{"id":579549,"date":"2026-04-01T23:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/579549\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T23:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:45:09","slug":"canucks-bottom-feeding-season-only-gets-worse-off-the-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/579549\/","title":{"rendered":"Canucks\u2019 bottom-feeding season only gets worse off the ice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A trio of Vancouver Canucks fans opted to go incognito mode during a February game in Seattle. The Canucks have the NHL’s worst record and just 50 points going into Wednesday’s game against Colorado.Steph Chambers\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Given how poorly their season has gone, the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> have only one thing left going for them \u2013 the Vancouver Canucks<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Some teams have the sort of year that gets everyone fired. Vancouver is having the kind of season that, in a more sensible world, would get the franchise\u2019s charter revoked. Collectively, this group would have trouble manning an automated toll booth. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that they\u2019re bad at hockey, which they are. Plenty of other clubs are as well. Being bad at hockey is easy. No big decisions to make. No stressing about how the next road trip will turn out. It\u2019s going to be a disaster. Might as well quit early and start drinking. <\/p>\n

Being bad at hockey means you have no responsibilities. Well, one. You can\u2019t be bad at hockey and be insufferable at the same time. Which, as it turns out, is the current mission statement of the Canucks franchise. <\/p>\n

Canucks’ decision to revoke credential of reporter alarms colleagues<\/a><\/p>\n

This week, they made news by pulling the credential of a reporter at the Daily Hive. He wrote something they didn\u2019t like about the owner\u2019s wine business, riffing on something someone else wrote that they probably also didn\u2019t like, but those original reporters are smart enough to avoid Vancouver Canucks\u2019 hockey games. <\/p>\n

A normally unhinged organization would have sent the reporter an e-mail telling him not to bother showing up that night. This unusually unhinged one waited until the first intermission to toss him. No word on whether they tore the credential from his neck, 19th-century military style. <\/p>\n

The Daily Hive pulled the story after their reporter was ejected. Not a great look for them, or their story. Still, all that does is highlight the reactionary silliness of the Canucks\u2019 response.<\/p>\n

You know how many people were interested in this before the team went all Richard Nixon? Roughly none. You know how many are interested now? All of them. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s been a rough season for Evander Kane (centre) and his Canucks teammates this season. The team traded franchise player Quinn Hughes to Minnesota in December and committed to a rebuild.Candice Ward\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

When The Globe\u2019s Simon Houpt reported on the ejection, a Canucks\u2019 spokesperson explained that the club reacted this way, in part, because the article in question took \u201cflippant liberties.\u201d <\/p>\n

Do these people bother reading what\u2019s published about the conspiracy of mediocrity they call a hockey team? If journalists weren\u2019t taking flippant liberties, there would be nothing to write. <\/p>\n

You ever read a European tabloid on its local football club? Those people are the real killers. <\/p>\n

In Canada, every tongue lashing is more of a soft licking. Franchises in this country have no clue how bad it could be, but isn\u2019t, because Canadians lack a talent for spite. <\/p>\n

The Canucks should be pointed and laughed at all day every day. They\u2019re charging good money to watch a bunch of pylons get run over for two and a half hours. You could do that for free hanging out at a driving school. It\u2019s not theft in any legal sense, but they are stealing money from people. <\/p>\n

The smart thing to do is shut up, make your millions and take your lumps from the Daily Hive or whoever else. The juice of punching back is worth so much less than the squeeze. If you\u2019re feeling too frisky to let it go, have your lawyers make a quiet call. It would have achieved the same result, minus any headlines. <\/p>\n

Maybe Canada is the problem. The Ottawa Senators had a vaguely similar incident earlier this season after goalie Linus Ullmark became the focus of an online whisper campaign<\/a>. Instead of doing the smart thing \u2013 ignoring it \u2013 the club went publicly ballistic. Team GM Steve Staios issued a fulminating statement about \u201cthe lowest form of trolls and sick people who scour the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes. And? <\/p>\n

What\u2019s your next move? Heading down into the sewers with a chainsaw to cut through anything that looks like fibre-optic cable?<\/p>\n

You own (or play for) a sports team, so people are going to take shots. Some of those shots will be below the belt (though nowhere close to as low as you\u2019d get in more vibrant international media markets). <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canucks players like Filip Hronek, back right, have often been the downcast face in the background this year, as the team chases the first overall pick in this year’s NHL draft.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Viewed from 10,000 feet, every negative piece is a chance for your customers to stick up for you. There is always a section of fandom policing \u2018negativity\u2019, and another that hates the press as much as you do. Let them do their work.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not good enough? You want to be left alone entirely? Go run a widget factory. <\/p>\n

Most of the people who own teams once did some version of that. They got into sports so that they could be more famous. Well, congratulations \u2013 you\u2019re famous now. Here\u2019s me punching you in the crotch by way of a \u2018how do you do.\u2019<\/p>\n

The moment people aren\u2019t saying mean things about you is the moment you stop mattering. That\u2019s why former pros who used to despise the media eventually come scuttling back, pushing cheap energy drinks or looking to catch on as an analyst somewhere. Too late, they have learned Oscar Wilde\u2019s rule about the only thing worse than being talked about. <\/p>\n

Fighting this reality sends only one signal \u2013 that you are not a serious person.<\/p>\n

The important word in the formulation \u2018professional sports\u2019 isn\u2019t sports. Any dingdong with a few bucks can buy a team. Running it professionally is the trick. <\/p>\n

Going around losing your mind because someone you don\u2019t know wrote something that ticked you off is not professional. It\u2019s not even amateur. It is, as ballplayers say, bush. <\/p>\n

In baseball, someone who is bush is someone who doesn\u2019t understand the unwritten rules, and as a result, cannot control themselves. They react in ways that put them outside the norms of conduct, and bring the group into disrepute. There is no deeper insult. <\/p>\n

Objectively, the Vancouver Canucks are the worst team in hockey. That\u2019s okay. Someone has to be. <\/p>\n

But in their comportment, the Canucks are also bush. There\u2019s no excuse to explain that away, and no cure for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A trio of Vancouver Canucks fans opted to go incognito mode during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,21363,85,22600],"class_list":{"0":"post-579549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-noastack","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-topstory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}