It wasn’t quite as emotional as when Trevor Linden or Kirk McLean were traded away, but it was up there. Last week, Alexandre Burrows – the longtime Canucks goal scorer, agitator, dragon slayer, arrow slinger, referee magnet, and alleged finger biter – was traded to the Ottawa Senators. This, after 12 tumultuous, passionate and entertaining years of service to your Vancouver Canucks.
Love him or hate him, it was never boring with Burrows around – love and hate being the range of emotions he stirred up in fans and foes. He’s responsible for arguably some of the biggest goals in franchise history. And his nickname, Burr, is just about perfect (though I preferred the much-less-used tag of “The Arrow,” after his penchant for miming an archer with a bow and arrow after scoring, a tribute to his deceased teammate and friend, Luc Bourdon).
Beyond the goals and the controversies, what makes the Burrows saga so intriguing is its rags-to-riches origins. A championship ball-hockey player who was never drafted by the NHL, he determinedly played professional ice hockey for Podunk East Coast Hockey League teams like the Greenville Grrrowl (actual spelling), the Baton Rouge Kingfish, and the Columbia Inferno. That’s where the GM of the Manitoba Moose noticed his energy and scoring touch. From the Moose, Burrows broke in with the Canucks in the 2005-2006 season. He became a Vancouver fan favourite playing with Ryan “Nudie” Kesler, when they were the most highly effective penalty-killing tandem in the NHL.
The fate of the Canucks would change dramatically when, on February 12, 2009, Burrows was placed on the top line with the Sedin twins. All three players flourished, and they became the most dominant scoring line in the NHL.
And then there were the Big Three Burrows goals:
• The highly dramatic, shorthanded breakaway tally that snapped the Canucks’ worst home-losing streak in franchise history, back in 2009 (eight games). The goal and the win sparked the team to their franchise-best home-winning streak (10 games).
• The ball-hockey-like Game Seven overtime goal to beat the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the 2011 playoffs. As play-by-play man John Shorthouse famously called, the Canucks finally “slayed the dragon.”
• The overtime goal in Game Two of the Stanley Cup Finals over the Boston Bruins, which was the second-fastest OT goal in Finals history. It gave the Canucks a 2-0 series lead, but it wasn’t enough.
There are some, like TSN Radio’s Dave Pratt, who thinks Burrows’s big moments are enough to merit hoisting his number 14 into the rafters of Rogers Arena alongside 12 (Smyl), 16 (Linden), 19 (Naslund), and 10 (Bure). I love what Burrows did for the Canucks, but let’s not get crazy.
For every big goal in his career, there was an equally big controversy, like the time he was accused of biting a Boston Bruins forward on the finger in Game One of the final. Or when he accused referee Stéphane Auger of being out to get him. Or when Ron MacLean, host of Hockey Night In Canada, spent more than 10 minutes of a Saturday night telecast reviewing multiple examples of Burrows’s questionable on-ice antics, which raised the ire of Canucks management, teammates, fans, and Burrows’s parents.
For the record, MacLean has this to say about the incident, eight years later: “I had heard from [ex-Canuck] Willie Mitchell that Alex was very much admired by his teammates, and that was good enough for me to offer an olive branch on air. Alex is a wonderful player with a fine career and better story... but there is a bit of tarnish on his halo.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Enjoy Ottawa, Alex, and thanks for the memories. There was never a dull moment.
