoulder to get him to turn and fight makes sense until you actually watch the play. That's not at all what that type of swing looks like, and his immediate reaction absolutely does not look like that of a guy who just two-handed someone in the head on a freak accident.

My personal two cents has always been that I believe his intention was indeed to get him to fight. And he intended to strike him with his stick. Maybe he didn’t intend for it to be so much force, maybe he didn’t intend for it to be in the head, but both those things happened - and he should take accountability for that part of it.

I think he does have a relevant point about what his role was in the team and the league and the expectations on guys like him, and how there’s suddenly nobody behind you when shit goes sideways like it did. Bertuzzi is a similar example, though I think the Canucks actually stood behind him about as well as a franchise could be expected to.

But my real purpose in replying here was just to say that I found McSorley to be coherent, articulate and passionate about his defense, even if it lacks accountability. I didn’t find listening to him to be remotely as concerning as it is listening to some other former enforcers who have clearly been dealing with the lifelong repercussions of traumatic brain injuries.

 

[Hodgy]

What we all need to keep in mind is that the truly ugly part of the whole incident was that people threw things on the ice.

McSorley has consistently acted like the classic dude-who-did-a-bad-thing-and-can't-admit-that-he-did-a-bad-thing about all of this. It's quite sad that he still can't own and take accountability for his actions after all these years, and I sort of feel bad for him as it's basically never fun internally to be that person.

Like, the idea that he was giving him a whack on the shoulder to get him to turn and fight makes sense until you actually watch the play. That's not at all what that type of swing looks like, and his immediate reaction absolutely does not look like that of a guy who just two-handed someone in the head on a freak accident.

Cognitive dissonance.

 

[RobertKron]

My personal two cents has always been that I believe his intention was indeed to get him to fight. And he intended to strike him with his stick. Maybe he didn’t intend for it to be so much force, maybe he didn’t intend for it to be in the head, but both those things happened - and he should take accountability for that part of it.

I think he does have a relevant point about what his role was in the team and the league and the expectations on guys like him, and how there’s suddenly nobody behind you when shit goes sideways like it did. Bertuzzi is a similar example, though I think the Canucks actually stood behind him about as well as a franchise could be expected to.

But my real purpose in replying here was just to say that I found McSorley to be coherent, articulate and passionate about his defense, even if it lacks accountability. I didn’t find listening to him to be remotely as concerning as it is listening to some other former enforcers who have clearly been dealing with the lifelong repercussions of traumatic brain injuries.

The bolded is absolutely true. There have been a number of instances where everyone kind of collectively caught the car in terms of on-ice violence and then suddenly acted like we could have never imagined such a thing could happen. As you say, the Bertuzzi incident in contrast to the great fanfare around the Avs/Red Wings saga is another.

 

[Strangelove]

Scumbag was strong. I shouldn't use that word so liberally. He was definitely a jerk though.

I I'll definitely apologize the next time I'm at a Timmy's in Montreal and chip him off a solid tip

That's better Hairy...