+ +

 

 

 

 

The defence rests

Christian Ehrhoff

Garth McLennan

: : » _ Sports editor

T ey say that the best defence is a
good offense and if that’s true, then
the Vancouver Canucks have a big
problem. With the exception of Christian
Ehrhoff, the Canucks’ blueline has produced
next to nothing in terms of offense so far this
year.

The eight
defenseman
who have
played for
Vancouver
this year
have scored
a combined
total of just 10
goals, and five of those came from Ehrhoff.
The next best was 40-year-old Mathieu
Schneider, who’s only played ten games with
limited ice time.

As for the rest of the Canucks
blueliners, the lack of pucks put into the net
is astonishing, considering how highly touted
the group was heading into the year. Willie
Mitchell? 23 games, two goals. Kevin Bieksa?
23 games, one goal. Alex Edler, Sami Salo,
Shane O’Brien and Aaron Rome? They’ve
combined for zero goals.

For a team with as much money
invested in their back end as Vancouver has
(the Canucks’ will pay their defence a total
$21.967 million this year), and five of those
eight making in excess of $3 million, the
above numbers are just unacceptable. Plain
and simple, the team just isn’t getting any
sort of value for what they’re paying, and in
a salary cap world, where every mistake is
magnified, that isn’t good.

 

 

 

As the Canucks have arrived at the
season’s quarter pole, the only one providing
significant bang for his buck is Ehrhoff, who
has easily been the club’s top defenseman this
year. He came to town this summer with a not-
so-sterling reputation as a guy who was loaded
with offensive ability but was a liability in
his own zone. Not only has he exceeded
expectations offensively with 15 points in
23 games, good enough to place him fourth
in team scoring overall, but he’s also been
more than solid defensively with a team-best

+11 rating, which is

“Willie Mitchell? 23 games, two goals. Kevin #!most triple the next
Bieksa? 23 games, one goal. Alex Edler,
Sami Salo, Shane O’Brien and Aaron Rome?
They’ve combined for zero goals.”

st mark on the
Canucks.

He was at
his best against
Colorado on
November 20,
where he scored twice, added a brilliant
assist and dished out a huge hit in a dominant
performance where he led Vancouver to a 5-2
victory.

Beyond Ehroff though, things get more
than a little thin. Bieksa and Edler, who
entered the season with a ton of promise and
heightened expectations from last year, are
particularly disappointing. Granted, Bieksa
does have 10 assists for 11 points, and Edler
has 11 assists while others like Mitchell aren’t
normally known for their offensive prowess,
but the fact remains that after Ehrhoff, Mike
Gillis is paying six defenders $12.625 million
for one goal. Money management becomes
an issue even more when you consider
that Ehrhoff is Vancouver’s fifth-best-paid
defenseman.

If you discount Ehrhoff’s contributions,
Atlanta’s 19-year-old Zach Bogosian has
more goals than every Canuck defenseman
combined. Not good.

 

 

 

By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

h, darts, a favourite of
traditional pub dwellers
everywhere. It’s a game that

requires skill (and a certain degree of
soberness) to play, but is it a sport?

This is a difficult one to
determine, and I suppose the
argument comes down to what is
more important in darts: athletic
ability or accuracy and skill? Now, in
many sports, like basketball, both are
required in almost equal amounts, but
that isn’t true for darts.

It’s hard to be good at darts. You
could be 6 foot 6 and ripped and get
destroyed by a pudgy 5-foot-8 wino.
While that is a good thing in some
ways, it makes it hard to qualify darts
as a sport in other respects. After all,
how can you call something a sport
where there is next to zero athletic
talent required?

To be good at darts, you need to
have terrific aim and a decent sense of
strategy on where to shoot, but I don’t
know if you can call that an athletic
requirement. Now, in darts, the
pressure is certainly there. Granted,
it isn’t the same type of physical
pressure as say, football or soccer, but
there no doubt that the times when
you need to make a crucial shot are
pretty cut and dried.

Then there are the more
advanced games of darts, which if
you get into can get pretty difficult.

It can often seem simple, but having

 

 

to repeatedly hit doubles, triples and
bulls-eyes can be tough. Unlike some
other, more easily identifiable sports,
there’s nowhere to hide in darts. If
you make a mistake and miss a shot,
your opponent is right there to see it,
and has the opportunity to capitalize
on it right away.

Much like golf, which we’ ve
already classified as a sport a few
weeks ago in this space, most regular
darts players have a pre-shot routine
that they follow to the letter before
every throw.

However, it’s hard for most
people to look at darts as a legitimate
sport when take a look at the cast of
characters on television playing it
professionally. To put it charitably,
they don’t look like your standard
NHL star. Now, that alone shouldn’t
convince people that darts isn’t a
sport, because look at bowling, a sport
whose best aren’t exactly the cream of
the athletic crop. However, what I get
a kick out of is watching professional
darts players regularly drinking in
between shots. There aren’t many
sports where you see that at any level.

THE VERDICT:

Playing darts is fun, it’s hard, there
are plenty of variations of it, but darts
is not a sport.