That's one of the rare exceptions.
The curious thing about Messier is that he was good with the Rangers, got shitty with the Canucks, then went back to the Rangers and was good again. In his short career with the Canucks, he got the franchise to unretire Wayne Maki's #11 so he could wear it, as well as force Trevor Linden, the most popular player who ever work a Canucks jersey, to relinquish his captaincy so they could give it to Mess. He lived in Point Roberts Washington rather than in Vancouver and commuted in for games and did next to nothing else on the ice or off of it. He certainly isn't getting a street named after him in BC the way he did in Edmonton.
The whole thing was weird. The Rangers crushed Canucks fans in the 94 finals then, next thing you know, Vancouver signs Keenan to coach and Messier as a free agent for the then-astronomical sum of $11 million. It always seemed to me like they were rubbing the fans noses in shit. The Canucks were essentially paying these guys off for what they already did to them rather than anything they could do for them in the future. And then to make matters worse, Messier gets Linden, the most popular Canuck in franchise history, run out of town (after ripping the C away from him first) He also got the team to unretire the late Wayne Maki's #11 so he could wear it. But he always acted as though he never asked for any of those things to happen, even though he pretty much demanded that they happen.
Hey, ever think that fans know there'll never be a true rebuild and come up with hybrid ideas that are actually more realistic than your pipe dream?
pick your coffin colour
