What tested your resolve the most as a die hard fan of this team?

[old guy]

On 7/2/2024 at 9:39 PM, Ghostsof1915 said:

Messier.

 

Pat Quinn being Fired.

 

Trevor Linden traded. (Yeah but it was a great haul I admit it. IT STILL HURT!)

 

 

Been here since they entered the league, add Keenan and June nailed it!

[ploughcat07]

The 2011 riot after the Game 7 loss made it hard to be a Canucks fan. Watching idiots rip downtown apart was a shock and added a horrible sense of shame to my feelings for this team. Took a long time before I felt comfortable feeling like a fan again.

Edited July 9 by ploughcat07

[swimmer]

Have always been a Canucks fan since the team's beginning, always will be a Canucks fan. Lots of disappointing times, well documented above, but resolve remains. Perhaps I have some masochistic tendencies.

[Hail Cesare]

1970 lottery wheel loss to Buffalo

80’s Flying V jerseys

94 Lafayette post 

messier Keenan

Lidstrom goal from red line

Bertuzzi antics

Marchand bobble head on D Sedin

naming Luongo captain (you just don’t name goalies captain)

Benning and Loui Erikason

thats just off the top of my head while I enjoy a bottle of wine

[kilgore]

13 hours ago, IBatch said:

You can replace JB with any name you want.   The down cycle and cliff was coming.    The list of teams since 2000, that can put 14 seasons together like we did, is tiny.    Is Grier going to be a bad GM because of what he's been handed in SJ?   How about Yzerman in DET?  Holland and JB started their down cycle at the same time.    How's their re-tooled, rebuild going?   Larkin and Horvat, same draft year correct.     Bertuzzi is gone.   Mantha is gone.   They are on their second crack at it.   

 

For me anyways, it wouldn't have mattered who was in charge, we were in for some really bad times.   Elder was the last pick they'd hit on.  And the last draft they found NHL players (RIP Bordoun) that moved the needle.    Adding them up, 9 crappy drafts from Edler to Horvat.     Hate on him or not, he did create a core.     Holland didn't in Detroit.   After been the golden boy of GM's for two decades.    We absolutely needed a finisher.    JR and Allvin have both said "we misjudged this market"  (costs to do business, 12% higher tax bracket for one), and that "they can see what JB was trying to accomplish".    That's not an apologist thing.

 

Feel bad for kids who grew up only knowing WCE and Sedin era.    This team was going to suck.   His biggest mistakes were made right away.    Should have just signed a bad goalie and  saved his cap.    Would have been crucified for it at the time i'm sure.   Ending up at number 7 overall, gave false hope to the fans and was the Swan Song of those teams.   To get booted.  

“You can replace JB with any name you want.   The down cycle and cliff was coming”

 

 I wish you would have told that to JB.  Because according to him at the time we were only a piece or two away from getting into the playoffs where “anything can happen”.

 

I’m giving JB the respect here that he wasn’t just an errand boy for Aquilini. Because if we go down that road then I can’t respect him even to comment. If he was just a tool for Francesco’s sand box then what’s the point in even arguing his term

 

Why bring in Holland or SJ? That’s kind of weak sauce to pick the worst cases and argue that at least we’re not as bad as they are. I could mention the Rangers as a team that was more successful at a rebuild . Every team has their own perimeters. Let’s stick with the Canucks.

 

 So…Yes we were SUPPOSED to be in for some rough years. Gillis, Torts, and Linden all pleaded for a garage sale and reboot. We had tradable assets. Cup final experience vets. Start with the ones without NTCs . Others would wave once they saw what was happening. 
 

But not only did Benning refuse to face reality, he compounded the problem with gawd awful pro scouting while he shed picks and prospects. While handing out second liner contracts to fourth line players. The OEL trade was the final nail. Garland coming to life this last season took a little edge of that deal though.

 

 Were there some good deals/drafts made in his near decade of futility? Sure, I’ll grant him that. 2 players of the 5 he got in the top ten are actually playing in the NHL, but yes he also got Petey and Quinn. It’s about the balance. JR/PA have also made mistakes, but they’ve more than made up for them.

 

Benning was Bustaroo

[Blue]

As the OP said , 2012 was brutal. Funny enough , I get the same vibes from Oilers fans now since I live in Edm. Their 2012 is next year 

 

But for me it was the new Oilers draft rule. Who was the first team to get completely fucked by it ? The Canucks of course. We fell and picked Joulevi. 

