This is Part 5 of a six-part feature that will run through the duration of the competition. Look for the centres next week!
What is a “mancrush”? Glad you asked. For the uninitiated, a mancrush is a product of “bromance”, when a man possesses a feeling for another man whereby he strongly desires to BE that man. He may not necessarily WANT said man, but when watching the other man play sports, he is moved in some fashion.
When watching hockey and the Canucks in particular, you will no doubt cheer for every member of the team to succeed(except that one guy you just can’t stand, even if he is wearing your team’s colours), but there’s always those few guys that make you just that little bit more excited when they make a nice play, dole out a nice hit, or say that exact right thing in an interview to make you feel like, “hey...that guy could be my bro.”
The criteria for a hockey player, you ask? Well, the player must look dashing(note: ‘dashing’ is different than ‘good-looking) when skating up the ice, which means the equipment choices, from a straight-cut visor to a flashy stick, are incredibly important. Second, he must have excellent skills on the puck. I love me a sniper. Third, he must be unafraid to mix it up when necessary. There won’t be any sissies on my mancrush team. To sum, physical looks are not the most important characteristic, but I’m not going to have the ginger twins’ chinstraps or Todd Bertuzzi’s tobacco-stained mouth ruining my list, no matter how great they’ve been for the squad over time.
Each day, I will cover the first and second All-Time Canucks Mancrush Teams, featuring players from each position over the years. On this fine Sunday, we will be taking a look at the right wingers.
Second Team All-Time Canucks Mancrush Right Wing
Stan Smyl
Age: 53(Canuck for 12 years, 1979-1991)
Height: 5’8”
Weight: 190 lb.
Hometown: Glendon, Alberta
I have to admit that I was very torn between Stan Smyl and Alex Mogilny for this spot. Mogilny had all the flash, he scored 76 times in a season, he formed an unbelievable Russian partnership with Pavel Bure, and as far as mancrushes go, I loved him as a kid, before I even understood what a mancrush was.
However, it’s impossible to talk about all-time Canucks without talking about Stan Smyl. He played for the team for 12 years and was captain for 8 of those seasons, playing with some phenomenal players in the process, leading the Canucks on their surprising Cup run in 1982, and held almost all team records until they were broken after the turn of the century by fellow mancrushes Trevor Linden and Markus Naslund.
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| So many jokes. SO many jokes. |
Smyl was a product of those hard-working Canucks teams of the 80s, as he scrapped for all his points and often put up more penalty minutes than he did tallies. He was a hard-nosed, two-way player, lauded as much for his defense as for his offense, and you know I love me a two-way specialist. Smyl shockingly topped 100 PIM in 9 of his 12 seasons in the league(once even topped 200!) while still managing to notch 673 points in 896 games. He was the first Canuck to have his number retired, and still works for the team in an office capacity.
If you love a team, there will always be certain players you feel for because they become tied to the fabric of the team. You can’t imagine them playing for someone else, and indeed, Smyl retired rather than wear the jersey of another squad. Loving the Canucks goes hand-in-hand with loving Stan, and it’s clear he still loves Vancouver as well.
First Team All-Time Canucks Mancrush Right Wing
Pavel Bure
Age: 40(Canuck for 8 years, 1991-2000)
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 191 lb.
Hometown: Moscow, U.S.S.R.
I have to admit that I have a hard time writing about some of these mancrushes given how little I actually saw them play. I can understand their meaning to the franchise, I can watch their highlights, read about them, and get a sense of what they meant to the team, and I can appreciate them in that sense.
Pavel Bure, however, was the man who invented mancrushes for me. I remember being a kid and being absolutely dazzled by Bure’s skill. My little cousins loved him so much they asked for matching Mogilny/Bure sweaters for Christmas, despite the fact we lived in Toronto and had 8 PM bedtimes, so we missed most Canucks games. I can remember really enjoying being home sick from school, because TSN used to replay hockey games they showed on national TV the night before, and I could lay on my couch and watch the skill of Bure.
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| I probably kissed this picture when I was 14. |
There was something about him. He always just seemed so RUSSIAN. He defined what a Russian was to me. He looked different, he played hockey differently, and he possessed so much natural talent that it was impossible to look away nearly every shift he took. The people who back Bure for the Hall of Fame are people my age: people who grew up watching Bure when they were a kid and dreaming that he was ACTUALLY a Rocket, that his skates possessed jet fuel and his skating oftentimes suggested that. As Jeff Angus said in his excellent piece this week remembering Bure’s 20th anniversary of signing with the team, he could make moves at top-speed that most of us would struggle to make standing still. His highlight reel is extensive and I can remember vividly to this day seeing his goal against Calgary for the first time, and trying to recreate his skate-to-stick gem against Boston, even though he did it at ten times the speed I ever could. I still do it now when I’m fooling around with buddies on the ice, because he made it look so damn cool and my 26 year-old self still wants to be my 9 year-old self so desperately.
And dating Anna Kournikova didn’t hurt his mancrush status, either. Who DIDN’T want to be that guy?
Coming up: I name the first and second team centres, posted this week! Have any suggestions for your ultimate Canucks mancrush? Leave them in the comments and they will be considered to crack the list!
You made Bure your number one and that's all I needed. Pavel is my favourite and soon all Vacouverites will adopt this John Cullen guy as their number one mancrush of sports-writers, just slightly edging out the sassy Ed Willes and the gorgeous Andrew Chong.