Ask a Sharks fan for their thoughts on the Vancouver Canucks, and the answers probably won’t be very positive. Memories of a once dominant franchise featuring some of hockey’s most hated pests like Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows have left San Jose’s fanbase with a very foul taste in their mouths, even though the Canucks of today are nothing like the ones that turned a deflection off a stanchion into a Stanley Cup Final berth in 2011.
Not many people know this rivalry better than myself, and that’s because — truth be told — I relocated to the Bay Area in 2009 from my hometown of Vancouver.