This week in anguish: - Despite winning the week, we fear we are living in the twilight of the idols. We love our new management group and their putative vision, but who will be the first to go once Jim starts to philosophize with a hammer? - Perhaps, if we all just close our eyes and misunderstand Bayern Munich's slogan hard enough, we can all stay as one big happy family after all.  - Welcome Cammi Granato! You have risen to great hockey heights while reflexively batting off prejudiced attacks for over 20 years...but can you withstand our withering critique of your slapdash workflow as a children's author? - Yo Juho, I’m really happy for you, and I'ma let you finish, but the Canucks already had one of the best player-of-the-game objects of all time. One of the best of all time! - If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results, surely our plan to once again draft Elias Petterson in 2022 is flawless.    Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.     

This Week in Anguish

Ep 147: Me Without Me (2022/02/15)

This week in anguish: - Podz and Högs both get a night in or around the pressbox, and in the latter case we strain to avoid using the term "pork scratchings". - Tallying Bruce's winning weeks. - Huge Hughes news, and a rare point of controversy as we debate player travel during the All-Star break. - Like so many others, we unhinge our jaws and stare agape at just how badly Rocky Wirtz and Gary Bettman are handling life, the universe, and everything. - Passing notions and superficial observations on 50 years of Canuck all-stardom. - Remember the Challenge Cup in 1979? Or Rendez-Vous '87? Wanna? - How to build a cohesive dressing room in two easy steps (and one easy steppe).   Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.   

Ep 146: The Two "S" Rule (2022/02/08)

This week in anguish: - Is going description-less for the time being as I'm uploading it eight seconds before having to go to work. - Give it a listen! All shall be revealed. 

Ep 145: She Sells Sanctuary (2021/01/31)

This week in anguish: - The boys pulled off a successful-on-our-terms road trip and a tremendously gutsy overtime loss to the Panthers, with Petey looking more and more like himself...so we focus on Petey’s less-than-stellar shootout attempt, and move-less attempts in general. - We welcome Rachel Doerrie to the fold with our patended mixture of over-familiarity, hyper-scrutiny, and the belief that quotes should never be burdened down by pesky context. - A journey into the rabbit hole of Ardella's mind, beginning at Ulf Samuelsson and ending with Jesse Boulerice face-sticking Ryan Kesler.  - Like buzzards we pick over the verbal remains of Chris Gear and Nolan Baumgartner in the search for nourishing morsels.  - The pod has a Pod, the PHF has more cash, the jerseys have more pride, the ECHL all star game has more representation, but most importantly of all... - What's wrong with Lumme?    Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.

Ep 144: We Have Guys That Do All That for Us (2022/01/24)

This week in anguish: - Begins with twenty-five minutes of handwringing over the state of our Petey. Basically, we fret-manifested his scoring outburst later that morning, no big deal. - Breaking down our goal expectations and making sure the Boudreau bounce doesn't descend into a Desjardins dribble.   - "This town ain't big enough for the both of us," said Probity to Competitive Advantage.  - Why did there used to be two professional North American women's hockey leagues? Why is there now only one league and one "player's association"? Are we the baddies? A report.  - Between the time it took to record and publish this, the PHF has announced their salary cap will more than double next season. This podcast is now basically a vision board.     

Ep 143: I Want a Hero (2022/01/18)

This week in anguish: - To paraphrase the dearly departed Jim Benning: "Why isn't anyone talking about Dennis Kearns?" We remedy that in an exhaustive yet bracingly brief retrospective of significant Canuck rearguards.  - Ardella dusts off the Canucks Trophy Case, and takes us from the ballyhooed heights of Harts and Lindsays to the depths of the Mark Messier Leadership Award.  - Tristan gets his ankles stuck in some bog-standard hockey names, struggling with such basics as Aloysius, Börje, and Dougan.  - The Connecticut weather report: flurries of fluff this week, followed by showers of scholarly preparation the next. 

