After the crazy and shocking shootout loss to France on Friday morning, Team Canada has finally found their first win against Slovakia. Joel Ward scored twice, Cody Hodgson scored once and Kevin Bieksa added another to the pot in the third period. I was on Vancouver Island this morning so I wasn't really able to watch it but woke up to find that Canada had won. So proud and happy for Bieksa. He's taking charge of his team on a world stage now and proving to everyone why he deserves to wear the "C" on his jersey.
He also dished out a sweet hit on Slovakia. His opponent never knew what hit him. Go Bieksa!
TSN Highlights of the Game (Bieksa hit and interview included):
Kevin Bieksa confirmed after the Colorado game that he has been named to Team Canada's roster list in Belarus. This will be the first time he has been able to participate in an event where he is able to represent Canada in a World Championship.
If you'd like to see him respond to the questions about the invite to play, you can watch it here. Bieksa's interview starts at the 23:16 mark.
Wishing Bieksa and his team success and he will bring home the gold! He won't be able to resist rubbing it into Kesler's face too. That's what best friends are for!
Yes, they were there again at BC Place watching on the sidelines. BC Lions were playing Calgary Stampeders.
This is the only picture of them there that night. They stayed until halftime. Kevin told the Lions that they had an early game against Toronto the next day at 4pm so they couldn't stay out too long. They needed to be up early.
So, this is what Bieksa was up to during the NHL lockout. He lent his face to animation world. Not. But it is a great likeness to him. It makes me smile when I see it. Its his angry face. :)
I miss him. Out with a groin injury. Canucks have won only 1 out of their last 6 games. The only game they won was when Bieksa came back early after missing two games from the injury vs LA Kings. 3 Losses after. Coincidence? Team obviously needs him. Heal fast and come back asap! They don't have anyone to tie up the goal or get the game winner!!!
I have a feeling Juice will play against the Columbus Blue Jackets on this road trip. Could use him in Minny, though. Oh well.
With the lockout ended in January, I wasn't sure if there would a Super Skills event this year but apparently, there was. It was held on February 10th with the proceeds going to the Canucks Kids Fund. I believe some of the proceeds also went to help Rick Rypiens foundation as well.
So, if you missed it on Sunday, you can catch it all here.
Some cute pics taken by Jeff Vinnick at the Super Skills.
Kevin Bieksa with his kids, Reese and Cole Bieksa.
Jordan Schroeder got a shaving cream pie in the face by Keith Ballard. This is the Canucks "Welcome to the Club, kid!" ritual. Always fun.
Every year the BC Childrens Hospital gets visits from the local sports athletes in Vancouver. The Vancouver Giants and BC Lions had just recently visited the hospital to see children who are unable to go home for Christmas. Every year the Vancouver Canucks players also make a visit to the hospital to spread some hockey cheer to the children. Earlier last month, the Canucks staff had paid a visit but not the players because of the lockout.
Last week the BC Lions and the Vancouver Giants players had also made their rounds visiting at the hospital. I wondered if our locked out unemployed Canucks would do the same even though they aren't playing. The Canucks are known for donating their time and generosity in the city with volunteer work, which is heavily expected of them as Canucks when they join the organization. Turns out, our boys didn't disappoint. With Kevin Bieksa taking lead, he organized.a visit, bringing along a few of his own "friends" and made a visit to the Oncology department to give the kids and their parents a boost. They may not have been wearing their Canuck sweaters but they still
autographed items and took pics with the kids just as if they were still
playing. This is a classy thing the Canucks did. Just makes me proud
to be a Canucks fan.
The money that was raised from the Candytown event in Yaletown I had volunteered for a couple weeks ago was given to the Oncology department of BCCH and the Yaletown BIA had met with the children in the unit as well. At our event party, they told us that when they asked the kids what they wanted for Christmas, their only answer was "to go home". So, seeing that the Canucks visited that very department makes me very happy and that they were able to put smiles on not only these kid's faces but I'm sure many more.
This is the reaction they've been getting on twitter from fans. Apparently fans of other teams are also noticing the charity work the unemployed Canucks are continuing to do throughout the lockout and how much they care about the fans by putting on spontaneous road hockey games. I have to say, hands down, we have the best NHL team in the league.
There were tons more but I can't put them all up. I just wanted to show how the city and other cities are reacting to seeing our Canucks continuing their community work even without a paycheck to encourage them. Class acts for sure and they do deserve our respect for how they've handled themselves throughout this lockout. I think our team puts other teams to shame when it comes to caring about the city they play in. Hopefully soon, we will get to watch some hockey with the talks continuing tomorrow in New York with the NHL, mediators and the NHLPA. Cross fingers.
