The Tanner Glass Scrabble Challenge Lands on HNIC

In case you missed it, here's the Subway Bio from tonight's Hockey Night in Canada telecast, which focused on Tanner Glass and PITB's Scrabble challenge. Very cool.

If you're still in the dark about this whole thing, here's the summary: we issued an open challenge to play a game of Scrabble with Tanner Glass. One of our readers (the unsinkable Annie May) made a t-shirt. Glass saw the t-shirt; he accepted the challenge. Now it's news--big news at that. The way this story continues to spread baffles us each time we think about it.

Many, many thanks to the invaluable CanucksHD for providing us with this clip. You sir, are 1000 shades of grand.

Daniel's Worst Christmas - An Original Holiday Tale

Daniel's Worst Christmas is a poetic retelling of the Canucks' 2009-10 season, in which an injury to Daniel Sedin led to a Hart trophy season for his twin brother, Henrik. But that wasn't the whole story...

In early October, when Santa is plotting

His route for the big Christmas nights

He looks to his wife, who is expert at spotting

Potentially huge oversights.

But last year, when Santa approached her to study

His game plan, he found she was sick.

With worriment said he, "I must find a buddy,

To stand in for Mrs. St. Nick!"

He looked in his workshop, but nobody in there

Was quite up to filling the gap.

He checked in the stable, but only saw reindeer.

Just antlers and caribou crap.

He looked on his good list, and there saw a brother,

The most loyal he'd ever seen.

A Swede who could play right-hand man like no other:

Canucks' winger, Daniel Sedin.

"Oh ho!" said he, "Daniel's a true second fiddle!"

He laughed a laugh heard North Pole-wide.

"His twin brother Henrik's the guy in the middle,

But Daniel just stays at his side!"

So down to Vancouver went Santa, with moxie.

Without Daniel, Christmas was sunk!

The first place he looked was the back of the Roxy.

He only found Patrick Kane, drunk.

Eventually, Santa found Daniel, inhaling

A huge cup of coffee, straight black.

He told Sedin how Mrs. Claus had been ailing,

And begged him to come with him back.

"I can't go," said Daniel, politely refusing,

"We'll lose if I'm not there to score.

But Santa shrugged, "Thirty-nine seasons of losing?

Canuck fans can lose a few more."

"Commissioner Bettman won't go for this, you'll see,"

Said Daniel, "His heart's black as coal.

If Bettman won't let us play hockey in Sochi,

He won't let me near the North Pole."

"I know Bettman well," Santa said, nearly stewing,

"He once was my most cloddish elf.

I fired him for bungling. But, looks like he's doing,

Incredibly well for himself."

"Forget him," said Santa, "Your presence is vital!

A world without Christmas is close!

The wave of dashed hopes and distress would be tidal,

Like when Lafayette hit the post."

"We'll tell all the fans that your foot's broken. Tragic,

But they'll understand. Whereupon,

I'll bless your twin brother with Santa Claus magic.

He'll play twice as good while you're gone!"

"Well, not too good," Daniel said, "Too good's forbidden."

He chuckled, then let out a scoff.

"He once got an all-star invite but I didn't.

It's petty, but that pissed me off."

"I don't want to see Henrik winning a trophy,

Or even worse, two! That'd be grim!

To save face, I might have to pay off Mike Brophy,

To say that I'm better than him. "

Thus, Daniel Sedin headed back to the fact'ry,

To tend to St. Nick's sudden need.

And Henrik Sedin started scoring, exactly

As Kris Kringle's blessing decreed.

And Santa, with Daniel on board, resumed making

His Christmas list, checking it twice.

He started by sorting the presents, and taking

Full stock of the naughty and nice.

"As usual, Pronger's been naughty," said Santa,

"His elbows and stomps make me cross.

Perhaps I could get him a trade to Atlanta,

Or better: a cup finals loss."

"And what should I get for the Calgary Sutters?

So long as they're running the thing,

Their team might appreciate fancy new putters

To help pass the time every spring."

"For Lou Lamoriello, a big piece of charcoal

Named Ilya. He'll be highly-sought.

His previous totals will sparkle and sparkle;

His play and his cap hit will not."

"To disciplinarian Campbell is given

A freshly-wiped e-mail inbox.

For Blackhawks fans, Vince Vaughn and Jeremy Piven.

The blogosphere, Damien Cox."

And thusly, did Daniel miss five weeks of hockey,

To sort the gifts, goodly and grim:

For frail Sami Salo, a lone stick of Pocky,

The one thing more fragile than him.

