First off—my apologies for the misinformation in yesterday's blog about all the Stanley Cup Final games being televised on the main NBC network.
I was devastated last night to find "American Ninja Warrior" on NBC's east-coast feed at 5 p.m. and had to flip back to the good old CBC.
It did mean that I caught Don Cherry interviewing this year's top prospects, but even that was a disappointment. No more "favourite band" question?? What's the point?
Jack Eichel stole the show when he cheekily presented Don Cherry with a Team USA golf shirt.
Apparently Eichel credited his dad with the idea, but the seed may have been planted during this incident back at the World Championships:
I have double-checked the upcoming Stanley Cup Final schedule
here. Game 4 will also be on NBCSN, but from Game 5 till the end (whenever that might be), the games will be back on the main NBC network.
Trevor and The Turnaround
The article appears to only be available online to subscribers, but Trevor Linden's on the cover of this month's
BCBusiness magazine as the lead face of a story on business turnarounds.
Linden's section is relatively short, but contains a couple of interesting quotes.
On who's running the ship:
"I told Francesco, 'I trust my ability to make good decisions; I trust my judgment.' I asked him to trust me. I need to have the autonomy to bring in the people I feel I need to bring in, that share the same philosophy and belief."
On why Jim Benning's scouting background was his most important characteristic:
"The lifeblood of our organization is our amateur scouting," Linden says. "We wanted to improve our direction to (scouts) and improve the accountability we hold them to—not unlike what we ask of the guys on the ice."
And the big-picture approach to the Canucks' turnaround, from a broad business point of view:
"I think the one thing that's consistent with the businesses you talk about is that when you fail, you have to have a very hard look at yourself," Linden says. "Where you are, why you're there, and what you're going to do about it. We're still going through that now. It's a work in progress."
As you might expect, Linden also reiterates that the turnaround plan is all about building from within without sacrificing the future. Let's see if that means the Canucks dredge up another pick or two without trading any prospects in the leadup to the draft.
Is It the Feng Shui?
Also in the archives from last week, Tony Gallagher went in-depth in
The Province, exploring whether the Canucks' issues at Rogers Arena stem from bad feng shui surrounding the original construction of the building in 1995.
Click here for that story.
Here's the apparent issue in a nutshell:
There are two huge problems with the location of the building, one being with the main entrance facing south opposite False Creek, and then bigger problem, the two viaducts that bring about forces coming so close to the building they strangle the life out of it.
If you think back on the early history, including how arena mastermind Arthur Griffiths ultimately lost his family's fortune thanks to his investment in the building and the Vancouver Grizzlies, it's not hard to argue that maybe there has been some bad karma.
The Canucks were mostly terrible for two decades before they moved—and while they were already in decline after their '94 Cup run before they changed addresses, the first five years at what was then GM Place certainly marked a low-water mark in franchise history. But the 2000s have been the team's longest sustained stretch of respectability ever. And is it worse to have been shut out in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs than not to have made the playoffs at all?
Tony's expert, Canucks fan Tan Hnut, says the feng shui will improve when the second Aquilini rental tower is completed on the south side of the building, which will block some of that negative energy extending to False Creek. But he says the energy from the viaducts is an even-bigger issue.
This was the most intriguing head-scratcher in the article for me:
Why aren’t visiting teams affected in the same way as a home team, whatever those affects might be, thereby cancelling out any positive or negative forces?
Hnut suggests that, if the viaducts don't get removed, large mirrors could help deflect away the negative energy.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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