Gingerbread 2017: Hotel Europe

In 2009, I received The Gingerbread Architect as a gift. It’s a great book, and it comes with recipes and ingredients for 12 different gingerbread masterpieces. Since then I’ve made a number of gingerbread houses, including 2011’s Urban Brownstone, the Canuck Place Children’s Hospice in 2012, and the Stewart Farmhouse in 2016.

This year, for the third time, I decided to make my own designs for a gingerbread structure. My inspiration came from a real heritage building in Vancouver’s famous Gastown area – the Hotel Europe.

Hotel Europe is a six-story heritage building located at Powell and Alexander in Vancouver, British Columbia. The building was commissioned by hotelier Angelo Calori and completed in 1909 by Parr and Fee Architects. The building is designed in the flatiron style.

Thank you to everyone who follows along every year. While there are some late nights in December (and sometimes January!), it’s always fun to create something that people enjoy.

Gingerbread 2016: Stewart Farmhouse

In 2009, I received The Gingerbread Architect as a gift. It’s a great book, and it comes with recipes and ingredients for 12 different gingerbread masterpieces. Since then I’ve made a number of gingerbread houses, including 2011’s Urban Brownstone, and the Canuck Place Children’s Hospice in 2012.

This year, for the second time, I decided to make my own designs for a house. My inspiration came from a real heritage building, right here in Surrey.

The Farmhouse at Stewart Farm was built in 1894 by John and Annie Stewart. The house has that Victorian style and features a veranda and bay windows at the front and side of the house. It is a picturesque site, and one of the most photographed landmarks in Surrey because of it’s romantic old world charm.

Thank you to everyone who follows along every year. While there are some late nights in December, it’s always fun to create something that people enjoy!

The Canucks Preview for the Casual Fan

As the success of the Canucks comes and goes, so do the fans. For the casual fan that’s still on board, you may not recognize the team, and for good reason. Initially billed as a retooling, this is a full rebuild. Remember the 2011 run to the Stanley Cup final? Only 6 of those Canucks are still around: Alexandre Burrows, Alex Edler, Jannik Hansen, Chris Tanev, and Henrik and Daniel Sedin.

This will be the second year in a row that there is no goaltending controversy. Miller is the starting goalie and Markstrom is a backup that is more than capable. What’s more is that the plan for the future is clear: Markstrom may be the starter next year but the future is Thatcher Demko.

On defence, Edler and Tanev now make up the Canucks shutdown top pairing. Both can move the puck, and both are solid in their own end. The Canucks added size and toughness on defence by acquiring big defenceman Erik Gudbranson from Florida for Jared McCann which solidifies the second pairing behind the shutdown top pair of Edler and Tanev. Gudbranson is a former 3rd overall pick from the 2010 draft, and he’s a big, right shot, stay-at-home type. His style should make a good fit with the freewheeling left shot of Ben Hutton. Luca Sbisa should be a lock as the fifth defenceman, but the sixth man spot is anyone’s guess. The Canucks know what they have with Alex Biega, but also love the raw potential of Nikita Tryamkin, who is 6’7″ and 228 pounds.

The Sedins are destined to retire as Canucks. Hansen and Burrows are the other forwards that remain from the 2011 run to the final. They are both versatile, both can still skate, both can play up and down the lineup, and in any situation.

The Canucks lost Radim Vrbata during free agency, but the twins received scoring help in the form of Loui Eriksson. The hope is that with a healthy Brandon Sutter the Sedins will get some second line scoring support, leaving Bo Horvat to continue his development on the third line, along with linemates Sven Baertchi and Jake Virtanen. The 4th line would feature Mikael Granlund and Derek Dorsett. Emerson Etem has not had a great training camp, and after a standout MVP season in Swedish Hockey League, Anton Rodin could also make the roster.

2014-15 #Canucks Twitter Hockey – Northwest Pool

Thank you all for joining the #Canucks Twitter Fans pool in the Northwest Division.

Another fun draft! It’s a great group of people. Everyone’s Twitter details are below.

Like last year, this is a Rotisserie league. In Rotisserie pools, each team is ranked on a number of statistic categories based on how they compare with other teams. Then, your placement in those rankings are summed to determine your current score.

For example, if there are 14 managers in the pool, and you’re 1st place in goals and 2nd place in assists, you will get 14 pts for goals, 13 pts for assists. The manager with the lowest rank in each category gets 1 pt. The manager with the most points at the end of the season wins.

Clearly it makes sense to go for players that will do well in numerous stat categories.

Some of the finer details:

• 25 Moves Maximum. This means you can drop players and pick up available players as Free Agents (FA) or off Waivers (W). The initial waiver order is reverse draft order. If two managers make a claim for a player on waivers, the manager with the lower waiver priority will get the player.
• 2 Days Waiver time. When a manager drops a player, their status is W for waiver for 2 days, before they become FA or Free Agent.
• 25 Trades Maximum. Trades are reviewed by the Commissioner before being approved.
• 82 Games Maximum at each roster spot. This means 164 games for both C, both G, and 328 games among all your D, and all your Wingers.