And when they were finished, said Santa Claus, grateful,

"You saved me! Saved Christmas, at that!

Hey, bring my good friend Kyle Wellwood this plateful

Of bagel bites. Man, is he fat."

And so Santa brought Sedin back to Vancouver

By sleigh, as he promised he would.

But there, they discovered his magic maneuver

Had made brother Henrik too good.

"He's scoring at will!" Daniel said, in a fury.

"He got a damn hat-trick last night!

I said make him Jeff Cowan, not Pavel Bure!

Mösspräst, Santa! Make it all right!"

"On Mason! On Backstrom! On Osgood & Howard!

He's scoring in ways unbeknown!"

But Santa was already gone (he's a coward),

And Daniel was left all alone.

The advent of Henrik alone was the story,

So Daniel tried coming on strong.

But Henrik, awash in that Santa Claus glory,

Just racked up points all season long.

The praises for Henrik were loud and ham-fisted,

And Daniel collateral dross.

It couldn't be stopped; no goal went unassisted.

He tragically won the Art Ross.

And worse yet, the Art Ross became a preamble

For Hart talk, among analysts.

To silence it, Daniel extorted Ken Campbell

To gripe about second assists.

But nothing can fight Christmas magic. Ovechkins

And Crosbies could never cut through,

(A lot like the Broncos could not stop the Redskins

In Super Bowl twenty and two.)

Though Henrik's last name was misspoken as "Sedden",

He won on that Las Vegas stage.

And down in the crowd, brother Daniel did redden,

Cheeks flush with competitive rage.

A season removed now from Henrik's ascendance,

Each instance that Daniel might score,

He thinks of last Christmas, then roofs it with vengeance,

And hates Santa Claus all the more.

Yann Sauve Evolves From Fish to Mammal

The news broke late yesterday that Canucks prospect Yann Sauve has been re-assigned from the Victoria Salmon-Kings of the ECHL to the Manitoba Moose of the AHL. The young defenceman, seen to the left psychotically attacking an innocent cameraman like a young Jack Torrance, played 8 games with the Seafood Royalty and recorded 2 assists, a -2 rating, and 4 penalty minutes.

Sauve joins the Eurasian Elks just 3 months after a car accident (where he was not in a car) knocked him out of Canucks training camp. He was the Canucks' 2nd round pick in 2008 after two solid seasons in the QMJHL, but his development has stalled since then. While initially projected as a two-way defenceman, he's being considered mainly as a shutdown guy. This is not a bad thing by any means, as the Canucks' defense prospects are heavily weighted towards offensive types, with Kevin Connauton, Chris Tanev, Evan Oberg, and Lee Sweatt all playing in Manitoba currently.

Sauve is still a couple seasons away from making the big club, but his status as the lone shutdown defenceman with potential amongst Canucks prospects gives him a good shot. Even if he does not develop as hoped, he could still be a reasonably-priced sixth or seventh defenceman down the road. I am sincerely hoping that he responds well to this call-up to the Moose, unlike another 2nd round Canucks draft pick projected to be a shutdown defenceman.

Wildly Untrue Hockey Urban Legends

On a recent visit to snopes.com, I noted that the hockey section of their website is woefully underpopulated by hilariously fake urban legends, crazy rumours, and weird myths. Indeed, the site only has three hockey-related entries, with two of them boringly true. This is incredibly disappointing and, frankly, a disgrace. It's especially disgraceful when a bland sport such as baseball has 20 total entries, the vast majority of them patently false, none of them related to steroids.

To rectify this awful, terrible situation, we at Pass it to Bulis have come up with some wildly untrue urban legends that we encourage you to e-mail to your dumbest and loudest friends. Feel free to add, twist, or distort any of these into whatever form you wish: that is the mark of a good urban legend.

Here presented for your enjoyment and dissemination are 10 Tru Fakts.*

• Famed enforcer and all-time NHL penalty-minute leader David "Tiger" Williams got into his fair share of scraps in his day. This was back before mouthguards were common, and he would often knock out a tooth or two from his opponent. He had a standing arrangement with the crew at each arena to collect the teeth from the ice after each fight and give them to him after the game, usually slipping $50 back their way. He strung the teeth on a necklace that he wore under his sweater.

Canucks Call Up Aaron Volpatti, Buy More Knuckle Tape

There are two possible reasons you may have never heard of the Volpatti Wagon:

1) Its namesake, Aaron Volpatti, was just called up to the NHL, for his first time, this morning.

2) The term originated here at PITB--and nobody reads PITB.

There's the news, though: The Canucks have called up Aaron Volpatti.

