Feasting on Canucks failure
By JIM TAYLOR -- Sun Media
VANCOUVER -- The buzzards are circling Pat Quinn and Tom Renney, ready to pick and tear and gouge away at the cooling corpse of another sorry season for the Vancouver Canucks.
This team of high expectations and low performance is not going to be in the NHL playoffs, nor does it deserve to be. Of such circumstances are buzzardly banquets concocted, and the rush to get to the table is of boarding house calibre.
Soup course: John McCaw, the cell phone zillionaire and chief tentacle of the Orcapus, who bought out Arthur Griffiths, assumed total ownership of the hockey Canucks, the basketball Grizzlies and the building in which they sometimes perform, then, then pulled a Lamont Cranston and disappeared into the shadows.
Appetizer: Rump Roast of Renney, the bright, articulate and some say overwhelmed communicator who has found the leap from coaching starry-eyed amateur dreamers to kid-gloving cold-eyed professional schemers considerably more daunting than anticipated.
Entree: Quinn Shishkebab, large chunks of general managerial hide rolled and skewered and turned over a slow flame giving him time to contemplate his failure to turn the beloved sow's ears into a playoff silk purse.
Dessert: Roster Fondu, assorted individual Canucks dipped in boiling oil, then cooled and packaged for shipping.
Note: One helping per ticket-holder. No refunds, Bicarbonate extra. Reservations recommended.
The rush for first sitting has been building for days, mostly from media people secure in the knowledge that they get in free and get the last word even if they barf on the carpet.
Some of them seem to be taking the season personally, as though Quinn and Renney have let them down in giving them this collection of the good, the mediocre and the thank-God-for-expansions to chronicle on a daily basis. In Quinn's case in particular, the coverage has taken on all the balance of a Sicilian vendetta.
Quinn is unapproachable, they claim. He hides in his bunker and never comes out to face their inquisition. Quinn says that's a lie. "I answer my phone, I return my calls," he says. "I read and hear that crap, and most of it is from people I swear have never called."
Tom Renney? He tried to keep the boys from having their post-game beer on the plane home. His system was good for amateurs, lousy for pros. Too much practice, not enough rest. The dressing room is a house divided. The coaching staff is split.
Confirmation of these charges and others is attributed to "unnamed players," which means only that either the player or the journalism is suspect.
Besides, all this ranting and fulminating is likely for naught. Or are we to discount the words of Disappearing John McCaw, who said in a published interview in February that he respects and admires Quinn, thinks he should be given the same loyalty he's shown his players, and sees no reason why he wouldn't be back?
"I'm 100 percent behind Pat Quinn. He has total authority to run the hockey team. I'll support him in any way I can, but he makes the decisions."
That would make the decision on Renney, Quinn's to make.
"He's learning," he said six weeks ago. "He's gonna be fine."
They will talk. They may even argue. But come next season, they'll both be back. The buzzards, being buzzards, will circle patiently, and wait.
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