2014-15 #Canucks Twitter Hockey – Smythe Pool

Thank you all for joining (and re-joining) the #Canucks Twitter Fans pool in the Smythe Division.

Another fun draft! It’s a great group of people. Everyone’s Twitter details are below.

The hashtag for this pool is #CanucksFHLSmythe.

Like last year, this is a Rotisserie league. In Rotisserie pools, each team is ranked on a number of statistic categories based on how they compare with other teams. Then, your placement in those rankings are summed to determine your current score.

For example, if there are 17 managers in the pool, and you’re 1st place in goals and 2nd place in assists, you will get 17 pts for goals, 16 pts for assists. The manager with the lowest rank in each category gets 1 pt. The manager with the most points at the end of the season wins.

Clearly it makes sense to go for players that will do well in numerous stat categories.

Some of the finer details:

• 25 Moves Maximum. This means you can drop players and pick up available players as Free Agents (FA) or off Waivers (W). The initial waiver order is reverse draft order. If two managers make a claim for a player on waivers, the manager with the lower waiver priority will get the player.
• 2 Days Waiver time. When a manager drops a player, their status is W for waiver for 2 days, before they become FA or Free Agent.
• 25 Trades Maximum. Trades are reviewed by the Commissioner before being approved.
• 82 Games Maximum at each roster spot. This means 164 games for both C, both G, and 328 games among all your D, and all your Wingers.

Canucks Linden sowing seeds of hope

The good news is the NHL playoffs were fantastic. The bad news is the Canucks didn’t make the show and if they did, they would have been eliminated in 3 games. The gap between the Canucks and the teams in the playoffs is wider. The pace of the game in the playoffs was incredible, and the style of play in each and every series was hard hitting.

When the Canucks ownership fired Mike Gillis and hired Trevor Linden as President of Hockey Operations, it seemed like the ultimate Public Relations and Marketing move. The extension of the season ticket sales period, the fact that Linden has been away from hockey for many years, it just seemed as though it could be a horrible mistake. It seemed like Trevor Linden was the ultimate distraction – away from the fact that the team was getting older, the gap between the Canucks at the Western Conference was widening, and the cupboards were bare of any prospects.

Now, just a short time later, it seems there is hope. Maybe not hope for a lengthy playoff run, but for things that have been missing for just as long: development, hard work, and an exciting brand of hockey. It happened the same way for Linden as a player. The Canucks didn’t win President’s Trophies or Stanley Cups, but the fans were proud of the team and excited about the brand of hockey the Canucks played.

Linden hasn’t been on the job for very long. In his initial press conference, although he seemed green, he was Trevor – honest and approachable. He has conducted meetings with nearly everyone on the Canucks roster and staff. Since firing John Tortorella, he has hired Jim Benning as his General Manager, and Willie Desjardins as the Canucks next head coach.

What we know about Linden’s new hires is that he has created his management team in his own image.

Their game isn’t about showboating. They’re not flashy or sexy (okay except for Trevor), but they have other qualities. They’re all sincere and thoughtful. They have the same vision for the Canucks team. They’re all known as hard working. They were in demand. And they win. Win at every level. So far so good for Trevor Linden.

Next step is the draft. Keep hope alive.

Follow The Bouncing Ball

Well that was one way to relax a slumping Canucks lineup. In the 3rd game of Hockey Day in Canada, the Canucks and Flames went to the 5th round of a shootout before the Canucks prevailed. The game featured a line brawl off the opening face off.

Kellan Lain Breaks 50 Year Old NHL Record

24 year old Kellan Lain was playing his first NHL game on Saturday night. Most of his family flew into Vancouver and were watching, when he played for 2 seconds. He was then penalized 5 minutes for fighting, and a game misconduct as part of a massive line brawl that erupted, resulting in over 150 penalty minutes. The previous record for the fastest fight to start an NHL career was 12 seconds, set by John Ferguson, over 50 years ago. Clearly the teams didn’t read my blog post about fighting in the NHL.

There were many subtleties about the game even before the puck was dropped. In an NHL game, the road team submits their starting lineup first; the home team can then review that and submit their own starting lineup. Calgary’s starting 5 was: Kevin Westgarth, Blair Jones, Brian McGrattan, Chris Butler, and Ladislav Smid. Without their goaltender, that’s a combined weight of 1097 pounds. John Tortorella naturally responded by starting his 4th line. All hell broke loose after that. According to The Code, McGrattan had to answer the bell for injuring Andrew Alberts in the previous game between these teams. He is now square with the house as he shed enough blood that they needed to give him a new jersey and scrape the ice to clean the blood off.

