OK, so I planned not to blog on about Mats, but I had to finally weigh in on the ‘great white Swedish hype’. It has been almost 7 months since the “story” broke that the Canucks had made an offer ($20 million over two years) to Sundin and we have been absolutely inundated with T.V., Radio and Newspaper reports about speculation of what the chosen one was going to do. Would he ‘god forbid’ retire, or decide to play with Montreal, New York, Toronto, Vancouver or literally any one of the 26 other teams?

Well as we all know, unless you have been in a coma for the past 7 months, Mats chose Vancouver (lucky us)! He continued to taunt us with a guessing game of when he would finally appear in his first game. Tonight (Wednesday, January 7th) was the night, armed with a pizza sub and a cold brew, I kicked the legs out on my couch and waited for the ‘next coming’ to make his debut.

What a disappointment! With a little over 15 minutes of ice time, no shots on goal, no points and even for the game, Mats looked like me and 20 or so other “old timers” after a game, he appeared constantly out of breath. At least it’s over and I can’t imagine the highlights of his play will be longer than 5 or so seconds on Sportsnet tonight. Thankfully now the NHL and sportswriters everywhere can get back to reporting on really relevant topics like Sean Avery.

I promise to keep a limit to my hockey blogs and particularly further comments on Mats!

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