Let's start today with the weekend Hockey Rewind viewing schedule.
On my cable provider, Sportsnet has been having a terrible timing updating its program guide, but I stumbled on
this page on my phone yesterday.
It's showing Saturday's games on Sportsnet Pacific as "Bo Knows" at 4 p.m. and "Sedins' Last Home Game" at 6 p.m.
The latter is pretty self-explanatory — and since I was at that game, I'll enjoy watching the broadcast for the first time.
The early game? There's no description, but in the promo photo, Horvat's wearing the "C," so the game must be from this season. He's in white, so it must have been on the road. And he's celebrating in front of a Red Wings goaltender, so it must have been Vancouver's visit to Detroit earlier this season.
I checked the box score. Without spoiling the result any further, let's just say that it was a good night 😜
Next — if you missed it, Brian Burke did a Twitter Q&A on Thursday, and shared this tidbit about what Mike Gillis was asking from the Maple Leafs when Roberto Luongo was on the trade block and Burke was the Leafs' GM:
For me, the most interesting part of this idea is that Burke was fired by Toronto on January 9, 2013 — three days after the tentative agreement was reached to end the 2012-13 lockout and 10 days before the new season began.
According to
NHL Trade Tracker, the first post-lockout trade didn't happen until January 13, and only minor deals were made during that window. My memory was that there was still a lot of uncertainty about how the new terms of the salary-cap would shake out — and, of course, this was just as the dreaded recapture clause was being put in place.
Two days before Burke was fired,
Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun caught up with Luongo in Florida. All parties seemed well aware that a potential deal could go down, although Longley cited Kadri and Tyler Bozak as the Leafs players he thought could be headed the other way.
After Burke's firing, Dave Nonis took another crack at the trade deadline — and, of course, he was the same GM that had brought Luongo to Vancouver back in 2006. But
Luke Fox of Sportsnet reported that Luongo refused to waive his no-trade clause to facilitate a deal, because he thought a deal with his preferred destination, Florida, was imminent.
A few days later,
Fox reported a different version of the story. Via his colleague Mark Spector, the deal had been set to send Ben Scrivens plus second and third-round draft picks back to Vancouver, but Nonis balked when the Canucks wouldn't retain salary.
That's a big shift from the original ask that Burke revealed this week — but does come in a lot closer to the package that Gillis ended up getting from the Panthers at the 2014 deadline — a promising but unproven Markstrom plus utility forward Shawn Matthias in exchange for Luongo and ECHLer Steven Anthony.
I'd forgotten just how long and drawn-out that process was. And in between, of course, Gillis did get his first-rounder when he dealt Cory Schneider to New Jersey — then selected our current captain.
Markstrom made four appearances for the Canucks that spring, while Eddie Lack was running the show.
Perhaps the stealthiest move Jim Benning has made during his entire tenure in Vancouver was sliding Markstrom through to Utica early in the waiver period before the beginning of the 2014-15 season. If you ever think that Thatcher Demko's not coming along quickly enough, remember that Markstrom celebrated his 25th birthday in the minors in January of 2015. Demko's 25th birthday will come this December.
Anyway, enough of that long and winding road.
Back to the present day — Iain MacIntyre checked in with Quinn Hughes, who's isolating with his brothers Jack and Luke and their parents, back in Michigan.
It's a good Q&A, covering Quinn's trip home to Michigan — where he decided to fly first class to give himself some extra space, and had Tyler Motte with him for company — and how he and his brothers are keeping busy.
They've moved past ping pong. Now, lots of basketball, chess, and binging "Billions."
Have you watched Billions? I binged it all last year. Fantastic. And the new season will be rolling out on Crave starting in early May. That's something I'm looking forward to.
Also from the Crave channel, I watched their four-part documentary "Punk" over the last couple of days. Executive-produced by Iggy Pop and fashion designer John Varvatos — who also hails from Detroit — it's a very comprehensive look at the evolution of the genre, from the precursors like the MC5 and the Stooges through the scenes in New York and England in the 70s, then into L.A. in the 80s and through the mainstreaming of the genre with the commercial explosions of Green Day and The Offspring in the 90s.
I always enjoyed the punk shows I got to DJ at the Commodore. The fans were always so happy to be together, the vibe was great. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to have seem legends like the MC5 and the Damned over the last couple of years, all the way up through the more contemporary acts like Pennywise, NOFX and The Distillers. Even the pop-punkers like Sum 41 and Good Charlotte were a ton of fun.
Those shows were quite a bit of work for me, though — usually multi-band bills, with each group playing a relatively short set. And I had to stay on my toes during the changeovers, as most of the songs I was playing averaged about two minutes apiece.
Our own Joe Keithley of D.O.A. also makes an appearance in the documentary — and gets credit for basically carving out a North American touring map and contact list in the early 80s that all of D.O.A.'s contemporaries eventually followed.
Finally — I'll wrap up today with a little bit of crowdsourcing, because I know a few of the regulars in the comment section can weigh in on this culinary question:
In an effort to keep my meals interesting and maybe find a little hidden pleasure, I decided to try something different during my grocery excursion this week, and picked up a rack of pork ribs.
I have never cooked pork ribs in my life. How should I handle this?
I don't own any prepared BBQ sauce. I have ketchup, worchestershire sauce etc. Doesn't necessarily have to be super saucey and gooey, in my opinion. I usually like the flavour of the meat to come through.
Two other restrictions — pretend this is a cooking show!
• I don't have a BBQ
• I don't have a ton of aluminum foil, and have not yet been able to source more. The grocery store was sold out yesterday, so I ordered some from Amazon, but it looks like that could take awhile.
Is there a way that I can make delicious ribs in my oven without using foil? I do have lots of parchment paper...and a big roasting pan.
Look forward to reading your advice - thanks in advance!
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