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The all-time play-by-play nightmare team

Writing about this Canucks season has become somewhat of a depressing affair. There’s only so many ways to say, “The Canucks are bad” and “Megna should get less ice time.
Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
Sedins and Sundin
Sedins and Sundin

Writing about this Canucks season has become somewhat of a depressing affair. There’s only so many ways to say, “The Canucks are bad” and “Megna should get less ice time.” I mean, I’ve already written, “The Canucks are not very good” and “Maybe play Megna less?” so there’s literally nothing left to say.

So, let’s get silly.

During the Canucks’ game against the Dallas Stars last week, John Garrett commented on the fact that Luca Sbisa was playing against Jason Spezza, with the potential for some Sbisa/Spezza play-by-play blunders. It got me wondering what other combinations of names might cause nightmares for someone doing play-by-play.

For instance, I always thought it was a crying shame that Ryan Kesler and Rostislav Klesla never played on the same team.

So I put the question to Twitter: who would you put on your All-Time Play-by-Play Nightmare team. The responses were immediate and wonderful. Sometimes I really do love hockey twitter.

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This was the first suggestion and a frequent one after that and it did lead to some difficulties when they played on the power play together, but only to broadcasters with less experience calling games with the Sedins. To an experienced crew, it wasn’t too hard, because you just refer to the Sedins by their first name. “Daniel to Henrik to Sundin” isn’t all that hard to say.

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So this is the same idea: a line of forwards with the same last name, in this case Sutter. Adding in the hilarity of a Ryan and Gary Suter defence pairing and Doug Soetaert in net elevates it, though, and you can’t get away with going purely by first names if one of the Sutters is Bryan. Sure to get Ryan Suter and Bryan Sutter confused at some point.

Make the other Sutters Brent and Brett and you’ve got a nightmare.

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Here’s another take on the “same last name” crew. You could get away with first names for everyone but Muller, but good luck actually saying “Muller” and not “Miller” when you get to him. Kevin also suggested adding Peter Mueller and Mirco Mueller to make things a little more evil.

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I already don’t know how to say at least one of those names, so this is excellent. Other tweeters added Todd Bertuzzi, Sven Baertschi, and Sergei Bobrovsky, so that makes this a full starting lineup.

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This was suggested several times as Mats Lindgren, Trevor Linden, and Darren Langdon formed an actual forward line for the Canucks briefly. That’s just hilarious and cruel. Just wish they could have been matched with Nick Lidstrom and Doug Lidster on defence.

There were a few more suggestions of lines that actually existed or at least players that were on the same team:

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Not so much a play-by-play nightmare, but still hilarious.

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This may have been my favourite joke from the entire thread.

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Or maybe this was my favourite joke. I didn’t get it at first, but let’s just say saying their last names together too quickly.

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This is back in the spirit of the thing. I’m not sure I could say, “Reekie from Recchi and Ricci” with a straight face.

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The length of the names of the latter two make this especially nightmarish. Speaking of...

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“Drouin-Deslauriers over to Letourneau-Lebl...and the puck's already in the net. Lalonde-McNicoll scored and I didn’t even get to his name yet. I give up.”

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This is incredible. I’m laughing out loud just reading this one again.

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Make it stop…

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The only way the three Webers would have the same number on the same team is if they were on the same All-Star team, but no, we all had to vote for John Scott instead.

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I refuse to believe these are real names.

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You can get around the first line with first names, but the second one makes me shudder.

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Anyone remember Iiro Jarvi, from the Nordiques in the 80’s? I have no idea why I remember him as I wasn’t even born yet when he played. Must have had his hockey card.

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Only thing I can think of is and it made me laugh, so I guess I failed at not laughing.

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Just ignore the people suggesting adding and to this crew. Moving on.

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This was a legit problem for a lot of people even when they didn’t play on the same team. I remember Canucks fans writing “Maxim Laperriere” and broadcasters saying “Ian Lapierre.” Putting them on the same line would have been truly unkind.

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Another one that already causes problems, at least for me. Every time I hear about Luke Glendening, I immediately think of Adam Clendening, and you know whose fault that is? Benning’s. Benning traded for Clendening forever confusing me about Glendening.

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I love this one. There are so many subtle ways a play-by-play crew could screw up these names, particularly when they’re playing St. Louis.

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Hey! Dan! That’s not what we’re doing here!

With Murph badmouthing them, I guess it’s only fair to let one of Shorty and Cheech have the last word. Hey Cheech, what was a play-by-play nightmare for you and Shorty?

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Fair enough.