Ep 142: The Stecher-Hedican Line (2022/01/11)

This week in anguish: - Five hundred! Mediocrity never tasted so sweet. Tristan defends Tanner Pearson, JT Miller censors himself for Ardella's benefit, good chaos, and other thoughts on the OT win vs Anaheim. - Dmitri Zlodeyev is our entry point to From Russia With Love, Ardella's half quiz, half retrospective segment on the finest Canucks you can find west of Kamchatka.  - Friendship power rankings. Stocks are rising everywhere, but the ghost of Father Tanev looms large. - How Did We Not Know about Jason Strudwick's relations, and about Frank J. Selke's managerial precociousness? - This Week in Connecticut: boo to the Metropolitan Riveters; yay to the Brass Bonanza.   Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.  

Ep 141: Ufa is the New Örnsköldsvik (2021/12/30)

This week in anguish: - Betcha forgot about the plight of those plucky '01-'02 Canucks. Well, they didn't forget about you. - Observations deriving from the recent mic'ings up of Messrs. Garland and Miller.  - Mocking the prognosticators at the end of Carolina's Rutherford era. - The Smyl Files: The Coaching Years - How Did We Not Know when the Steamer first steamt? - We take one hangdog look back at a fresh-faced Travis Green on the day of his hiring, then immediately jettison him once again and focus more beams of adoration on the Boudreau family, who are bringing niceness back to Minnesota minor hockey. - Remember Scott Walker? So do we...in this portion of the show! - This Week in Connecticut: We stare a gift whale in the mouth, and are delighted by what we find there.   Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.

Ep 140: The Ghost Is Risen (2021/12/21)

This week in anguish: - Was recorded at 6:30 on Tuesday morning, which explains a) why we didn't mention anything about Covid once again stalking the Canucks, and b) our razor-sharp wits. - We go through the tumultuous week in fine detail, bursting all Joy's grapes upon our palates fine until we find the one that turns to ash in our mouths. Then we focus on that one quite a bit, admittedly. - Extends, as it now always shall, into the great (?) state of Connecticut to check in on our newly-beloved denizens of the Danbury Ice Arena. Go Whale.    Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.

Ep 139: How Low We Had to Go (2021/12/14)

This week in anguish: - Has achieved peak irrelevance by recording a 1½ hour audio interpretation of a franchise listlessly circling the drain, entirely unaware that massive, long-overdue changes were a few hours away. - Wait - weren't the Abbotsford Canucks supposed to be good at least? - Ardella has a new Google search term emotional temperature: jokes. - We crunch the numbers on Petey's generosity. - Halcyon Canucks quotes from days when we might have sucked nearly as hard, but we still managed to have fun doing it.  - Jason Farris is a very smart man who wrote some ostensibly very smart things about the traits of successful hockey organizations. Unfortunately, everything keeps coming up Bowman in the end. - Wait again - what actually went down around the 2015 firings of Laurence Gilman and Lorne Henning? (Sorry, Eric Crawford.) - 15 years of Canucks' talent evaluation misadventures as exemplified by the top 107 current KHL scoring leaders. - Random insights derived from searching the terms "scott melanby" in the Vancouver Sun and Province archives from 2008-2011. - Francesco told us it would be darkest before the dawn. In the dying moments of the Benning era, Tristan carves out a slice of his hockey heart and gives it to another, adopting the Connecticut Whale of the Premier Hockey Federation as his first ever Team I Am Also Cheering For. - I thought we were playing the Boston Pride later that afternoon. Turned out it was the Minnesota Whitecaps. And we won! This concludes Ep. 0 of This Week in Connecticut.    Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.

