Bitterness, bitterness, bitterness, bitterness, bitterness, bitterness, bitterness, bitterness, bitterness

Sometimes life is an amazing adventure. Sometimes, one just has to look at the bright side of things...forget about all the worries and stresses of money, careers, stocks, politics, diseases, death, genocide....and take a look at all the good things that are happening.

And then, after you've experienced something like euphoria in this "coma of bliss", you've got to smack yourself upside the head and be reminded of the cold grip of dark, hard reality...the bitter pill, as Temujin would call it. Hockey, in particular, has provided us with millions of reasons to be very upset right now. For Canucks fans, there are even more. Beginning with an event that I'm sure is still seared into all of our memories, here is an account of the past 6 months of Canucks hockey world:

1. March '04, Naslund gets hit in the head and his game goes to heck just in time for the playoffs.
2. Bertuzzi punches Steve Moore in the back of the head.
3. Bertuzzi gets suspended for the rest of the season and the playoffs.
4. The league leaves Bertuzzi's suspension open-ended - further adding to his misery
5. Cloutier gets injured early in the first round of the playoffs (wait - maybe this shouldn't be in here...well, I guess we can't let ourselves get too down:)
6. The Calgary Flames beat the Vancouver Canucks in seven games - THE CALGARY FLAMES!
7. The Tampa Bay Lightning win the Stanley Cup.
8. Dave Nonis resigns Dan Cloutier to a one-year deal.
9. Bertuzzi is called to court for crossing the line in a sport. He faces up to 18 months in prison.
10. Bertuzzi sells his house and moves his family to Ontaria, leading us to the logical conclusion that he may not be so committed to playing for Vancouver in the future.
11. As dark rumours abound, Naslund continues to hint that he will not be returning to the NHL if there is a lockout (which is a near certainty). He also sold his home, and his little girl is currently enrolled in a grade school in Sweden.
12. Daniel and Henrik Sedin both make statements hinting that they too may never return to the Canucks.
13. Ed Jovanovski gets injured in the first game of the World Cup tournament.
14. Wade Redden gets injured in the second game of the World Cup tournament.
15. After three meetings, the league and the NHLPA still haven't hinted at being close to even remotely trying to have a mere glimmer of an optimistic word in their prolonged negotiations.

Well, I hope you're all really happy now!

Actually, I have given you good reason to be upset. By the way things look right now, this year can't possibly be good for Canucks fans. The primary reason is because there prolly isn't gonna be a season this year. Secondly, if there is a season, the Canucks are going to be a shunty team. A depleted, depressed first line (with a centre who never was much more than an opportunist and a winger who hasn't been much since he got a concussion in March), a complete lack of a second line (any suggestions here?), a goalie who never seems to be there when we need him (i.e. playoffs of 2002 vs. Wings, playoffs of 2003 vs. Wild, playoffs of 2004 vs. himself), a coach who has absolutely no control over his team, an inexperienced GM who, to this point, has given us no reason to have even a half a mustard seed of faith, a wounded top-line defenseman whose recovery time is indefinite, and the emotional trauma of having one of our beloved own entrenched in a judicial battle that could end in any number of horrendous ways.

Well, I'm sorry to be such a pessemist. It is still possible that there won't be a lockout, and Naslund will return to his former glory (as a Canuck), and the Sedins will be resigned, and Bertuzzi will be aquitted by both the courts and the league, and Dave Nonis will get his head out of his ass long enough to sign some players who might actually be useful in our plan on actually making it past the first round in the playoffs...heck, if all of those things happen, I'll tell you what....I'll eay my right earlobe.

But until such time as the clouds around the hockey world and GM place and the city of Vancouver begin to separate and vanish, I feel pretty confident that both my ears will remain firmly in one piece.