Volpatti will take the place of winger Jonas Andersson, the returned call-up that played well in his short time here, but didn't deliver enough of what the Canucks want out of their fourth-line wingers: hits that crush bones, followed by punches that crush the bones that came through the initial crushing uncrushed. That's sort of a good summary of Aaron Volpatti's skillset, too.

Volpatti is a bitter little bastard who hates that people stand upright, and takes it upon himself to stop them. He hits a lot. And, to complement his hitty nature, he is possessed by the spirit of pugilism. In 26 games with the Moose this year, he has as many points as he does fights (6). Fights like this one:

I Watched This Game: Canucks vs Blue Jackets, December 15, 2010

Canucks 3 - 2 Blue Jackets (OT)

That was fun, huh? Incredibly, last night was already Ryan Kesler's fourth multi-goal game of the season, the 13th of his career. However, despite his propensity for scoring in bunches (like a blaxploitation hero), Kesler had yet to net three goals in sixty minutes.

Inspired by the Twitterverse's suspiciously familiar #PassItToKesler hashtag, Kesler finally rose to the occasion, and he might stay standing. Other players--lesser players--have scored hat-tricks and it hasn't meant much for their careers in the grand scheme. But in Kesler's case, considering the way he ruled the ice last night, I suspect we may be looking at a milestone that signifies his emergence as a bonafide NHL superstar. I would be okay with that. I watched this game:

• Kesler was the only Canuck to score last night (oh noes! without him we got shutout!). His three goals are most definitely the story. Here's the thing, though: he could have had five. Kesler directed a game-high 11 shots at the Columbus net: 3 went in, 1 was saved, 3 were blocked, and 4 more missed. He finished with a crazy 75% shooting percentage, and it could have been higher. The save was a highlight reel one, after Kesler got in behind the Columbus defense and roofed the puck, only to have Mathieu Garon come across brilliantly to stop it with his chest. Considering that all the talk about this game, pre-game, was about how Columbus hoped to shut down the Sedins, it must have been infuriating when Kesler decided to compound their concerns by going Wolvey Berserk on them himself.

• To the uninformed, Jan Hejda, who took a boarding penalty and put the Jackets down a man in overtime, will be the goat. But if you want to place some well-informed blame, your man is Antoine Vermette: it's his lazy defensive work and his single-minded Sedin-watching that allows Kesler to get in close and bury the game-winner. Look at him, meandering about like a spectator, with his stick lazily outstretched. That's not taking away the passing lane; that's beach combing. In fact, Vermette's backchecking is so lazy, Kesler literally glides past him. Tip for the young'uns: when the best player on the ice is streaking to the net, you take him.

• Rusty Klesla's going to take some flack for his boner on the second goal as well, but cut him some slack. You never know when the spirit of Christmas is going to rest upon your shoulders and inspire hardcore giving. More giving: Klesla was also the guy who backed in a bit too far and found himself lying down while Ryan Kesler scored the first goal. Some might say he gave too much.

• I watched the game at a pub with Daniel and his wife. They handed out pucks with Canucks numbers on them--if that guy scored a goal, you won a free beer. We drew Ballard, Bieksa, and Rome, respectively, so we knew up front we'd be paying. Meanwhile, three of the four guys at the table next to us, in some sort of karmic orgasm (which probably looked something like this), drew Kesler. Thankfully, they weren't loud drunks.

• The Canuck powerplay went 1-for-5, only scoring on the 4-on-3 overtime frame, a goal that came on the rush. When they got that powerplay, I remarked that they would probably score, because the 4-man unit doesn't include Mikael Samuelsson. He wasn't terrible in Christian Ehrhoff's place on the point, but the powerplay is now 0-for-10 when he's back there. And if you're still uncertain about Christian Ehrhoff's contributions, consider: the Canucks' powerplay is 3-for-17 in three games without him, with only one of the three goals scored by our star five-man unit.

• Tony Gallagher keeps giving it to the Canucks for not blowing out teams he feels they should, but he needs to consider the Western Conference logjam: yes, the Blue Jackets are in 11th, but they came into the game only two points behind Vancouver. Parity mitigates blowouts, Tony. That said, Columbus took some dumb penalties. You should probably bury a team when they do that. Seriously, it felt like Columbus was on the penalty kill all night. When you're playing with fewer men that often, it's time to ask your doctor if Cialis is right for you.

• Kevin Bieksa looked dangerous all evening, but his production has really dried up; I can't help but shrug at his scoring chances. In a month or so, it will probably be Sami Salo--he of the much better shot--on the receiving end of Sedin set plays. I look forward to this development.

