Why Mark Messier is Often Regarded the Worst/Most Hated Vancouver Canuck of All Time.

[Killion]

Nice find JA. And ya, impossible situation to be in if your the Coach & or GM.

 

[DisgruntledGoat*]

Yeah, great find... If you ignore the articles previously posted documenting the mess in Vancouver BEFORE Messier arrived.

And JA's post is full of the circular logic that all these threads are. Nothing you posted refutes what I specifically pointed out as silliness and nonsense.

As soon as one point gets shot down, Vancouver fans move onto something else.

For a guy who 'didn't care', Messier sure was busy in Vancouver... Stomping on Wayne Maki's memory, stealing the captaincy, martyring St Linden, consulting with ownership, gossiping about players, wrecking the dressing room, hiring Keenan, firing Renney and Quinn... One begins to wonder how he fit it all into just three years.

 

[JA]

Refer to this post for Pat Quinn's take:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=92161281&postcount=200

Messier developed a bigger voice than Quinn; he gained more authority. This resulted in Quinn's firing, as well as Renney's. Mike Keenan replaced them.

 

[JA]

Yeah, great find... If you ignore the articles previously posted documenting the mess in Vancouver BEFORE Messier arrived.

And JA's post is full of the circular logic that all these threads are. Nothing you posted refutes what I specifically pointed out as silliness and nonsense.

As soon as one point gets shot down, Vancouver fans move onto something else.

For a guy who 'didn't care', Messier sure was busy in Vancouver... Stomping on Wayne Maki's memory, stealing the captaincy, martyring St Linden, consulting with ownership, gossiping about players, wrecking the dressing room, hiring Keenan, firing Renney and Quinn... One begins to wonder how he fit it all into just three years.

Your argument is that the player had the right to step in and usurp his general manager, have the coach and GM fired, and generate disunity in order to remove players? This evidence points out that Keenan himself leaked many of the incidents between himself and his players in order to gain support to remove them (the team was run by committee). They had to make the situation worse in order to get what they wanted?

You claim that these are "proven falsehoods," but when Pat Quinn confirms the stories and there are multiple sources corroborating them, how could you still believe that to be the case? What we are dealing with here are facts. One of my purposes here is to establish that the information about Messier's conduct is indeed true. We can debate whether or not it was Messier's right to behave in this manner, but in order to do that it first is necessary to understand that these stories are grounded in reality. Denial of this information as fact is what has complicated this discussion in the past.

The information about Messier's conduct is factual.

 

[monster_bertuzzi]

You could watch entire games where he barely took a stride in anger coming back through the neutral zone. Would just be gliding back, behind the play as the last man, over and over again. It was a joke.

You're aware he was 37-39 years of age during his time here..

 

[Skobel24]

[MOD] I honestly hate him simply for what happened to Linden. Linden was worth so much more to that franchise. [MOD]

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

in before the lock:

 

[quoipourquoi]

in before the lock:

That was perfect.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

that was perfect.

DAN QUINNNn

 

[Hardyvan123]

in before the lock:

pretty much sums up how Canuck fans feel about him...lol

 

[Sonny Lamateena]

in before the lock:

Rogers says this version failed miserably with focus groups who had major concerns over credibility. They said no one could believe a commercial where anyone representing Vancouver or the Canucks would do anything but sit on the couch smiling as Messier said and did whatever he wanted.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

speaking of messier and vancouver:

 

[LightningStorm]

Laughing at the Oilers and Rangers fans telling Canuck fans how they should feel about Messier during his tenure in Vancouver.

One question I have for Canuck fans is how much did the 94 finals contribute to your feelings towards Messier? Say you don't end up coming back from 3-1 down vs Calgary in 1994, thus not losing to the Rangers in the finals, and Messier still comes to Vancouver in 1997 and things go exactly the same. Would your feelings still be similar about Messier? I understand he played in Edmonton before New York, but it was Calgary, not Vancouver who Edmonton continuously beat in the playoffs.

