The Whitecaps are on fire — and giving Vancouver sports fans some cheer after Canucks 'season from hell'
Canucks slump comes as city's sports market gets busier, while Whitecaps are now Champions Cup finalists
In a sports market where the Vancouver Canucks have long been king, the ascendant Whitecaps are putting up a pretty good challenge for the crown.
Bound for the CONCACAF Champions Cup final and sitting top of the table in Major League Soccer, the exciting Whitecaps have been a balm for local sports fans feeling burned by the sad state of their NHL team.
Witness the scene both in Miami and at watch parties around Vancouver Wednesday night, where excited soccer fans could barely believe their eyes when the Whitecaps made history by dispatching Lionel Messi and his star-studded Miami squad in the Champions Cup semi-final.
"It's really a dream come true, especially to beat a player the class of Messi," said young fan Miles Mollard. "It's completely something else, a bit euphoric!"
"I don't think anyone thought this would happen, ever," said Nicholas Naughton-Rumbo, creative director with the Southsiders supporters group.
It wasn't long ago the Whitecaps were mired in a gloom of their own; the team put up for sale and potentially on the move, lovable coach Vanni Sartini sent packing after another season ending disappointment.
But all that seems a distant memory because, as the saying goes, winning has a way of fixing everything.
It could be that easy — or that hard — for the Canucks, whose season of negativity started early with the mysterious feud between stars Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller.
Missing the playoffs dealt a further blow to faithful fans, with any shred of remaining optimism stripped away when it was announced that popular head coach Rick Tocchet was effectively divorcing the Canucks to size-up sexier NHL teams with more to offer.
Matt Sekeres, co-host of the Sekeres & Price show, said the Canucks' situation feels bleak.
"I think it's unquestionably a brand crisis because they offered Rick Tocchet a very lucrative contract and he chose not to accept it," said Sekeres. "He obviously doesn't have confidence that the Canucks can be a winning organization going forward. And this comes after a year from hell."
Whether the Canucks quandary translates into diminished fan interest remains to be seen. What is true is that the Vancouver sports entertainment marketplace has never been more crowded with teams for sports fans to spend their money on, including the Whitecaps.
From the women's Rise FC and yet-to-be-named Professional Women's Hockey League team, to the boys of summer Vancouver Canadians and B.C. Lions. And don't forget the Abbotsford Canucks and Vancouver Warriors, both contending in their respective league playoffs.
Long held loyalties aside, it's just more fun to feel hope for the team you support, rather than hopelessness, which is good news for the winning Whitecaps, who have plenty of space on the bandwagon for any and all sad hockey converts.
"This looks to be the channel that the Vancouver Whitecaps can run to get a firmer grasp on the market, in part because of the failures of the Vancouver Canucks and them not taking up all the oxygen in the room here this spring," said Sekeres. "And they're to be commended for it."
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