And Then It Got Weird

At the start of the first intermission, Tortorella decided to go all Ghost Ops and storm the Flames dressing room. At the start of the season I was not a fan of Tortorella but I’ve become a big fan of his intensity, and how honest he is with the players and media. But this is just bush league. This happened after the 1st period, which took about one hour to play. Plenty of time to mull it over and think about things like a rational human being. The best part of this has to be that tough guy McGratton has to hold back Torts and Flames assistant coach Clint Malarchuk. Cooler heads prevailed, but Coach Tortorella will most definitely be disciplined by the league for this mess. The whole situation is an embarrassment for the NHL and hockey as a whole.

So what does it all mean? 

For all the moral victories, blocked shots, fights and bloodshed, the Canucks record in the last 10 games is 2-5-3. It’s all a wonderful distraction from the fact that the Canucks needed 5 rounds of the shootout to beat the slumping Calgary Flames. Yes – the Flames have been playing even worse than they normally play. Previous to this win, they had scored a total of 1 goal in their last 3 games.

First prize is the Stanley Cup, no one cares who comes  in 2nd place. We can only hope that the Canucks can get into the playoffs and get hot at the right time. If the team wants to go deep into the playoffs, they will have to remember the lessons they’ve learned at this point of the season.

Canucks Report at the Half Way Mark

After 42 games, the Canucks are 23-12-7. The team managed to string together a 7 game win streak, on their way to posting a 10-1-2 record in December, their best month of the season so far.

The team has 53 points and remains at 4th place in the Pacific Division. At the quarter pole the Canucks were at 4th in the Pacific, but had played the most games in the league. Their hot December has allowed the team to remain in the same spot while other teams have made up most of the difference in games played.

The Canucks have been bit hard by the injury bug. Defencemen Alex Edler, Ryan Stanton, and Andrew Alberts are all out of the lineup with various injuries, forcing the Canucks to call up Yannick Weber and Frank Corrado to fill in. In addition, Alex Burrows is out with a broken jaw, while Roberto Luongo was out of the lineup briefly with a groin strain. The defencemen that have remained healthy have been rock solid. The play of Chris Tanev has been lauded by Coach Tortorella throughout this season. Along with Hamhuis, Garrison and Bieksa, the top 4 defencemen have been receiving a ton of ice time.

As I predicted in a previous post, the Canucks have improved their play as the season has gone on.

The team has done this despite the top line scoring cooling off, and the power play being ice cold. Currently, the Canucks power play is ranked 26th in the NHL. Henrik and Daniel Sedin have 3 points each in the last 6 games. Secondary scoring has come from everywhere in the lineup, and the makings of a 3rd line is starting to emerge, with Brad Richardson centering Zack Kassian and David Booth. Yes, that David Booth. He has 5 goals this season and his speed and strength fit well Kassian and Richardson’s size and grit.

The Canucks schedule is tough over the next 7 games: Kings and Ducks twice each, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Phoenix. With most of these games against solid, physical teams in the West, the Canucks look to prove that they belong in the Western Conference playoff race.

Canucks Report At The Quarter Pole

After 20 games, the Canucks are 11-7-2. The team managed to post a 5-1-1 record on a long 7 game eastern road trip, ending with 3 victories in extra time – two wins in overtime and one in a shootout. They went 2-1 on a home stand, and have just finished a tough 1-2-1 California road swing.

The team’s 24 points are good enough for 4th in the Pacific Division, and 8th spot in the Western Conference, although the Canucks have played the most games in the entire league at this point in the season. When people say the West is the Best, they’re not kidding – the same 24 points would be good for 2nd place in the Eastern Conference.

The Canucks first line has been scoring, and they’ve got a healthy amount of secondary scoring from many of their bottom 6 forwards and defencemen. At 7-4-1, Luongo posted his best October ever as a Canuck. The team seems to have embraced Tortorella’s new systems and has been playing a high energy style of game that is fun to watch. The one thing the Canucks lack at this point is consistency.

In a previous post, I mentioned that if the Canucks can get through October with an even record, it should shape up to be a great season, and reiterate that now. On any given night the Canucks can play inspired and exciting hockey – a pleasant change from the last couple seasons where the team scored and seemed to sit on 1 goal leads.

So far, so good. As the season goes on, the Canucks should improve their play. Some Canucks threads this season include:

• Tortorella’s high energy style of coaching, translating to Canucks play on ice
• Re-signing and resurgence of the Sedin twins
• Pavel Bure’s jersey retirement
• Depth (or lack thereof) at any position
• Ice time for top forwards and defencemen
• Slow but steady development of Zack Kassian
• Where is David Booth this week?
• Great penalty killing, horrible power play
• Local boy Mike Santorelli having an impact playing for his hometown Canucks

What are some of your early season compliments, gripes or stories this season?