Canucks beat Oilers 4-2 on Linden night

What a terrific tribute to Linden pregame. Linden shed no tears before his speech up to the point of his banner being raised. Much like his father, he braved the tears of joy and pulled off the most classiest act I've seen in a jersey retirement ceremony, deflecting almost all of the attention and praise from himself and directing it to his former teammates, family, etc.

"This is an incredible day," said Linden. "To the fans of Vancouver and the province of B.C., it's hard to express my gratitude to you tonight. Thank you for letting me into your lives. Thanks for being incredible, passionate hockey fans."

Linden speech Part 1



Linden speech Part 2: I can see our friends Roger and Krista in the stands at the 5:50 mark. Lucky bastards! Listen to what he says about people seeing his jersey in the rafters...class personified:



Here is a clip of his jersey being raised:


Then the Canucks come out and beat the Oilers in mostly sound fashion to let Linden go home even more proud.
I'm not sure about the injuries to O'Brien and Salo, but it looks like Salo could be out a lot longer than #55. It's hard to replace glass when you break it.
The Hansen-Sedin line clicked with 5 points: 3 for Dank, 2 for Hansen and 1 for Hank. A great game by them.
You can also see that Kesler and Burrows are beginning to claw their way back to becoming offensive threats.
What I really don't get was AV's lineup change of Wellwood centering Hordichuk and Brown on the 4th line to start the game. Strange.
The Canucks kept the Oilers to the outside for most of the game. I thought that Sanford was steady in goal with every shot minus the Gagner goal. He deserves another look in the next game.

BOXSCORE

T Tags: Trevor+Linden+retirement+night retired+jersey Canucks+beat+Oilers December+17+2008
Trevor+Linden+retirement+night+video speech

Sunday hits: Vandenbussche, Vinnie, Sundin, God

From Sportsnet:

Former NHL enforcer Ryan VandenBussche was cleared of assault charges Friday stemming from a brawl outside a bar in which he admittedly punched a police officer in the face, threatened to kill another, and was Tasered three times and pepper-sprayed before being subdued.
VandenBussche's lawyer successfully argued that his client's history of concussions and a hard shove against a wall during the altercation legally rendered him a "non-insane automaton" that cleared him of criminal responsibility for his actions -- including a punch that broke a police officer's nose and orbital bone.

It's been 2 days since this news broke out, I know. But don't you smell the foul stench of bullshit from this ruling? Now a history of concussions can get you off the hook for beating on cops. Whatever happened to accepting responsibility for your actions? Oh right, lawyers who get paid huge dollars can take care of it.

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The Lightning have signed Vinnie Lecavalier to an 11-year contract extension worth $85 million.The deal begins in the 2009-10 season and will pay Lecavalier $10 million in salary and bonuses for the first six seasons of the deal, then $8.5-million in 2016-2017, $4-million in 2017-2018, $1.5-million in 2018-2019 and $1-million and 2019-2020.
This deal will kick in after next season, as Lecavalier will make $7.167 milion this coming season in what would have been the final year of his contract.
I'm not sure I've seen a descending-scale contract quite like that before. "$1 million in 2019-20"? Well, I guess Vinnie will be about 40 years old by then. But what if he's a 40-year-old who can still score 25-30 goals? He'll be a steal!

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According to our favorite guessing guru:

...I am being told more and more that Mats is going to return to the NHL and a source this morning told me that, "He will be Canadien by week's end, and the Habs know it. It is being kept quiet so the team can make the needed moves to clear cap space without teams being able to completely take advantage"

Anybody want to wager that this is NOT going to happen?

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The guys at Holy Taco couldn't have put description of the clip below any better:

Since it’s Sunday we should all be reminded that our God is a vengeful God who will strike us down whenever he feels like it. As we all know, he doesn’t like coveting, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, murdering, working on the Sabbath (blogging isn’t work, right?), or gays. But now it looks like we can also add “filming rain storms” to the list of things that pisses God off.

The woman was fine. Apparently she said the lightning went through her left hand that was holding the camera, across her back and through her right hand that was holding a metal railing. No wounds suffered, she said, just a big zap. I'm not believing this story. If you get hit by lightning, you're going to feel more than just a zap.
But who gives a shit what I think, check out the clip. Pretty insane footage.


http://view.break.com/536314 - Watch more free videos

T Tags: Ryan+Vandenbussche+cleared+of+charges Lecavalier+massive+contract+extension Mats+Sundin+to+Canadiens Woman+hit+by+lightning+video