Cheering for the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks over the last half century has required patience, commitment and a forgiving nature, according to a media release describing veteran sportswriter Ed Willes' new book, titled Never Boring: The Up and Down History of the Vancouver Canucks.
Willes was a sportswriter for newspapers across Canada for nearly four decades, most notably the Province newspaper in Vancouver, until his retirement in 2020. He will present the book at Powell River Public Library on Wednesday, December 4, at 7 pm.
The author and journalist has a unique vantage point on the Canucks that has, in his words, “been haunted by dark and unnatural forces since its inception."
In an interview with the Peak, Willes explained, like the title of his book, there was never a dull moment covering the highs and lows of the Canucks franchise.
"Writing [the book] was a discovery process for me," said Willes. "There were some things I was dimly aware of, but were fleshed out when I got into the research aspect of it."
Willes tells the story of what he calls, "a uniquely confounded franchise and its obsessive followers who have thus far been denied the thrill of a Stanley Cup championship."
When he retired, Willes started thinking about different projects he wanted to work on, but he said he went back to what he knows: hockey, specifically the Canucks.
"I sort of stumbled on this format I thought would work for the book by starting each chapter with a question," said Willes. "What if things would have turned out differently for the Canucks in team history?"
Anyone who has followed the Canucks franchise can attest that, "every time they seemed close to delivering the ultimate prize to their fan base, they slipped on a banana peel and tumbled straight into the abyss,” the release stated.
"You just never knew what was going to come next," Willes told the Peak. "My first year covering the team was when Mike Keenan was still the head coach. He got fired 40 games in; Trevor Linden and Kirk McLean got traded away."
Willes said Canucks legend Pat Quinn was also fired soon after.
"I thought, wow, this is a circus, this is going to be interesting to cover," he added.
Willes said it seemed like the team would stabilize for a while and be successful for a time, only for them to stumble back down again.
"Then, last year they started another period of ascendancy," added Willes. "Fan is short for fanatic, but God bless them, I think [for Canucks fans] it's become a point of pride to stick with them through thick and thin."
Willes said the history of Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox reminds him of the Canucks.
"They went through something very similar, beginning in 1920 when they sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees," said Willes. "That's 84 years they went without winning the World Series, then they broke the curse."
Willes said some of his research included going through old newspapers and reports about the Canucks from their beginning in the 1970s, up until today. He believes most of their failings were self-inflicted.
"The franchise’s ownership history is as uneven as its won-loss record. But some have been so random and so accidental, the faithful can legitimately wonder what they did to anger the hockey gods.”
Never Boring: The Up and Down History of the Vancouver Canucks has been described as a bitterly funny chronicle that shows the litany of woe stretches back farther and runs deeper than many Canucks fans realize, and stars several of the biggest names in hockey history.
Willes said although his book will be attractive to hockey fans, it is so full of drama, narrative-arc and humour that almost anyone could find it entertaining.
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