8/30/2009

Deal reactions

Woo hoo! I'm alive! And it is back to reasonable temperatures in the Bay Area. And Mathieu is a Canuck. All is right with the world. As promised, here is some reaction, delayed as it may be:

First off, I present "New Canuck Mathieu Schneider: Vancouver's the only place to be," from the Province. Mathieu was almost a Canuck last year, and apparently was very happy with that prospect and really wanted to be with them this year.
"I kind of handcuffed my agent, Pat Morris. I told him this is the place I wanted to be, and until we exhausted negotiations with Vancouver, we really didn't want to negotiate with anyone else. We never really took any offers from any other teams.

The deal is incentive laden, but the base is a significant $4 million less than he got last year, and apparently less than he was offered elsewhere. So says Mathieu:
"At this point in my career, it's not about making another million bucks. It's more about being in a situation where my family would be happy and I would be happy."

Not to mention making his number one fan very happy. As if I need another reason to love Vancouver. I'm planning a trip up now.


For some fan reaction, Nucks Misconduct has a "getting to know" post about the three new defenseman acquired on Friday (incidentally, they are three defenseman I happen to know a lot about). The take on Mathieu was, I thought, very fair. Take a look. And you know me, I can't shut up, so I added a comment.

Over at the fabulous Canucks Hockey Blog, mixed reaction. Alix, she formerly of the Humming Giraffe, "actually really kind of dig(s) the possible offensive loveliness that could come from our defence next season," while Richard had been kind of up in the air about it since the deal was made public last week. He does say, though, "Schneider is the puck mover we’ve been looking for." That's a start.


That's all I have for now. I'll keep looking. If things get quiet tonight at the Reference Desk (my first 7-10pm shift of the new semester), I'll dig up some more.

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