Mary in Vancity

Today was a great day to be a Canucks fan.

Tonight The Canucks hosted the Minnesota Wild for the last home game of the regular season. Before the game, The franchise unveiled a bronze sculpture of former Canucks head coach Roger Neilson. For those of you who are not familiar with the name, Neilson was a Canucks coach and the first one to use video tapes as a training tool, earning him the nickname “Captain Video”. During the 1982 playoffs, in a game against the Chicago Blackhawks, he felt his team was unfairly penalized on several occasions. Finally fed up, He took a white towel and held it up on a hockey stick, as if waving a white flag in surrender. At the next game, thousands of fans took white towels and waved them in the air, creating a playoff tradition. “Towel power” continues to this day.

The statue features Neilson holding a hockey stick with a white towel draped at the end, immortalizing that very moment. There were many people in attendance, including some of the original team members of the 1982 team, including Darcy Rota Stan Smyl, Harold Snepsts, Tiger Williams and Thomas Gradin.

The end of season awards were presented before the game: Daniel Sedin received the Cyclone Taylor for Most Valuable Player; Christian Ehrhoff won Best Defenceman; Ryan Kesler walked away with Most Exciting Player; Jannik Hansen was the Unsung Hero; Roberto Luongo won the Molson Cup Trophy and Daniel won the Cyrus H. McLean for Leading Scorer.

Aside from a funny incident involving a salmon (yes, as a salmon, the fish) The Canucks won the game tonight, with Luongo getting his fourth shutout of the season and Ryan Kesler getting a hat trick.

Can’t wait for the playoff to begin!