It’s hard to believe Lukas Krajicek is only entering his third full NHL season. He made his NHL debut with Florida on April 6, 2002 as a call-up from the OHL’s Peterborough Petes. But it took until 2005-06 for the #24 overall pick of the Panthers in 2001 to establish himself as an everyday blueliner […]

I didn’t have much luck in my first hockey “contest.” It consisted of my mom taking me to Mark’s Work Wearhouse in my native Victoria for an in-store appearance by Vancouver Canucks captain Stan Smyl and goalie Richard Brodeur. This being 1982, both were massive local heroes for their efforts in Vancouver’s gallant run to […]

Declining numbers don’t always mean declining fortunes for an NHL captain known as a sniper. In 1997, 1998, and 2002, Steve Yzerman led Detroit to the Stanley Cup, but only scored 85, 69 and 48 points respectively in the regular season. Those numbers were a far cry from his best year (155 points in 1988-89), […]

Maybe Nazareth’s “Love Hurts” should have been the theme song of the Vancouver Canucks intrasquad game at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria, BC on September 16. The sold-out crowd of 7,006 had lots of love for their heroes, present and future, who showed off their skills over three 25-minute periods (played mostly in real time, […]

At the 2004 World Championship, a senior IIHF official confessed to me that he barely knew anything about Matt Cooke prior to the tournament in Prague and Ostrava, but by the end, he was wowed by the relentless, effective physical play of this Vancouver winger en route to Canadian gold. Earlier that same spring, Cooke […]

After the final on-ice sessions at Bear Mountain Arena in Victoria, how impressed was Vancouver Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault with the performance of Jannik Hansen? Just count the number of times Vigneault said “really” when asked to assess the speedy 21-year-old Danish winger to date. “He’s really impressed me,” Vigneault said. “He’s really strong […]

This weekend, I’ll bring HockeyAdventure.com readers some reports from the Vancouver Canucks training camp in Victoria. The BC provincial capital also happens to be where I grew up, and the Canucks and Los Angeles Kings both held camps in Victoria in the late 1980’s and early 90’s at the old Memorial Arena (now replaced by […]

Back in the 1990’s, few would have tagged Jason Arnott as prospective captain material. Those were the days when the 6-3, 220-pound forward struggled to deliver consistent performances despite his talent, and even infamously once said, “I just wasn’t that into it tonight,” after his Edmonton Oilers lost a tough one to the Winnipeg Jets. […]

A hockey team that disagrees about its fundamental direction on the opening day of training camp is about as common as an infatuated couple that gets into a fistfight on a first date. Pretty rare stuff, in other words. And so when the Vancouver Canucks brought out their head coach and veteran players to meet […]

Here’s a breakdown of Vancouver’s 49-man roster to kick off training camp on September 12. By Country Austria: 1 Canada: 29 Czech Republic: 1 Denmark: 1 Finland: 1 Slovakia: 3* Sweden: 6 USA: 7** Barring a trade or free agent signing, no Russians will appear on Vancouver’s opening-night roster for the second straight year. The […]