Corporate-named arenas are in abundance in the NHL. Sometimes we think we have it bad with General Motors Place aka The Garage, but ya know, it’s one of the better ones out there. As of yesterday, Jobing.com – a career search site based in Arizona, put up the 3 mil (annually) needed to purchase the Glendale Arena, home of the Phoenix Coyotes. Gretz and the boys will now be operating out of the Jobing.com Arena [phoenixbiz]. Hm. Interesting if Pyatt keeps stepping it up should this be our new arena logo? ->

Around the NHL yesterday, Sakic got his 1500th point in a loss vs Washington, who we face on this Friday. My standings in the work hockey pool are dwindling, hopefully with a few more Canuck wins, things will improve. That, and Ottawa seems to be pummeling their Provincial rivals lately [tsn] – now those are some gritty games. For beautiful, jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring games on the other hand, you just have to tune in to Pittsburg and watch all their Mario Jrs play.

Last night the Canucks pounded an ailing Chicago team, 5-0 earning YoLuongo!* his first shut out with Vancouver. On the radio this morning they said we had ZERO shut outs last year with Auldy/Clouts. Could this be right? Are you suuuure there wasn’t one tucked away in there somewhere?

More on the topic of funny things the commentators say, “Kudos to Shorty for saying that referee Magoo waves his arms around so much that he is going to take flight. Hilarious [waitingforstanley]”. Chicago definitely was impeded but I think we finally brought on that all-out offense we’ve been struggling to get so far, or at least unleashing with 0.8 seconds left in the game. The penalties were nothing like the Dallas game though, that one was just tough.

Everyone from bloggers to callers on sports talk shows agree that Pyatt looks great with the Sedins and they’re glad that Naslund is back with Mo.

For more hockey discourse, opinions and banter, check out this week’s episode of the Crazy Canucks Podcast. Episode 4 runs about 33:00 mins, click here for the mp3.

*YoLuongo coined by Alanah at Vancouver Canucks Op Ed

I have a rich employment history dealing with broadcasting audio (in rich I mean, it’s full of – not – very lucretive :p). It all started in 1998, unofficially and officially in 2000 when I joined the dotcom boom with an online broadcasting company.

I’ve always loved audio production but that doesn’t even come close to the passion my husband Mister radio- podcast- engineer- mega caster man has.

John’s been podcasting RadioZoom since October of 2004 and all the music he’s played has been podsafe* for the last year. This includes artists such as Nada Surf, Matthew Good, John Vanderslice, The Format, Shiner, The GOStation, Harvey Danger – just to name a few.

After I landed the Aberdeen City Interview John officially named me the podcast’s ‘publicist’. It was in jest but I’m hoping it will ring true someday because I’ve just landed him permission to play another cool band that we both enjoy, The Secret Machines. Continue reading this post ⟩⟩

I got lost. Okay well not completely lost but turned around. John wanted to show me some of his running routes through the Park so we headed out yesterday afternoon in the fog.

The fog had rolled in on Friday night, it was so creepy. You could see it coming from miles away, over the ocean, drifting towards downtown. Then one by one, it gobbled up a building around us until we could barely see out the window. “The fog that turns people inside out,” John said. I giggled repeatedly then slinked over to the couch where I had been lying all day, home sick from work.

Back to getting lost. We headed into the park, leaves crunching beneath our feet, Canadian Geese staring us down, just waiting to attack. There were still flowers left on some of the shrubs and rhododendrons in the gardens. People out for jogs donned toques and there was an abundance of couples out for walks in matching Goretex jackets [wiki]

We we turned into the forest which seemed more dense than usual, it could be because with the fog it was dark as night in there, although it was barely 4pm. As the grade increased John would tell me, “this is where it gets tough” during his runs. You never realize how many hills are in the park until you’ve trekked around a bit. When you’re out on Georgia street think of how high you must travel to get up to Lions Gate bridge, it’s a bit of an illusion, except if you’re a jogger on the trails. Continue reading this post ⟩⟩

We were headed out East on the Skytrain this morning when an unexpected rider hopped on at Patterson station. The German Shepherd trotted right past us, and down to the other end of the train. It was a Millenium Line [wiki] train, one of the “new” fancy articulated Bombardiers, so the dog was able to walk up and down the entire length. He stopped a few times to sniff things and look at people to see if he’d get any love, John commented that the dog was as big as him and “freakin huge”. The doors opened at Metrotown the dog got out. Stepping out onto the platform our travelling companion paused a little, came back in the train but was soon coerced out by a Translink worker who shoed him toward the stairs. Someone on the train leaned out the door and let him know that he had hopped on at the previous stop, our doors shut and we were off again. Continue reading this post ⟩⟩

We went for a walk the other day and John said, “I miss this smell.” Ocean mist, damp technicolour trees, ribbons of smoke in the air from someone burning leaves in their yard… welcome to Fall.

Today, 24 Hours featured a couple pumpkin patches around Vancouver. I’m glad I made asked Jenny to write her Pumpkin Patch Review, since it’s been my #1 post recently. Now that we’ve been smacked in the face with some Fall weather this week I feel like getting all cozy-snuggly, drinking some hot chocolate and traipsing through the stores’ Halloween displays (which are currently right next to the Christmas decorations).

I wrote about Ice Skating on Metblogs a little while ago, sharing some childhood memories and info about where to go in Vancouver for some ice time. Remember when it snowed in Vancouver? Yeah, things actually froze. Late at night my brother would set up a border of 2x4s around the cement patio behind our house. He’d then turn on the hose and flood the area so that we could wake up to some ice in the morning. Sometimes it worked. Most of the time we’d just settle for the road our front, which had snow packed down so tight it was ideal for hockey and skating around in your shoes.

Thinking of our setup now, it reminds me of a CBC documentary I saw a couple years ago, called The Hockey Nomad. It’s by Mike Downie (Yeah, Gord‘s older brother) along with Dave Bidini (of the Rheostatics). Based on Bidini’s book The Tropic of Hockey, they travel around the world to the most unlikely hockey places like Dubai, Transylvania and Mongolia. The Hockey Nomad is available on DVD and you can probably find the book over at Chapters.

I’d love to go ice skating this weekend but they just interviewed the head coach of the Vancouver Giants on Pratt & Taylor (as I’m typing this). The Giants are 10-0-1 right now – hot damn. They play tonight vs Spokane (featuring Canucks draft pick Grabner) and tomorrow night vs Saskatoon. Tickets are under $20 and the games are always exciting. I think that’s where we should end up this weekend but I’d be pretty content just going for another walk.