Originally published in Eishockey News in 2007 By Lucas Aykroyd The Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks must feel like they’re playing each other all the time this season. That’s close to the truth, considering they’d already met five times by early January. But that sort of thing doesn’t concern Jarome Iginla. The 29-year-old Calgary captain […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 2001 By Lucas Aykroyd When Milan Hejduk fired home two goals in the opening period of a 30 November clash with the Vancouver Canucks, it must have felt like he’d gotten the Rocky Mountains off his shoulders. The fourth-year Colorado Avalanche sniper had gone 15 games without scoring, a shocking […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 1999 By Lucas Aykroyd Who needs Joe Sakic? Well, actually, there would be plenty of takers around the National Hockey League if the Colorado Avalanche put their longtime captain on the market. But the point is, right winger Milan Hejduk is doing his best to make up for the scoring […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 2001 By Lucas Aykroyd When you look at a photo of our Milky Way Galaxy, the stars are so densely clustered that you can’t distinguish individual luminaries. You might think a similar effect would occur with Dominik Hasek on the star-laden Detroit Red Wings. But the 36-year-old superstar goaltender looks […]

Originally published in Full Tilt in 2006 By Lucas Aykroyd If you have a Canucks logo tattooed on one bicep and a Canadian Maple Leaf on the other, hopefully you wore long-sleeved shirts in February. International hockey is wonderful when you win, but it’s a cold feeling when you lose. Before the 2006 Olympics kicked […]

Originally published in the 2007 NHL Yearbook By Lucas Aykroyd A Swedish proverb says: “Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.” Those words ring true for longtime Swedish hockey fans, because they had to console one another frequently before celebrating the “double joy” of 2006, when their national team became […]

Originally published in Rinkside in 2001 By Lucas Aykroyd “Dynasty” is a word that doesn’t get bandied around much in either NHL or international hockey these days. That’s not surprising. The globalization of our game has made it much harder to build a team that wins year after year, as players now move around with […]

Originally published in Prospects Hockey in 2004 By Lucas Aykroyd The current National Hockey League lockout doesn’t have many upsides to it. Here in Vancouver, whether you’re a Canucks season ticket holder or a fan who usually catches the games at the local pub, an employee at GM Place or a member of the media […]

Originally published in Prospects Hockey in 2007 By Lucas Aykroyd Hockey fans in Vancouver are hungry for a championship. After all, the last Stanley Cup victory came in 1915 with the Vancouver Millionaires. The Canucks got close in 1982 and 1994, but the club’s only titles were in its pre-NHL, minor-league incarnation. So some Vancouver […]

Originally published in Prospects Hockey in 2007 By Lucas Aykroyd For Vancouverites, the lyrics of the famous soccer anthem “You’ll Never Walk Alone” rang true this winter: “Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown.” Heavy storms toppled Stanley Park’s trees, deflated the roof of BC […]