 

I quit hockey after that for 2 years. Or was it more. I never seen Louis Errickson play a game. 

Edited July 10 by Blue

[TheWhiskeyPickle]

On 7/9/2024 at 4:07 PM, Hail Cesare said:

1970 lottery wheel loss to Buffalo

80’s Flying V jerseys

94 Lafayette post 

messier Keenan

Lidstrom goal from red line

Bertuzzi antics

Marchand bobble head on D Sedin

naming Luongo captain (you just don’t name goalies captain)

Benning and Loui Erikason

thats just off the top of my head while I enjoy a bottle of wine

This is how far back my disappointment started. I’ll add a couple though. 
 

2011 riot

2016 offseason as a whole, traded McCann and a high 2nd for Gudbranson, dropping from 3 to 5 in draft lottery drafted Juolevi, signed Eriksson. 

 

[Beni]

2011 Finals loss.

 

I was too young in 94 to really grasp what was happening.

[Beni]

Double post

Edited July 11 by Beni

[Kevin Biestra]

On 7/9/2024 at 4:07 PM, Hail Cesare said:

1970 lottery wheel loss to Buffalo

80’s Flying V jerseys

94 Lafayette post 

messier Keenan

Lidstrom goal from red line

Bertuzzi antics

Marchand bobble head on D Sedin

naming Luongo captain (you just don’t name goalies captain)

Benning and Loui Erikason

thats just off the top of my head while I enjoy a bottle of wine

 

I liked the Flying V and the Lafayette crossbar was exciting.  The rest of these aren't good memories though.  I always say...Lafayette came closer to tying the game than anyone else on the team did...and he had a hell of a playoffs.  Never had more than 8 points in a full season but had 9 points in 20 games that playoffs.  That's stepping it up when it counts even beyond regular Linden levels.

[Spoosh]

No moment has made me quit on my team, but I have a lot of sad moments locked up and buried deep inside.

 

When we moved on from Mogilny and Bure were tough moments. Same with Linden and McLean back in the day.

 

Early 2000’s rebuild was a tough time

 

2011 of course - still hurts.

 

The Islanders game when we hit rock bottom, as Bieksa said.

 

The Luongo saga towards his last moments here.

 

Willie Desjardins and the struggle

 

The final season under Travis Green was horrible until we was canned.

[Kevin Biestra]

16 hours ago, Spoosh said:

When we moved on from Mogilny and Bure were tough moments. Same with Linden and McLean back in the day.

 

Linden, McLean, Ronning, Babych, Odjick, etc.  The heart was ripped out of the team at least a half dozen times over the course of a couple years.

[Alflives]

Going from the great era of Gillis to Benning, the moran. Still don’t get why our owner fired Gillis for wanting to rebuild. And then replaced the GM of our most successful teams with Dim Jim. 

[Bob Long]

1 hour ago, Alflives said:

Going from the great era of Gillis to Benning, the moran. Still don’t get why our owner fired Gillis for wanting to rebuild. And then replaced the GM of our most successful teams with Dim Jim. 

 

it was the pain of losing the finals that way, it needed purging. 

 

Linden wasn't experienced enough to wait and find a good GM, and the rest is history. 

 

[6of1_halfdozenofother]

1 minute ago, Bob Long said:

Linden wasn't experienced enough to wait and find a good GM, and the rest is history. 

 

Especially the way the media had pretty much anointed jetblackBen as GMJB long before he was hired. 

[Bob Long]

Just now, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

 

Especially the way the media had pretty much anointed jetblackBen as GMJB long before he was hired. 

 

looking back on it, there really wasn't a need to rush and hire a gm. Smyl could have easily handled the draft, and they could have done it right.

 

Ah well. I don't blame Trevor at all, it was a pretty high pressure gig to just jump in to. 

 

[Future Considerations]

The greatest team in hockey at the time, losing game seven at home in 2011.  

[Petri Skriko]

On 7/3/2024 at 11:51 AM, The Brock Star said:

Hi fellow Canucks fans! I've been doing a ton of reflecting on this past season we had. I don't think there's any debate that this season was one of the greatest seasons in franchise history. We were given 0 chance out of the gate by almost every media pundit in the league, only to take the league by storm all year round, and take the cup finalists in the playoffs to one accidental Zadorov shot block preventing overtime of game 7. I've been a fan of this team all 29 years I've been on this earth, and this was by far the most exciting season I can remember since 2011, and there are so many moments I will never forget, such as 2 goals in 12 seconds, or JT's game 5 heroics, or the unexpected dominance of Silovs. 

