SEDINS DESERVE PROPS FOR BEING ‘FIVE-TOOL’ PROS
BULLS OF THE WEEK
The sudden retirement of the Canucks’ Henrik and Daniel Sedin is more than just a West Coast hockey story. It’s national, leaguewide and international when it comes to the global hockey community spanning North America and Europe.
Just as Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid is a generational talent as an individual player, the Sedins — as a pair of twin brothers collecting more than 2,000 points between them while playing all of their 17 NHL seasons for the same team — are certainly a once-in-a-generation occurrence and perhaps never to be replicated again.
Baseball has its “five-tool players,” those rare stars who hit for average, for power, run with speed, throw and field. In hockey and in the business of sport, the Sedins are “fivetool professionals” like we’ve never seen before; a remarkable combination of assets in terms of their telepathic playmaking talent, their impeccable work ethic, their exemplary leadership abilities, their philanthropic generosity and, more than anything, their second-to-none quality as human beings.
If role models are still a thing in this modern era of professional sport, the Sedins are the rarest of prototypes.
The Sedins made this a winning week for sports talk radio, sport television and social media, especially Twitter, along with Canucks merchandising and 50/50 fundraising draws — with Vancouver real estate agent Derek Kai winning the biggest North American prize on record, the $507,278 share of the $1,014,555 pot.
As ESPN sport business reporter Darren Rovell pointed out, both Kai and the Canucks for Kids fund for children’s charities made more Thursday night at Rogers Arena than the Sedins did themselves (US$397,275 apiece compared to US$170,732 combined for the twins).
It was also a winning week for numerologists and the numbers 22 and 33, with Daniel scoring his 22nd goal of the season at the 0:33 mark of the second period and then at 2:33 of overtime (or as some preferred to suggest on Twitter, 22:33 of the third period), both times assisted by Henrik.
And that came after their second-to-last game on home ice Tuesday night against the Vegas Golden Knights, when the regulation-time shots on goal were 33-22.
Secondary ticket prices rocketed up to 4½ times face value for Thursday’s home-ice finale, but the real winners were the fans who held on to their tickets and witnessed first-hand a glowing tribute to “Sedinery.”
BEARS OF THE WEEK
The Stanley Cup is the one hole in the resume of Henrik and Daniel. The hockey gods got that wrong.
Sure, the yin and yang of life mean there will always be critics and contrarians, yet those who do not fully appreciate the Sedins reveal more about themselves than anything else.
That’s why we’re so bearish on the critics of Henrik and Daniel in the face of everything they’ve accomplished on and off the ice in their lives. That’s especially true of those naysayers fortunate enough to live in Vancouver throughout their remarkable 18-year NHL careers.
There’s no one more offside this week than those who do not respect the qualities required to win Olympic and world championship gold and to be automatics when it comes to the rafters at Rogers Arena, the Hockey Hall of Fame and the IIHF Hall of Fame.