Rob The Hockey Guy

Get ready Vancouver, it’s time to introduce Canuckz.com’s newest blogger: Stu McTuzzi

Well, it’s that time of year again, folks.

We’ve all, yet again, just watched our team collapse in the playoffs, seen our hopes dashed, our choruses of “This could be our year!” shoved back in our big, stupid faces, as our beloved perennial losers skated of the ice, heads hung in shame, all of it oddly familiar, comfortable even.

So now what? We all know how the rest goes, don’t we? Cheering for whatever Canadian teams are left in the playoffs, whom we had previously professed to loathe passionately. Several weeks of Team 1040 call-in show switchboards lighting up.  “Trade Luongo!” “Give Cory Schneider a chance!” “Trade Wellwood for Crosby!” etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum. Then, when the pain and humiliation have begun to fade, a strange, dull silence will descend upon our fair city. We’ll all pretend to care about the BC Lions for a while, until the Ne’er-do-well Canucks and their fans start gearing up for next season.

Then the bold predictions will begin, because when the day does come that our boys go the distance, we all want to be able to say we knew it all along, right? Plus, Things are looking up: The coming of age of the Sedins, an obvious upward trend in point totals over the past 3 seasons, Luongo locked in long term, Mikael Samuelson paying dividends, and competitive young players emerging from within our farm system. All perfectly valid reasons for hope.

A couple minor offseason acquisitions and signings, a harsh word here and there from management, crocodile humility from Luongo about how he should’ve been better, all sprinkled with a Vancouver-sized portion of positivity and hope for next year.

We’ve heard all that before too, right? “We have a good, young nucleus here”, “we’re just one or two players away from being real contenders”, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum.

The 2010 season begins, hopes are mixed, maybe they come out of the gate flying, maybe they struggle at first and turn it around a month or two in, but turn it around they do. A winning streak here, a 7-0 win there, beating the Capitals, Ovechkin held pointless! Could they? Would they?

It’s all just part of being a Canucks fan. They are our team and we love them.

It’s sort of like going over to your parents house for dinner: Mom’s going to make her famous potroast, Dad’s going to make his hilarious jokes, there will be a guilt trip about how you don’t come around to visit enough, you’ll all talk about your career, “Are you seeing anyone?” “Can we meet her?” ”Whatever happened to [insert girl’s name here], she was so nice and so beautiful…” etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum.

It kind of sucks, but hey, they’re your family, its warm and comfortable, there are no big surprises, and you are entertained for a few hours. At the very least, you get something free to eat, even if you do go home feeling angry and empty and spend the night on the toilet with explosive diarrhea.