Mats Sundin - All Airport

Matts Sundin and Cody Hodgson Together on Canada’s Blustery Coast?
Matt’s Poker Face and Cody’s Fluid Grace – Who Will Out and Make the Case?
By Terrance Gavan
Look, I have nothing against the manic poker playing diva from Sweden.
For all I know Mats Sundin is a very charming guy with a flair for the debonair.
Do I think he manufactured a contract from the persnickety and cap-challenged suitors who knocked on his door lo’ these past 6 months?
Probably.
Is he worth the green from the Vancouver machine?
Don’t bet on it. It’s not even close.
Ask Leaf Nation, a savvy, mildly rabid group of puck cognoscente, who will get their chance for commentary, consolidated, cranky, and castigating on February 21st of 2009 when the Swaggering Staggering Swede will make his way back to the Hot Stove seat of Roger’s great sanctuary of mild sanguinity.
If I had to pin my Stanley Cupped aspirations to a star, I would look further down the food chain dear Canuckadoodle-do’s. Hearken Trevor Linden, a solid commodity with less flair and more stare. The type of hombre that needs no introduction. Trevor was solid, self-effacing, evocative and imbued of that much coveted blue collar work ethic.
You don’t need a Swedish massage on your injured pride. You need someone of substance. Someone like Linden. Someone who isn’t a stranger to hard work.
Take a good look at what you just landed. And tell me. Did you get another Linden? Or did you just pop a cool six million with a signing entreaty of two million for half a year’s flirt with a player who looks for all the world like a Nordic bit piece straight outta’ central casting.
No my Canuckadoodle-do’s Sweet Sundin is not the answer. Not even if you phrase that delicately in the form of a jeopardized question to a Trebekian query: “No Salvation Soon Vancouver!”
“What is a Mats Sundin Alex?”
“Absolutely correct for a thousand my good Canuckadoodle-do’s. No Salvation, and no reprieve from the good-lookin’ hipster Swede.”
Yes my dear Canuckadoodle-do’s, you may canoodle with Mats Sundin for the nonce and you may even bang your chortled car horns all the way down Burrard Street to the Inlet and beyond to storied Gastown. You may even start saving for Stanley Cup tickets.
The glass is either half-full or half-empty. I’m leaning latterly.
Quoted in a Toronto Star piece by Rosie Dimanno, Sunny Sundin is less push and more shove in assessing his soon to be new career start in Vancouver.
“Time was running out,” said Mats. “I realized if I was going to play again, I had to start now or I'd lose the whole season. And I did want to play. For a long time, I just wasn't sure of that. But I finally realized how much I missed the game, missed being on the ice, in the dressing room.”
And then he let rubber hit road.
“When the opportunity is over, it could be over for good.”
Aw shucks my dear Canuckadoodle-do’s. You’ve got a feel good story here. It’s Christmas, Canadians are in the deep frozen depths of a full-blown recession. There’s talk about hiring work gangs for good old-fashioned 1930’s-era infrastructure building. Highways, subways, bridges, sewers. Wheeee! Let that Ceement fly!
“People, can a body getta’ a shovel and some fresh asphalt here? There’s roads to patch, bridges to prop. Up and down that Sea to Sky highway, we gotta’ move some mud, pop some rock! Whattaya’ mean nine bills an hour?”
Meanwhile, the homeless are being wheedled out of accustomed tent space in Stanley Park to make room for the expected influx of haute couture turistas on their way to Van City for a little fiesta we like to call the 2010 Winter Olympics.
And Mats? Between rounds of poker in Vegas, Monte Carlo and the Mirage, Mats has agreed to a one year contract and a mere $6,000,000 for a wonky work ethic that lamentably could use some fine tuning.
“It's not a perfect situation, coming in this late,” says Sundin. Really? Ya’ think?
“All the other players in the league are in mid-season form. It's going to be a while before I can compete at that level. But I just felt that Vancouver seemed like a good fit for me.”
It’s $6,000,000. For tops, six months of work. Sounds like a good fit to me
“Hey wait just a cotton pickin’ minute here. Did I hear right? $6,000,000 for a half a season? Hey! Yo! Can a fella’ get another shovel here? I am being buried under the toppling weight of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed bushel of crap down here. That’s what it feels like anyway. I could be wrong.”
Well, like I said. I got nothing at all against Mats Sundin. I just don’t think it’s going to pay dividends. Right here, right now, Mats Sundin is a waste of space.
The better fit?
No brainer my Canuckadoodle-do’s. Your real salvation was on display last Friday night on TSN. Remember the T stands for “The”.
Cody Hodgson, your first round and 10th overall pick in the 2008 spring draft, is the guy you should be looking at long run and for the huge cross country big rig haul that comprises the NHL season. Hodgson, cerebral, savvy, Lindenesque. With a work ethic right outta’ some Puritan workbook.
Forget Sundin and hearken all that bonhomie that you reserved for native son Trevor Linden not too long ago. The guy you really need is already there. Or was for the bulk of training camp and a number of exhibition contests earlier this fall in Whistler and beyond.
On Friday night, Cody Hodgson scored a goal and added two assists in a 4-2 win over Sweden in a warm-up game for the 2009 International Junior Hockey Championships which gets underway in Ottawa on Boxing Day.
Pierre McGuire TSN’s ever obliging and swanky analyst reserved a holler to all the fans in Van City when he stopped to single out Hodgson’s huge potential midway through the third frame of that exhibition tilt. He stopped mid-sentence and mid-thought and christened Hodgson as the next leader of the Canucks.
Yes Canuckadoodle-do’s McGuire was talking effervescently and eye-poppingly at you.
And I think he’s right.
Wait a year or two.
By then, Sundin may well be pushing his walker creakily out the GM Place Arena Door, heading for Vegas, with a deck of cards and a Maverick’s blank stare.
I’ve got nothing against the Swedish bombshell.
But at 37 he’s reminding me more and more of Leo Rautins.
Rautins is coach of Canada’s national basketball team and a color analyst for the THE network.
Back when he was drafted by the Philadelphia Seventy Sixers out of Syracuse, he was selected to the NBAs All Airport Team.
All Airport?
Never saw the floor but looked great while boarding the team’s chartered plane. Tall, tanned good looking. Couldn’t play a lick but man he looked sweet in a suit with that beautiful Gucci luggage.
Mats Sundin at 37 and dipping divinely to Diva is ranking one or two on my 2008 NHL All Airport Squad.
Looks great in a suit. Signs a mean autograph.
Hey, I like the guy.
But I’m just sayin’.
Reserve the welcome wagon for the dude that can carry the freight.
You know the guy.
Strong worker. Savvy puck handler. Two-way demon. Sure hands. Smart as a whip.
Oh, and I almost forgot.
Got his start right here in Haliburton.
Cody Hodgson.
Hates Nevada, Texas Hold Em and Black Jack.n