A nice (though long) pre-game ceremony in Vancouver Saturday night was held to retire Markus Naslund's #19. It was a nice to see happen as Naslund never got an adequate send off or his own chance to say goodbye when he left Vancouver. Do you remember his last game as a Canuck? Sure you do - it was Trevor Linden's last night, too. For all his on ice excellence and off ice selflessness, Naslund's long lasting legacy has always been overshadowed by Linden in both regards.
Now that Naslund has been properly honoured, is Pavel Bure next? Perhaps the biggest obstacle to that happening might be The Russian Rocket himself. He has had nothing to do with the Canucks since the day he left, and right now he seems to have nothing to do with hockey at all. I understand he is enjoying life and doing some property investing in Miami.
1 comment:
Sorry for the Montreal Canadiens fan point of view here, but please, retire REAL legends numbers... I think that retiring Markus Naslund, no offense, I liked him a lot, was the equivalent of retiring Saku Koivu's here... Never... Retirement is for exceptionnal players... That's a team history problem of the Canucks to have never made real HOF-ers or hockey idols like Lanny McDonald or Gilbert Perreault, but if you retire all the fans favourites who had a good career but that never broke its era for the ensemble of the sport at their time, the rafter of your building would be a mess... Markus Naslund was a great player, of course, but...
We rank too much good players immortals these days... Many of your HOF-worthy section in my book are not even close to be there... Example, I like Jeremy Reonick, was a great player and a sensational entertaining dude, but is he as great as Joe Malone and Milt Schmidt?? Neither Dino Ciccarelli
And for the question... I think before the Sedins, Burewas the closest thing you had for a superstar, I just don't know if he was an immortal... If we consider the question of if he was a very exceptionnal player of it's time, possibly...
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