Talk continues to heat up around Rick Tocchet coming in as head coach, possibly as early as Monday.

Canucks News

• The news of the day has been that Rick Tocchet is rumoured to be in as the Canucks head coach by Monday. I guess we will see, but this whole situation has just been totally bizarre and unprofessional. Rutherford is out saying that he’s been interviewing coaches, Tocchet is on TNT kinda sorta answering questions about it, Boudreau is still the coach. I’ve never seen anything like it, and frankly, it makes the organization like a complete circus.

• And overall, I agree with Drance’s take here. The team might go like, four games above .500 the rest of the way, some will declare victory, and we’ll remain aggressively mediocre. Tocchet, at least to me, doesn’t move the needle in any meaningful way, so why they’re making a huge production of bringing him in mid-season, I don't know. Change for change’s sake, I guess.

• Another note on Tocchet — apparently ownership is not getting in the way. That’s a nice change, I guess?

• A nice tribute by the Canucks in The Province for Gino. They usually get this stuff right. Nice to see.

• The Canucks have officially “Freed the Skate”, kind of. It’s not exactly the same jersey, to the chagrin of some, but it’s close enough for me. I guess they needed to give fans some reason to show up. Also, it’s easily their best jersey, so I wholeheartedly approve of it being back as their third. I’ve wanted that for a while.

• We have somewhat of a Bo Horvat trade update. It seems there’s talk of him going to the Bruins, which would be very funny. Personally, trade him wherever. Animosity can’t get in the way of smart moves, but I’m skeptical the Bruins have what it takes to get a trade done. Just don’t get fleeced and don’t do some big brain “25-26 year old” trade is all I ask.

• And speaking of Bo, he’s an all-star! His last act as a Canuck? Perhaps, but congrats to the captain. Now we have two Canucks to watch (if you’ll remember, Petey was the initial Canucks selection).

Hockey News

• In a somewhat-Canucks related piece of NHL news, Steven Stamkos score this 500th career goal against the team the other day. Really cool. Stammer is one of my favourite NHLers and I'm my estimation is massively underrated. One of the greatest players of this generation and slam dunk first Hall of Famer in my view.

• Paul Maurice has been fined $25,000 for complaining about officials in a media availability:

• Torts comes out and seems to dig himself a deeper hole on the Ivan Provorov situation. While I do not think Torts is handling this well, it also doesn’t seem like it should be all on him to take the heat. Where are the owner and GM on this? Maybe I’ve missed it, but seems like they should be out there taking some accountability.

• And Slovakian women’s hockey player Nela Lopusanova has emerged on the radar of many as a top player to watch in the scene. Keep an eye on her, folks.

BC Place Bulletins

BC Place Bulletins is a Friday WWE feature summarizing scores and news from the local Vancouver sports scene.

• I have been following the Nathan Rourke story pretty closely in this space, and it’s finally over: He has signed with Jacksonville Jaguars. A huge congratulations to Rourke. It’s an amazing opportunity, and I’m sure all of in BC will be cheering him on from afar.

• Here’s Rourke on Donnie & Dhali talking about his move:

• And Farhan Lalji discussing something I’ve seen a decent amount of online. Yes, it sucks to see a genuine star leave, from both a BC Lions and CFL perspective. That said, there is no doubt that chasing an NFL gig is a way better investment than sticking around. You never know when injury or other circumstances will strike, and so I don’t begrudge him at all for leaving. Frankly, I think it’s totally silly to do anything but be happy for him. Hopefully this shows other young talents that the CFL can indeed be a pipeline to the NFL and we get more dynamic players out of it.