Rob The Hockey Guy

Tuesday’s win against the Phoenix Coyotes gave the Vancouver Canucks a perfect 3-for-3 record on their California/Arizona road trip and Canuck Nation couldn’t be happier. On Sunday I told you about the Canuck invasion in Los Angeles and Anaheim, and others have taken note. We were fortunate to have our article featured in Yahoo’s Puck Daddy blog, which gave this story league-wide attention. Even JT the Brick (who has a nationally syndicated radio show in the US) talked about this big influx of Canucks fans at the Staples Center and Honda Center over the weekend… and those kinds of shows NEVER talk about hockey. On Thursday, the Canucks will try to make the road trip a perfect 4-for-4 and you know Canuck Nation will be there too.

Canuck Nation

The term ‘Canuck Nation’ has stirred up a bit of debate on Twitter and amongst bloggers recently. It appears some people don’t like the term, pointing to its unoriginality (Red Sox Nation, Cubs Nation, Leafs Nation etc). Mike Halford and Jason Brough from the Kurtenblog spent a great deal of time on their radio show trying to come up with alternate names for this phenomenon. My personal favourite was ‘the Flying Vees’ (playing upon their old uniforms and the fact that Canucks fans have to fly to nearly every road game). But I must say, I like the term ‘Canuck Nation’. To me, it’s not copying Red Sox Nation or Leafs Nation or any other ‘nation’, rather it’s term that describes when a team has fans spread out in many cities/states/provinces/countries. So, I’m sticking with Canuck Nation!

Canuck Nation has never had this kind of support in visiting arenas, most notably in Los Angeles and Anaheim, but Phoenix wasn’t bad either. It’ll be interesting to see how many find their way into the HP Pavilion in San Jose (the trek from Phoenix to San Jose is not a quick one).

I’ve enjoyed spending the last couple of days scouring YouTube for the best fan videos from this road trip. For the most part fans have been fun, loud, drunk, and borderline douchebags! Overall, they’ve been pretty awesome. Here’s an example of the good, the bad, the ugly and the awesome of this road trip (the best part of the video is the guy holding the sign “It’s my stag but I’d leave her for Murph”):