Five reasons to root for the Canucks

As a lifelong Blackhawks fan, the team's having been knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by the Vancouver Canucks was not exactly what I hoped for. Yet as a hockey fan, with the exception of the outcome, the series exceeded my wildest expectations. It had everything one could hope for, magnificent skill and speed, big hits, raw emotion, good guys and bad guys (depending on which side you were on), failure and redemption, and most of all, high drama. It ended in perhaps the most compelling and exciting scenario in all of sports, sudden death overtime in game seven of a hockey playoff series, the entire season on the line, everything hinging on one goal, the next one.

In the end, certainly everyone must agree that the better team won. The Canucks ended the season with the best record in the NHL. The Hawks finishing with a respectable record, nonetheless stumbled into the playoffs. Yet in the first round of the playoffs, the Blackhawks played with grit, determination and heart, and came within an eyelash of stealing the series. I think it will go down in history as one of the greatest playoff series of all time, it was the kind of stuff upon which legends are made.

As with all good rivalries, there is much to dislike about the opponent. After game seven, Vancouver's star forward Daniel Sedin claimed that the Hawks probably didn't "deserve" to make it as far as the seventh game of the series. An interesting comment given the fact that over the course of the series, the Hawks outscored the Canucks 21 to 16. Sedin's remarks may have been born out of personal frustration as together with his linemate and identical twin Henrick, the Sedins finished the series with a pathetic combined minus 13 rating.*

By contrast, the stars of the series for Vancouver, Alexandre Burrows who scored both goals for his team in the final game, Ryan Kesler, who set up Burrows' first goal and held Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews in check throughout most of the series, and their much maligned goaltender, Roberto Luongo, who made the most important save of the series by stopping Patrick Sharp's point blank shot in overtime of game seven, all were generous in their post series comments about their worthy opponents.

Some sports fans feel compelled to root for the team that beats their team so they can at least say: "we were beaten by the champs". For me personal bias usually gets in the way, but not this year. I'll be rooting for the Canucks to win the Stanley Cup. Here are five reasons why:


1. The better team won. The NHL is often criticized for being the easiest league in professional sports to make it into the post-season. Back in hockey's "golden era", when there were only six teams, four of them made it into the playoffs. An entire season was devoted to eliminating two teams. Today, a slightly smaller percentage of teams get into the post-season, and in the Western Conference, the team with the worst record to make the playoffs, the Blackhawks, finished the regular season with a respectable 44 wins, 29 losses and 9 ties. The Canucks on the other hand had the best record in the entire league, and for credibility's sake, it would be nice if the team with the best record could win it all. It seldom happens.
2. Oh Canada. Ice hockey is Canada's game. The NHL is composed primarily of Canadian players, yet only 6 of the 30 teams in the league are based in Canadian cities. The Montreal Canadiens were the last team from north of the border to win the Cup and that was way back in 1993. The Canuck's next opponent are the Predators from of all places, Nashville. Give me a break. Montreal by the way was eliminated last night, and all the other Canadian teams have been on the golf course for the last two weeks. I think it's about time that Canada took back the Cup.
3. Roberto Luongo. Hockey goalies are special people. As an old radio commercial for the Blackhawks put it: "The puck is flying at you at over 100 miles per hour. Not only do you have to see it, you have to stop it." As a goaltender, your team, your city, and in Luongo's case your entire country's hopes all rest upon your super-human reflexes. And Roberto Luongo is one of the best in the business. But he has one achilles heel, he succumbs to pressure in big games, especially it seems against the Blackhawks. In other words, despite all his hard work and God given talents, he's human like the rest of us. Despite being shaky in the series, even terrible at times, in the end, under more pressure than anyone of us could ever possibly imagine, he came through and made that great save against Sharp. Am I a fan of his? I am now.
4. The Pathos Factor. What do an animal in distress, a drunk person walking face first into a building, and the 2003 Chicago Cubs have in common? They are all pathetic images that no decent person should be forced to witness. The good people of Vancouver have been chomping at the bit for three years now to defeat the Blackhawks. This year the Canucks won the first three games of the series and looked like a shoe-in for crushing their long time adversary. That is until their hopes all but crashed and burned when the Hawks came storming back in the series and forced the Canucks to the brink Tuesday night. Had the Canucks lost, their collapse would have been of dare I say, of biblical proportions.
   
5. Let the Rivalry Begin. It takes two to make any good rivalry. Up until this week, the Canuck/Blackhawk rivalry was one sided, we were their rivals, they were our lap dogs. Not any more. If the Canucks were hungrier than the Hawks this season, next year will be another story. As the Blackhawks found out, it's tough to be champion, every team brings it A game against you. Even the best teams have only so many A games a season. If the Canucks win the Cup, they'll find that out next year.
I can't wait.


*The difference between the number of goals scored for and against a player's team while that player is on the ice.

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Vancouver redux

Here is an interesting assessment of Vancouver from the viewpoint of a transit planning consultant. One of the main points is that Vancouver represents the city of the future, based on the Asian model, high density and fewer cars.

