SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 18) - Ed Willes (Regina Leader-Post, The Province) - Never Boring: The Up and Down History of the Vancouver Canucks

About this episode

Ed Willes discusses the tumultuous history of the Vancouver Canucks and their quest for the Stanley Cup.

Every hockey fan knows how it always ends for the Vancouver Canucks — no Stanley Cup — but Ed Willes digs in the corners to poke at the why, with a wry perspective. The veteran journalist (Regina Leader-Post, The Province) presents a case study, with novelistic detail, about the West Coast NHL franchise. Weaving a thread — one of instability at the top — through the history (and prehistory) of the team, Willes explains why the Canucks have fallen short of winning the Stanley Cup, but have never been boring across five-plus decades of torment. Relying on firsthand research and contemporary accounts from fellow Vancouver sports journalists, Willes provides painstaking details about the life-arcs of stars such as Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin, Pavel Bure, Markus Näslund, and Todd Bertuzzi. The author also playfully teases out the franchise’s many what-ifs. Willes is also author of “The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association” (2005) and “End Zones and Border Wars: The Era of American Expansion in the CFL” (2013).

People in this episode

Hosts: Neil Acharya, Neate Sager

Guest: Ed Willes

Topics covered

• Vancouver Canucks
• hockey history
• sports journalism
• NHL
• franchise analysis
• sports stars

Keywords

• Vancouver Canucks
• Stanley Cup
• Ed Willes
• NHL history
• sports journalism
• hockey stars

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Regina Leader-Post, The Province

Books & works: The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association, End Zones and Border Wars: The Era of American Expansion in the CFL

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