The author and veteran sports writer Ed Willes discusses his new book Never Boring: The Up and Down History of the Vancouver Canucks (Harbour Publishing, 2024), with Joseph Planta.

Never Boring: The Up and Down History of the Vancouver Canucks by Ed Willes (Harbour Publishing, 2024). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Never Boring

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Ed Willes joins me now. He’s just published a great read, Never Boring: The Up and Down History of the Vancouver Canucks. He takes the reader beginning in the 1960s when Vancouver desperate for an NHL franchise is left out thanks to the various machinations of people here and elsewhere, Central Canada specifically. It might be a conspiracy of sorts or not. The book looks at the various ownership groups over the last fifty-four years, from those early days in the 1970s, through to the Frank Griffiths era, McCaw, and now the Aquilinis. We see the challenges of owning an NHL franchise, and how the owners are regarded by fan and foe alike. We are regaled with stories of unforgettable players, characters through the highs and lows of wins and losses; players who dazzle fans with skill or personality or both. As Mr. Willes tells me in this interview we taped a couple of weeks ago, this book from Harbour Publishing was to have come out last fall but because of a delay turned fortuitous, the book is out now with a hell of a last chapter. He narrates just how the Canucks seem to have gotten out of that funk from the time of the management of Jim Benning, through to the coaching of Bruce Boudreau through today’s management group of Jim Rutherford, Patrik Allvin, and award-winning head coach Rick Tocchet. The excitement surrounding the team during that playoff run comes through the page, and it either bodes well for the season ahead, or perhaps signifies an aberration. I’ll ask Ed about all that and more. The book is also a great tribute to daily sports journalism. We see once more glimpses of the writing of Jim Kearney, Jim Coleman, Jim Taylor, and even Allan Fotheringham, among many others. There’s also a lot of Mr. Willes’s own work as he spent some forty years covering sports at newspapers across Canada, including many years at The Province here in Vancouver. Ed Willes is also the author of The Rebel League, Gretzky to Lemieux, and End Zones and Border Wars. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Ed Willes; Mr. Willes, good morning.

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