Its been tough to be a Canucks fan. The Canucks are the only Canadian team to never win a Stanley Cup (lost to the New York Islanders in 1982 and lost to the New York Rangers in 1996). This year has been particularly tough. The new GM, the new coach and many new players made the start of the season a bit uncertain. Nobody was sure how the team would come together or even if they could form a competitive team. The scoreboard showed mixed results through October and it only got worse into November. By Christmas everyone was hoping for an actual miracle to turn things around.

Christmas came and went. Suddenly, without any warning, the Canucks look like a winning team at the same time as many divisional rivals are starting to struggle. The Boxing Day win in Calgary at first looked like a fluke but fans were ready to believe. The Flames came to Vancouver the next night for a rematch. It promised to be a very exciting game; even the scalpers didn’t have tickets to sell. We were fortunate enough to have tickets and see first-hand an overtime win by the Canucks in a game that was maybe the very best game of the season.

Last night’s win against Edmonton really got the blood pumping. Sure Edmonton has been struggling lately but the Canucks looked really strong despite a rash of poor penalties in the second half of the last period. Could they make a serious run this year? Hope so!

By the way, while confirming my suspicion about the Canucks’ Stanley Cup woes at Wikipedia I found some really interesting trivia about the Cup and its misadventures. I suggest having a read yourself to check it out.