Quick Hits (From Behind) is an irregular feature on Pass it To Bulis, wherein two hockey fans chip in their thoughts on current hockey news and get assessed a five-minute major and a game misconduct.Hi there! Do you like links? Because PITB's got a handful of good reads to help you with your chronic e-somnambulism. But come back here when you're done. We need you.
Nowadays, he's a gutless puke, but there was a time when Matt Cooke was a fan favourite player in Vancouver. Give Charron credit for bravely being the first former Cooke acolyte to admit the dirty truth:
I used to be a huge Matt Cooke fan when he was with the Canucks, but that was before he morphed into the Matt Cooke he is today. There was a time when he was a pest, but he didn't hit dirty, he just annoyed. There was a time when, in the wake of the Todd Bertuzzi suspension, Matt Cooke was moved to his spot on the Canucks' top line with Brendan Morrison and Markus Naslund and scored three goals and was a +9 during a six game winning streak which won the Canucks the division title[...] Matt Cooke was once what Alex Burrows is right now: a marginal top line player who was a fan favourite. Burrows isn't dirty, just annoying if you're wearing a different jersey, and this is what Matt Cooke used to be, and, while I hate the 'pest' role, a lot of players do it very effectively without putting anyone but themselves in danger.Oh my, Matt, how things have changed.
Charron is spot on about Cooke once being what Burrows is now, and fans love those sorts of players: underdogs who find chemistry with the stars and find an invaluable niche filling gaps. I've gone on record that Alex Burrows is my favourite player (or was, before a certain fourth-line winger agreed to Scrabble me), and Matt Cooke once was for a lot of the same reasons. I'm not so into him now.
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