Ep 138: Push Both Buttons (2021/12/05)

This week in anguish: - We float in a numb purgatory, suffering ever new and ever more bad occurrences, while never getting the cathartic release of the consequences of those occurrences. - In what months are general managers most likely to be fired, and how many NHL games are they most likely to have played in? Behold the dual missing links in our managerial puzzle. - A serious media spat between serious journalists has Tristan asking, "Seriously?"  - Is it better for Canuck fans at this stage to just not show up, or to show up and be visibly, vocally ticked off? - The Great Arena Rift between Bo Horvat and JT Miller has us thumbing through the archives and dredging up spats past. - Jockwatch 1984 2021: Still a joke. - Ardella's emotional barometer can be read by her Google search terms of choice. This week? "Worst failures to meet expectations in Canucks history."   Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.

Ep 137: Spats (2021/11/28)

This week in anguish: - Jim Benning, recognizing that we are kinesthetic learners, punches us while we're down with a demonstration of just what a losing culture really looks like. - We want owners who will empower this team to finally win the Stanley Cup, or, in perpetual lieu of that, we want owners we can feel good about. We are often told to be thankful we have local owners. Who are these guys, anyhow? And how do they run the less obsessively-scrutinized businesses in their empire? - Direct your gazes navel-ward as we continue to track this rebuilding(?) team's unbeknownst-to-them quest to live up to the exploits of their double decade forebears, the 2001/02 Canucks.  - A little bit of Jannik Hansen? - The time has come, the co-host said, to talk of many things: of shots, and posts, and crossbars whacked, and whither the shooter's ping?  - How Did We Manage To Get This Far In Life and not really know how secondary assists are tabulated?   Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.    

Ep 136: Save Yourselves (2021/11/22)

This week in anguish: - Was recorded before the latest loss to the Ducks, but that doesn't really change anything, does it? - Ardella surveys the history and success rate of midseason coaching changes, for no reason in particular. - Tristan delves into the archives to get a closer look at when Pat Quinn came down from the rafters and re-zipped up his track suit...for no reason in particular. - Emily Kaplan('s printed words) lead us through the top current candidates for coach and GM replacements...for no reason in particular. - Ardella lays out the sad history of players past whose careers peaked with their winning the Calder Trophy...for no reason in particular.  - How Did We Not Know that no brass is required to get down to Tacks?   Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey. 

Ep 135: Rambling Beginning, Muddled Middle, Disjointed Ending (2021/11/14)

This week in anguish: - We finally talk about people finally talking about the Brad Aldrich case. Points include our flippant ignorance of Kyle Beach from 2008-2021, Bo Horvat and Antoine Roussel's excellent comments on the issue, and even some grudging praise for the Boston Bruins. You heard it here once, folks. - Ardella flashes her black metallic VIP library card and heads deep into the stacks to fish out Gary Mason's takes on the 2001/02 Canucks. Surely, 20 years later, this sacred scroll will reveal the answers to our current anxieties. - Spin at your leisure, Jonathan Swift, 'cause we're about to discuss the Canucks not-so-special teams. Hey-o. Satire. - Petey is struggling, and we pore over some strange stats of his to help us comprehend it. If only there was a catchy portmanteau we could use to describe weird little quirks about our ol' #40. If only.  - Quick! Who's the clutch-est current Canuck?  - Don't know? That's not very clutch of you. Anyhow did we not know about Daniel Sedin nipping at Wayne Gretzky's heels in a certain all-time statistic?   Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.     

Ep 134: World-Class Worrier (2021/11/07)

This week in anguish: - Already, we stand mired in a sub-mediocre mess, and debate whose bits of the muck are whose.  - Our heroes returned. Be careful what you wish for.  - We take a deep dive into the Quintology, a 1992-1995, high-concept, medium-budget series of themed team and player portraits.  - Ardella fires up the Statulator and tracks historically inept season-opening gambits.   Thanks for listening! This episode supports the Hockey4Youth foundation and HerosHockey.

Ep 133: Retreat to Foofaraw (2021/10/31)

This Week in Anguish is the Canucks podcast that feels your pain out loud. A weekly conversation about the only thing that really matters with co-hosts Tristan and Ardella Thompson. New episodes released each Sunday.

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This Week in Anguish

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