• Can we get some consensus on whether or not the Sedins are predictable? Scott Arniel says they aren't, but they seem sort of predictable to me. You know they're good for an assist each game. Heck, when we went into overtime, I knew we were going to win because they had yet to get their points. I say predictable.

• Jeff Tambellini is suffering through some manic raymondlessness, but just because his scoring has slowed down doesn't mean he's not contributing. He still hits impressively for a little guy, and his speed on the backcheck is second to none. Last night was the second time he covered an insane amount of ground to take the puck off the stick of an opposing forward.

• The coaching staff continues to only find pleasure in one-third of their fourth line. Tanner Glass had four more minutes of icetime than his linemates, leading the team in hits with 4, and Jonas Andersson was sent back to Manitoba after the game in place of the hitty Aaron Volpatti. Let's hope Volpatti doesn't crap the bed in his first trip to the NHL, or we'll have to call him Aaron Volpotty. I'd hate to have to do that.

• Alex Edler had a game-high 27:45 of ice time, and I'll tell you why: in the absence of Christian Ehrhoff, the Iceman is the only truly offensive defenseman. It's always interesting to note who Vigneault double-shifts when he's looking for a goal. Last night, Edler was the guy. He was on the ice for all three goals and no goals against, and he finished the night plus-2.

• The only other guy to finish plus-2? Keith Ballard, who again had over 20 minutes of icetime. He appears to have earned his coach's trust, which is more than I can say for my wife. You promised me tortellini and then you made sandwiches. The trust is broken.

• And finally, a word about the Sportsnet intermission segment in which newspaper journalists who are not comfortable being on television are put on television: stop. It's a visibly cheap segment. Get these guys a studio, a desk, a dress code, a makeup crew, and some lapel mics. I'd be uncomfortable too if I knew the camera was too high and the lighting made me look like Skeletor.

Other Board Games With Canucks

For this morning's poll question on the Team 1040, Scotty and the Moj drew from the Tanner Glass Scrabble challenge and its subsequent media coverage, asking Canuck fans what board game you would like to play with a Canuck. I figure, since I'm the progenitor of this line of questioning (and of course, my answer is always Scrabble), I figured I'd weigh in.

Some people have pointed out that Sami Salo would be an appropriate opponent for a game of Operation. Probably. He'd likely be a natural, especially with his extensive experience in strange medical anomalies. He might even sympathize with the guy with a buzzer for a nose: they're probably the only two people alive who could find a way to choke on a whole apple. And as a bonus, you'd probably win when Salo shatters his tibia trying to extract the water pail from the little guy's knee.

But I'd be more interested in playing Kerplunk with Keith Ballard. Why? It's a guaranteed win for me. Kerplunk is a game of picking up sticks--sticks which require a delicate and measured touch. History indicates Ballard does not know how to handle sticks this way.

Here are a few other possibilities:

The Tanner Glass Scrabble Challenge Goes Mainstream

Up until today, you might have been forgiven for not knowing that Tanner Glass had agreed to play Scrabble with PITB. The challenge had made its way around the Twitterverse and the Blogosphere, but it hadn't yet escaped to a larger audience. If you weren't online, you probably wouldn't have known. But now, the mainstream media's got the story. Now it's news. It's true. Yesterday, both Jason Botchford of The Province and Ian Walker of the Vancouver Sun offered up stories on the Tanner Glass Scrabble challenge. Let us examine them together:

• Tanner Glass Taking Scrabble Challenge Seriously -- Jason Botchford, The Province

Botchford was the first to weigh in. In his piece, he recaps what has happened so far, then delivers this delightful bit of reconnaissance: Glass isn't that experienced. So he's doing what any good Dartmouth alum might do--he's studying:

Now, Glass doesn't like to lose much and herein lies the rub. While Mooney has been playing regularly for five years, Glass had only played about 15 times before this year when he started what he calls a heated word rivalry with Aaron Rome, on the road.

"I played very little before this year," Glass said. "I played a bit in Rochester with this kid Pete Aston, he was good, and his girlfriend, they were both really good. Never played (as a kid). I'm no Scrabble whiz by any means."

What does he do about it?

"I've been researching a lot," he said. "Words that are seven letters or less."

I think the big scoop here is that I overestimated Glass's Scrabbling experience, but don't think that means I'll be taking him lightly. According to Botchford, he still hates to lose, and that's gotta count for something. Plus, he's a fourth-line winger: if he can't finesse me, he might wear me down with physical play. I should wear shin pads in case he tries to kick me under the table.