I've come to the conclusion that part of what made this season so special for all of us was the decade of incompetence we had to endure previously. We were a laughing stock in the NHL essentially from 2012 when we choked in the first round of the playoffs, to last season when we fell flat out of the gate and got Bruce canned in a brutal way. That is 11 long years of mediocrity. There were some good moments in there absolutely such as the 2020 run, but overall it was a dark era as a Canucks fan watching the team get progressively worse. For us die hards, we have stuck through a lot over the last decade, and it got me wondering: as a die hard Canucks fan, what was the point in your Canucks fandom that tested your resolve the most? 

For myself, 2012 jumps to mind. Fresh off game 7 of the cup finals, the Canucks came back relatively the same, add David Booth and minus Ehrhoff and Samuelsson. Edler took over Ehrhoff's spot on the back end and did well, and Booth had a solid first season as a new addition to the top 6. We beat Boston in their own barn, and the team won the Presidents Trophy a second year in a row. We had every right as fans to believe we could get back to the finals. As the season went along though, after the Boston game the wheels slowly started to fall off the wagon. The Hodgson/Kassian deal was one of the worst timed deals in franchise history that evaporated our secondary scoring. Daniel Sedin got injured (f*** Keith), and the Canucks essentially gasped into the playoffs, and proceeded to lay one of the biggest eggs in franchise history in round 1 against the up and coming Kings. It was the worst choke by a Presidents Trophy team in history at the time, and made me realize that we wouldn't win with that core. The wheels continued to fall off bit by bit in the seasons following, and we slipped into our own decade of darkness, but for me I knew the drop off was coming as soon as LA booted us. That was the hardest loss next to game 7 in 2011 for me as a fan, and I would say where my resolve was most tested as a fan.

How about for others here?

 

Great post and very thought provoking.  

 

For me, I'd have to say the end of 2006 when it became apparent that the WCE era had ended. It was the first season post lock-out and it had become clear that Bertuzzi was no longer the player that he once was. The Canucks were in decline while the Albertan teams were on the rise. Although the Oilers lost in the cup finals, I felt "defeated" as a Canucks fan and almost decided to take some time off.....and then the Luongo deal occured and I got revitalized.  Pronger's wife basically singlehandedly destroying the entire city of Edmonton for a decade was also a thing of beauty.  

[gwarrior]

So many things to list. Being an '87 baby, I missed the '80s teams. But for me, bringing in that bald goof was hard, especially with trading Linden, yeah it worked out REALLY well in the long run but still. Trading my guy in Maclean. Then the rebuilding years after the Sedins called it a day were, at times, hard to watch. But the most recent, for me at least, was how letting Boudreau go was handled. Was it the right move, yes. But I think that could have been handled better.

[CanuckDownUnder]

On 7/3/2024 at 2:39 PM, Ghostsof1915 said:

Messier.

 

Pat Quinn being Fired.

 

Trevor Linden traded. (Yeah but it was a great haul I admit it. IT STILL HURT!)

 

 

 

That was a dark time for sure. Over the years (been watching since the first puck drop) there have been a lot of periods of mediocrity that have been hard to stay excited about when the team management didn't seem to be doing much. "Rebuild" has seemed like a forbidden idea at times. Heading into this new season feels so much more exciting that so many years when it was just hoping for some good games and no real expectation of making or going far in the playoffs.

Edited August 19 by CanuckDownUnder
reword

[Komodo0921]

Been a fan since I was old enough to understand the sport; Around 1976.

54 yrs without a cup will test anyone's resolve.

[erkayloomeh]

On 7/2/2024 at 10:51 PM, Heretic said:

Uh...10 years does not make a "die hard" Canucks fan.

20? no.

How about  30?  okay.

 

40 for sure.

This next season will be technically 50 years for me (started in 1975).

The loss in game 7 of the 2011 SCF was the the worst.  That series was the worst - up 2-0 and then the TSN turning point - the hit on Horton.
After that, the Bruins got away with murder - refs hardly called them at all for all their antics.  

 

But not even getting a goal in a game 7?  That was brutal to swallow.

