The Mount Rushmore of Canucks

Matt Beimers left an interesting comment to my last post yesterday:

"We are streaking all the way to the playoffs. How about "10 Things I Love About Being a Canucks Fan" or your 10 Favorite Canucks or your 10 Favorite Canucks moments. The more Canucks-stuff, the better.

P.S. We told a story last week in the staff room about you sending a kid to the art room after an art teacher ranted about not sending kids to the art room. That was brilliant."

First, let's address the art room story. I felt really bad about that. But you know how there are times when you just are so tempted by something? I could not resist. I totally forgot about this incident. I purposely sent a student from my class to ask to borrow some paper from the art teacher after this teacher addressed the staff NOT to do so. So childish of me and the teacher was certainly not happy with me (nor the student). Again, I could not resist, but I definitely knew that I was going to get in trouble. Please do not follow suit in your own workplace.

As for talking about Canucks all the time? I cannot do that, because then I would feel like I am living in Team 1040 land permanently. If you mosey over to Matt Beimers' blog and look at the right side bar you will notice his top 5 Canucks of all time. His choices got me thinking.

The popular game out there right now is coming up with the Mount Rushmore of your favourite team. One of my favourite hockey writers, John Buccigross of ESPN, attempted to do this for all of the NHL teams. He came up with Pavel Bure, Trevor Linden, Stan Smyl, and Markus Naslund.

I would like to present to you my personal Canucks Mount Rushmore... remember that these are my choices and my Canucks attachment only goes back to the mid-80s (I vaguely remember the Stanley Cup run in 1982, because I was only 6 years old).

1) Trevor Linden: If you read my previous post about my favourite Canuck, then this needs no further explanation.
2) Pavel Bure: Up until he betrayed us, there was not a more exciting and breath-taking hockey player out there. Ovechkin matches the speed and excitement that Bure brought to the ice. What a goal scorer. I still remember how excited I was seeing him playing tennis at UBC.
3) Stan Smyl: I think you would be remiss not to include Steamer in the Mt. Rushmore pantheon, even though he wasn't my favourite player.
4) This last spot probably goes towards Kirk McLean. I can't decide between him or Markus Naslund, but that 1994 Cup run was the most memorable time for me as a Canuck fan, and his sliding save in overtime off Robert Reichel in Game 7 against Calgary has to be one of the defining plays of the Canucks franchise. Here's hoping that Luongo keeps playing well for many, many years with us, thus getting his face chiselled on Canucks Mt. Rushmore.

Hope that will satiate your Canucks appetite for now Beimers.

I would love to hear your Canucks Mt. Rushmore lineup.