Canucks: So the Rogers Arena seats are finally getting finished

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Earlier this week, a small number of Vancouver Canucks season ticket holders received a rather discomforting email: the promised new seat they’d be getting for this season wasn’t ready. Most of the building seats had been replaced for the first time in three decades, but it seemed the team had run out of time.

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The claim was that scheduling and supply issues meant that some seats wouldn’t be replaced until the Olympic break.

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Yes, February. It’s not even October.

Affected season ticket holders were offered a $50 per seat credit and one-game complimentary upgrade to the club seats. After having their ticket prices jacked through the roof two years in a row.

Truly stunning stuff. First the team hired a cheaper install company more than a year ago to begin the process. Then that company went bankrupt, meaning the first phase of installation didn’t happen in 2024 and that all seats would have to be replaced in one go over the summer.

There’s three factors in a project like this: delivery of supplies, scheduling and how much you’re willing to spend on workers. In the end, you know when your seats are coming and you know the window you have to install, so it comes down to how much you’re willing to spend on the work getting done.

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On Friday night, fans finally got to see the several sections of seats that hadn’t been replaced yet and there was much commentary on social media about it.

Saturday morning, as the Canucks practised, workers were suddenly hurriedly replacing the seats. It would seem that between media inquiries, emails from frustrated fans and the public commentary, Fortress Canuck had been shamed into action.

Concurrently, new emails went out to those frustrated season ticket holders, saying that the seats would now be in place in time for the regular season opener on Oct. 9. Oh and they were given a $20 per seat credit for their trouble.

This all seems so backwards. When I was a teacher, when a student would apologize for some miscue, I’d accept the apology, as you should, but then I’d make a note: next time, take a moment to think about what’s in front of you and just get it right the first time.

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New routines

You may have noticed that Canucks assistant coaches have been speaking with the media this week. Head coach Adam Foote is only going to regularly speak post-game, though we’ll likely hear from him from time to time at other times too.

But it’s an interesting change to get his whole staff involved; so far so good. They’ve all been engaging and have provided updates on injuries and goalies, as us reporters need. And given both Brett McLean and Kevin Dean have experience handling media from their time as minor league coaches, and Scott Young has always been personable in his phone calls about prospects with me, it’s no surprise the system seems to be working so far.

True bravery

Listen, losing a final is not easy. We all know this. But let’s stand up for our Canadian women’s team and the way they didn’t quit against England on Saturday in the Rugby World Cup final. The English scrum was better and they were more efficient in attack and both those proved the difference.

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England looked set to pull away and turn the game into a farce, but the Canadians never quit and more than once looked about to score and pull themselves within striking distant.

But in the end, this is how you become a champion: the English never gave way. They repulsed so many Canadian attacks. And they won a world championship for it.

And finally … Guillaume Brisebois is one of the good guys. And yet he keeps running into injury trouble. Year after year he’s run into some kind of issue or another and yet he just presses on. The latest is an undisclosed “lower body” injury suffered earlier this year, for which he’s now had surgery. He’s out indefinitely the Canucks say. GM Patrik Allvin told me Saturday Brisebois picked up the injury during the Calder Cup playoffs but played through it and tried to rehabilitate it in the off-season, but that obviously didn’t work. Early in training camp he and the team decided to have surgery. “Tough for him as he played so well last year,” Allvin said.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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