Today, one the most amazing things happened on social media. Ryan Kesler and Kevin Bieksa organized a little road hockey game under the Cambie Street Bridge. All they had to do was tweet it out that they wanted people to come out and play with them and that's exactly what they got! Three hundred people showed up to play. Even Mark Donnelly came out to sing the national anthem. So, this is basically how it all started. All pics were taken from twitter. I was not there, unfortunately, so I had to live it through those who were.
Cabral Richards, also known as "Cabbie" is a personality on TSN. He used to work for The Score but left in Nov 2010. He's done some interviews with Ryan Kesler and Kevin Bieksa before. I'll show some of those highlights soon. He actually got Bieksa to sing..well, he had asked him to come up with a fight song for the Canucks. It was kinda brutal...lol. But I wanted to show how much planning went down for this game. Cabbie had tweeted Bieksa and Kesler on Nov 28 with a cyrptic "we doing it?" To which Bieksa jokingly replied back in his angry tone. All three have since removed these tweets so people wouldn't know what they were up to. From here on, Cabbie asked Bieksa to DM him on twitter for details.
So, Cabbie organized the hockey sticks from Sportcheck and everything else.
Then, we first saw a tweet from Kesler and Bieksa asking everyone to come down to the basketball courts under the Cambie Bridge for a game of road hockey. Jason Garrison and Cabbie were also present.
The Greenmen were also there. Wouldn't be hockey without their presence.
Neither would the presence of Mark Donelly, who also saw the tweet and brought his stick to play and started things off the right way by singing the anthem.
First, Ryan Kesler shows up. The media instantly go to him like a moth to a flame.
And then the fun started. People started showing up in droves.
Garrison had mentioned on Team 1040 in an interview afterwards that as
he and Bieksa were walking to the pick up game from Urban Fare, they
were shocked to see so many people were already there.
Here, Bieksa and Garrison show up. You can see Garrison on the right with the zebra shirt hung over one shoulder while Bieksa gives an autograph to a fan.
Kesler and Garrison were unable to play because they are currently on the injured list for the Canucks. So, they opted to put on the zebra shirts and call the game instead.
Here are the hopefuls waiting to be picked for either Team Kesler or Team Bieksa.
Bieksa picking his team.
His 2nd and 3rd drafts were none other than The Greenmen. According to their tweet, they were both drafted on Team Bieksa. He
said they were like the Sedin twins...you can't have one and not the other.
So they both went to Team Bieksa.
Then the fun really began. Once everyone was drafted to their teams, Bieksa started talking strategy with his own team.
The anthem was sung by Mark Donnelly.
Puck Drop. That's Bieksa's son, Cole, at centre.
A little convo between friends.
Obviously Bieksa didn't agree with one of Kesler's calls and tried to pull his hoodie over his toque.
Play resumed.
They even had a game with toddlers and young kids. This one's too cute for words. I'm pretty sure its Ryker Kesler.
Fight!! Fight!!
Watch this kid that Bieksa pokes his stick at. Kesler is in the orange hat and Garrison is the other zebra shirt. It seems that the kid started throwing punches at Bieksa, who played along, and won. Here are some pics taken of this cute fight occurring.
Here is Ryan Kesler pinning Bieksa down while Garrison declares the kid the winner of that contest.
But he is best buds with Bieksa and promptly helps him back up after that scuffle.
Here is a short video of what happened at this particular moment.
They proceeded to play and the score was 2-0 at one point with Bieksa's team in the lead. However, the other team managed to tie it up and surprise, surprise....we had a shootout. Sound vaguely familiar?
Only with the Canucks. Here's Bieksa walking away from his goalie after giving him some advice. I imagine its the same he's been overheard saying to Luongo at games "Try to stop at least one". :)
Turns out Team Bieksa won.
Here's how the shootout went down.
After the game, they all shook hands and the trio stayed behind for media interviews and to sign autographs and take pictures with all their fans. Class acts for sure.
Like I said, there were probably 300 people there. This picture says it all. Good job Vancouver.
Kesler and Bieksa both tweeted their appreciation and thanks to the city of Vancouver for showing up to play some ball with them.
taken from cbc.ca
Twitter is full of love, adoration, thanks and appreciation for what they've done in the community so far during this lockout. The fans really appreciate these two leaders staying in touch with the fans throughout this and just getting back to playing hockey again. It was a chance of a lifetime for so many. So, even in if the lockout doesn't end by Friday and the NHL cancels the season, the fans of Vancouver can appreciate our players for staying classy and still looking after their communities which they help time and time again. Bieksa is in fact, blossoming into the next Trevor Linden for our city. He cares and he wants to make a difference here. And it shows. I look forward to the next Bieksa's Buddies Charity game if the season gets cancelled. At least he cares.
Looking around YouTube, I found this video with some of the highlights of the game shot to "The Good Old Hockey Game". Its well done and very clear. Enjoy.