 

 

 

I'm at the fifty year mark and the 2011 thing is definitely a sore spot. But kind of mad at the league for that.

 

Messier ordeal was difficult. 

 

Keep the faith tho. We are close

 

[erkayloomeh]

3 minutes ago, erkayloomeh said:

I'm at the fifty year mark and the 2011 thing is definitely a sore spot. But kind of mad at the league for that.

 

Messier ordeal was difficult. 

 

Keep the faith tho. We are close

 

 

 

Oh, and the last three years of loui Eriksson

 

 

[Pure961089]

On 7/2/2024 at 8:51 PM, The Brock Star said:

Hi fellow Canucks fans! I've been doing a ton of reflecting on this past season we had. I don't think there's any debate that this season was one of the greatest seasons in franchise history. We were given 0 chance out of the gate by almost every media pundit in the league, only to take the league by storm all year round, and take the cup finalists in the playoffs to one accidental Zadorov shot block preventing overtime of game 7. I've been a fan of this team all 29 years I've been on this earth, and this was by far the most exciting season I can remember since 2011, and there are so many moments I will never forget, such as 2 goals in 12 seconds, or JT's game 5 heroics, or the unexpected dominance of Silovs. 

I've come to the conclusion that part of what made this season so special for all of us was the decade of incompetence we had to endure previously. We were a laughing stock in the NHL essentially from 2012 when we choked in the first round of the playoffs, to last season when we fell flat out of the gate and got Bruce canned in a brutal way. That is 11 long years of mediocrity. There were some good moments in there absolutely such as the 2020 run, but overall it was a dark era as a Canucks fan watching the team get progressively worse. For us die hards, we have stuck through a lot over the last decade, and it got me wondering: as a die hard Canucks fan, what was the point in your Canucks fandom that tested your resolve the most? 

For myself, 2012 jumps to mind. Fresh off game 7 of the cup finals, the Canucks came back relatively the same, add David Booth and minus Ehrhoff and Samuelsson. Edler took over Ehrhoff's spot on the back end and did well, and Booth had a solid first season as a new addition to the top 6. We beat Boston in their own barn, and the team won the Presidents Trophy a second year in a row. We had every right as fans to believe we could get back to the finals. As the season went along though, after the Boston game the wheels slowly started to fall off the wagon. The Hodgson/Kassian deal was one of the worst timed deals in franchise history that evaporated our secondary scoring. Daniel Sedin got injured (f*** Keith), and the Canucks essentially gasped into the playoffs, and proceeded to lay one of the biggest eggs in franchise history in round 1 against the up and coming Kings. It was the worst choke by a Presidents Trophy team in history at the time, and made me realize that we wouldn't win with that core. The wheels continued to fall off bit by bit in the seasons following, and we slipped into our own decade of darkness, but for me I knew the drop off was coming as soon as LA booted us. That was the hardest loss next to game 7 in 2011 for me as a fan, and I would say where my resolve was most tested as a fan.

How about for others here?

The Benning years were the worst, people will point to the 2 hits he had at the draft but forget the many top ten pick failures.  Outside of a couple outliers his drafting and the inability to identify talent was alarming. 2/5 top ten picks isn't nearly good enough.  The other outlier, the one good trade he made was acquiring JT Miller, but the other trades were a disaster.  His problem was he was a poor scout of talent.  He ran the Canucks like a mom and pop shop, it was 9 years of amateur hour in every other way. 

 

In contrast 1.5 years later and to compare what we have to Rutherford, Allvin, Tocchet and all the staff.  On every level this organization is vastly superior.  It's so lopsided it's a joke.  From Hockey Operations, Pro scouting, Amateur Scouting, Player Development,  Benning would still have had the farm team in Utica.  It's not even close, to compare the 2 is embarrassing for Benning.   It's not mediocre it was gross incompetence. 

Edited August 26 by Pure961089

[The Lock]

This is going to sound really bad, but sometimes just the silly discussions that would happen on CDC when things weren't going our way. So much negativity. So much unnecessary nitpicking. Fans wanting to ditch out prospects before even giving them a chance. At the very least, I've had some conversations in the past that made me want to keep my thoughts to myself.

 

I feel like this has gotten better at least, probably because of the recent success of this team, or maybe I've changed. Who knows.

 

Also the 2011 protests made me question my fandom. Why would I want to associate myself with that garbage?

Edited August 26 by The Lock