So basically, how much worse does Messier's flop in Vancouver seem to you guys due to the 1994 SCF?

 

[The Panther]

Conversely, what I laugh at is fans thinking a 36-year-old free agent signing is himself responsible for what numbers a franchise has or hasn't retired.

This kind of 'absolve-our-own-team-of-its-responsibility' attitude perhaps goes some way towards explaining why the Canucks' franchise has been failed to win a single championship in close to half a century.

 

[LightningStorm]

Conversely, what I laugh at is fans thinking a 36-year-old free agent signing is himself responsible for what numbers a franchise has or hasn't retired.

This kind of 'absolve-our-own-team-of-its-responsibility' attitude perhaps goes some way towards explaining why the Canucks' franchise has been failed to win a single championship in close to half a century.

I always viewed this as a supplementary reason for their hatred for Messier. Had he not been a flop with them, I doubt anyone would've even remembered it.

Oilers and Rangers fans telling Canucks fans how to feel about Messier would be like Stars fans (such as myself) telling Sharks fans how to feel about Ed Belfour, whom they absolutely despise.

 

[The Panther]

I always viewed this as a supplementary reason for their hatred for Messier. Had he not been a flop with them, I doubt anyone would've even remembered it.

I agree with you. Which is yet more reason why their attitude about this is nonsense.

You describe Messier in Van as a "flop". Assuming you're talking about his on-ice performance only, what are your standards for 36-to-39-year-old forwards who aren't flops?

 

[David Bruce Banner]

Laughing at the Oilers and Rangers fans telling Canuck fans how they should feel about Messier during his tenure in Vancouver.

One question I have for Canuck fans is how much did the 94 finals contribute to your feelings towards Messier? Say you don't end up coming back from 3-1 down vs Calgary in 1994, thus not losing to the Rangers in the finals, and Messier still comes to Vancouver in 1997 and things go exactly the same. Would your feelings still be similar about Messier? I understand he played in Edmonton before New York, but it was Calgary, not Vancouver who Edmonton continuously beat in the playoffs.

So basically, how much worse does Messier's flop in Vancouver seem to you guys due to the 1994 SCF?

That was one of the main things that sucked about Messier, the Canuck... and it wasn't just 1994, it was his entire career up to his tenure in Vancouver. Even though we weren't good enough to have him constantly eliminating us from the playoffs as an Oiler, he still treated us like the cat treats the litter box. He was GREAT at beating on us for years and year, and then when we finally got him... his run-of-the-mill, over the hill, sucking, entitled old guy-ness was all that more egregious.

 

[monster_bertuzzi]

Laughing at the Oilers and Rangers fans telling Canuck fans how they should feel about Messier during his tenure in Vancouver.

One question I have for Canuck fans is how much did the 94 finals contribute to your feelings towards Messier? Say you don't end up coming back from 3-1 down vs Calgary in 1994, thus not losing to the Rangers in the finals, and Messier still comes to Vancouver in 1997 and things go exactly the same. Would your feelings still be similar about Messier? I understand he played in Edmonton before New York, but it was Calgary, not Vancouver who Edmonton continuously beat in the playoffs.

So basically, how much worse does Messier's flop in Vancouver seem to you guys due to the 1994 SCF?

He wasn't liked in Vancouver before they signed him, and it just carried over when he played here. I have let that late 90's miserable era go and I don't wish death to Mark Messier, but Im one of the rare ones apparently.

 

[Mayor Bee]

Yeah, great find... If you ignore the articles previously posted documenting the mess in Vancouver BEFORE Messier arrived.

No one is disputing that there was disarray in Vancouver before Messier arrived. However, there are two schools of thought:
- It was in disarray, and whatever happened in Messier's time in Vancouver was simply more of the same being unfairly pushed onto the new guy (whether Messier or Keenan).
- It was in disarray, and Messier (and Keenan) came in and basically threw gasoline on the fire, making things a lot worse than they were when he arrived.