From the photographs he posts, my opinion stated here has not changed. I still see lots of tall, uninteresting buildings which in my opinion, for what it's worth, detracts from my overall impression of it.

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Architecture you can hang your hat on

Vancouver, B.C. is by all accounts a fantastic city. It boasts a natural setting that is second to none and rates at or near the top of practically every list of best places to live in North America.

These past two weeks the beautiful West Coast city has been at center stage as the host of the Winter Olympic Games. As we found out here in Chicago last year, the cost-benefit ratio of hosting the Olympics is a matter of much controversy. Nevertheless it cannot be debated that the games provide a tremendous opportunity to showcase a city. If done well, the broadcast of the Olympics can provide an indelible impression to the world and open doors to possibilities down the road that projections and statistics cannot take into account.

As I've written before in this space, my impressions of many cities have been formed by their hosting the Olympics. I'll never forget the amazing panorama of Barcelona with Gaudi's Sagrada Familia way off in the distance, seen as the backdrop for the diving venue of the 1992 games. Or the Sydney Opera House and the magnificent Harbour Bridge that were so prominently featured during the Summer games of 2000. I never had a visual reference for the city of Turin before the last Winter games four years ago. From that point on I will forever associate the city with its most striking landmark, the imposing tower of the Mole Antonelliana.

Well a funny thing happened during these Olympics. After watching the coverage of the games for nearly two weeks, I still don't have much of an impression of the city of Vancouver. While I used to have an image in my mind of an attractive town set in the mountains with an ever so slightly old world ambiance, the city I see today is populated with nondescript skyscrapers, the likes of which can be found in virtually every North American city. It seems as if the signature image of Vancouver is from up above, not at street level. The standard view is of the modern skyline, not specific landmarks. It features the harbor and the mountains in the background, but not architecture. Beautiful indeed but to me, little of the built environment gives the place much identity.


From my readings on the subject, it seems that any man made structure is considered by locals to be an affront to the natural beauty of Vancouver. There has been little concern for historic preservation and many buildings fell to the wrecking ball during the tremendous building boom over the past twenty years. Not that there aren't interesting buildings in Vancouver, you just have to dig deep to find them. Some fine buildings from the first half of the Twentieth Century such as Sun Tower, the Marine Building and the Hotel Vancouver have survived. An interesting recent building is the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library, whimsically inspired by the Roman Colosseum. Its architect was Moshe Safdie, perhaps most famous for his Habitat apartment complex built for Expo 67 in Montreal. The building that has been the de facto Vancouver landmark during the coverage of these Olympics has been Canada Place, Vancouver's big exhibition hall, trade center, entertainment center and pier rolled into one. It was built to be the Canada pavillion for Expo 86 World's Fair and was designed by Eberhard Zeidler, one of the architects of Toronto's Eaton Centre. The white sails adorning part of the structure make this unquestionably the most distinctive building in the city.

While these buildings are worth noting, it's quite clear that Vancouver does little to promote its architectural heritage. Even the inescapable TV commercial promoting tourism to British Columbia shows the city as an afterthought snuck in between glorious glimpses of sea, sky and mountains.

To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, is there really a there, there in Vancouver? The general question I am interested in is this: is the urban experience enhanced by distinctive architecture, or are signature buildings merely superficial ornaments that bear little or no significance to a city's true meaning or identity?

Arguing in favor of the former, I would say that distinctive architecture does matter. Not that every building has to be unique, a masterpiece like a painting in a museum. But I believe that a city greatly benefits from architecture that sets it apart from other cities.

I live in a city that is well known around the world for its architecture. We have more landmark buildings in Chicago that I can possibly list without reference. Yet many of our iconic structures are not necessarily our greatest architectural treasures. They may not be good architecture at all and in fact, they may not even be buildings. What after all is more symbolic of Chicago than the L?



My wife and I just returned from a week in London. (A detailed report on that is forthcoming). London certainly has its share of iconic buildings. But what we found equally compelling were the little things, surprises that kept popping up seemingly out of nowhere.

Yet at the same time, we were embraced by the very London-ness of the place. The Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, the Wren churches, Regent Street, Westminster Palace and the London Eye, not to mention the pubs, the red phone booths, the double deck buses, the bobbies, the mind the gap announcements, all these things unequivocally reminded us that we could have only been in one particular, very special city.

I can honestly say the same for every city that I have ever visited and loved, which of course includes my own city. The wonders and joys of each place inevitably come from the unexpected balanced with the features that are unique to that particular city.


If I can be so bold as to criticize a place I have never been, I would say that the lack of truly distinctive architecture might be the one thing missing in Vancouver. I would love to pay a visit if only to prove myself wrong.


The buildings and monuments, the particular joys and frustrations, tell a story about a city, about its history, about its people, and about its place in the world. The architecture that you can hang your hat on if you will, defines a city, and is an important part of what makes it great.

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