I believe the latter theory. I was a Canucks fan from the time I started following hockey up until I finally had a local team as part of the last expansion, so I was familiar with a lot of what was going on. Even today, long since removed from both the time frame and the Canucks fan part, I believe the latter because it's the more logical deduction. It's not like we can't find scores of examples from history (whether political, military, or sport) of a tenuous situation being completely blown up as a result of the ill-advised actions of an incoming outsider, so it's hardly arguing for something unprecedented.

 

[Sonny Lamateena]

At the very least, if we are to consider Messier's time in Vancouver, we need to realize that these are facts. There may have been uncertainty before in this thread, but no longer can that be the case. Pat Quinn was at the very center of the situation.

Messier didn't just come to Vancouver with a reputation for what he did on the ice and ownership obviously respected that. In 1992, Messier's first year in NY the Rangers had 105 points and won the Presidents Trophy, in 1994 when the Rangers won the Cup only 8 players remained from the 1992 team. From day one Neil Smith consulted Messier all the time for his thoughts on the team and obviously that is what Vancouver ownership wanted too.

So, now it's been confirmed by Pat Quinn that ownership was going to Messier for for his opinion on personnel decisions. So, how does this say something bad about Messier? What should Messier of said when the people who were paying his salary asked his opinion?

 

[supsens]

That article says they asked him about things? lol it does not say what when or why, it just sounds like am idiot GM who got fired blamed Messier for the Mess he himself made.
I read the article like this.

"I saw the owner talk to Messier behind my back because they wanted to double check to see if I was off my rocker, now I am threatened insecure and getting fired so it must be his fault cause I am the best and no one would fire me unless Messier tricked them"


It could have been as simple as "hey Mark do you guy want to stay at the hotel tonight and order pizza instead of going out for dinner"

 

[Hardyvan123]

Laughing at the Oilers and Rangers fans telling Canuck fans how they should feel about Messier during his tenure in Vancouver.

One question I have for Canuck fans is how much did the 94 finals contribute to your feelings towards Messier? Say you don't end up coming back from 3-1 down vs Calgary in 1994, thus not losing to the Rangers in the finals, and Messier still comes to Vancouver in 1997 and things go exactly the same. Would your feelings still be similar about Messier? I understand he played in Edmonton before New York, but it was Calgary, not Vancouver who Edmonton continuously beat in the playoffs.

So basically, how much worse does Messier's flop in Vancouver seem to you guys due to the 1994 SCF?

for me it doesn't factor in and I never was a Big Moose fan when he was with the Oilers either.

he was enough of a complete self centered jack**s here in Vancouver that it dwarfed any previous resentment most Canuck fans had of him previously.

 

[Ogopogo*]

As an Oilers fan, Vancouver's hatred of Messier just adds to his greatness. ;-)

 

[LightningStorm]

To go outside of hockey for a moment, I was just thinking, Randy Johnson on the Yankees was similar to Mark Messier on the Canucks. 2 times he dominated the Yankees in the playoffs, first in 1995 with the Mariners then in the 2001 World Series with the Diamondbacks (3 WINS and a 1.04 ERA). Johnson was 41 when he was traded to the Yankees, 4 years older than Messier was when he signed with the Canucks. After dominating the Yankees in the playoffs with 2 separate teams, Johnson struggled in his 2 seasons with the Yankees and was traded back to the Diamondbacks (similar to Messier signing back with the Rangers). Messier and Johnson first broke the hearts of a team then joined that team and struggled. Since there's a lot of overlap between Rangers and Yankees fans, perhaps this will help them see how Canuck fans feel about Messier.

 

[barnztormre]

Oilers and Rangers fans telling Canucks fans how to feel about Messier would be like Stars fans (such as myself) telling Sharks fans how to feel about Ed Belfour, whom they absolutely despise.

I had no idea Shark fans had any animosity toward Belfour. On the surface it looks like a deadline pickup in his walk year and they failed to deliver a cup.

Sharks fans: why the hate? I'm genuinely curious