During the recording of episode #70 of The Crazy Canucks, I made a quick screenshot of what I see on my end of the conversation to sort of share what it takes to put our podcast together.

What you see are three basic components: Mac OS X 10.5, Ubercaster, and Skype. Conference calling from computer to computer, recording local mics and remote mics on two separate tracks, and I like to keep the sound preferences open in the event that I need to check on something or make any changes.

What you are missing is the only other application in the overall process of editing, Levelator. Then we make the post on the site using WordPress, the RSS feed gets updated, and the podcast episode ends up in your ears, depending on how you listen to it.

I know I’ve posted about this before, but at this point in the overall history of TCC, the process of knowing what it takes to whip together an episode is getting easier to setup, record, edit, and publish. It never ceases to amaze me as to how much fun it is to talk hockey with this crew.

Episode #66 was published tonight.

Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

But these photos of the podcast crew on buses never ceases to kill me.

Photo credit: jmv on Flickr

Riding the SkyTrain last weekend, the train stopped with my face directly outside the window at Granville Station. Nothing more embarrassing than having your face on a poster right next to your own.

Photo credit: Rebecca Bollwitt on Flickr

I’ve also spotted the posters on the sides of buses, and there is a good chance that you will see the rest of The Crazy Canucks crew on them, if not on posters at SkyTrain stations as well. This one is located in Granville Station. Bring on the graffiti.

It was a nice surprise earlier this week to see how the Canucks organization was going to use some of the promotional photographs that they took of The Crazy Canucks crew that I mentioned previously, but I’m not sure that we were expecting to be apart of the launch for the Canucks Fan Zone.

A place for all Canucks fans to gather and share their love for the team. That’s pretty cool, but I’m still wondering if the possibility remains of see my face on the side of a bus or on a SkyTrain poster. Scary still, my face on the jumbotron in GM Place.

Flickr video is thanks to Rebecca.

That’s right. Early this week, we launched with the first episode of season three for The Crazy Canucks. Check it out!

We’re back. Season three of TCC kicks off with a quick gathering of the crew to has out what to expect for the coming season as well as some cool things going on with each of our various projects. We take a look back as who we’ve lost, the new faces (that we kinda think we know something about but don’t know half as much as we’d like), hash out the who does what for TV and radio play-by-play, and take assignments for new names of the team for show and tell later.

48:07 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

Things really got busy on us this past week, but I can finally stop blaming work getting in the way and start pointing the finger at hockey. More importantly, we’ve been doing some neat stuff with The Crazy Canucks podcast in anticipation of the coming season.

First and foremost, the new design for TCC has been launched. This is the first step in bringing some new elements of social media to the podcast, and it is an official design by sixty4media.

If you’re on Twitter, then be sure to add @thecrazycanucks to your twitter stream and get all the latest updates as they are published on TCC.com, plus anything else we decide to through into the stream. Also, if you’re drinking the Facebook kool-aid, join the The Crazy Canucks Facebook group and stay in touch with our army of supporters on there.

And there’s more!

Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

The Canucks (yes, the organization) brought your favorite podcast crew in for a photo shoot at GM Place to get our faces and Canucks gear for some promotional stuff that will launch later this month. We can’t be sure how, where, or to what capacity these photos and video footage will be used, but it was exciting to come in and be apart of something like this, simply because we’re all fans.

Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

Special shout out to Richard Loat, who also was invited to this promotional gathering. He’s the man (in the middle of this picture above) who created the Vancouver Canucks Fan Facebook Application. Nearly 150,000 people are using that application on their Facebook profile. Not bad for a kid barely over the age of 19.

Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

So as we hang on to the last days of summer in Vancouver, there is some satisfaction that hockey is coming. It dulls the pain of cooler days, less sunlight, and rain, but I’m certainly beginning to get excited.

Alanah and Rebecca have their posts up about this day as well, and you should stay tuned for more stuff from The Crazy Canucks. It should be a good season.

As cool as the weather has been in the lower mainland in the past week or so, it makes me think about one thing: the coming 2008-2009 hockey season for the Vancouver Canucks.

To help get you and me both prepared for this, I figured I’d go back on some key points from the end of last season while looking ahead to this next one. Of course, these are the things that stick out the most to me, so feel free to add your comments. And if you are a Vancouver Canucks fan, you’re probably doing the same thing as me when someone asks you your opinion on what to expect come this fall. You’re probably shrugging your shoulders and saying, I’m not really sure.

The passing of Luc Bourdon

For me, this is really how last year ended. I was going through my day when news started trickling around work about this rumor. As the details came in, the air seemed to get sucked out of the building for me that morning.

If you know anything about my day job, the world of radio that I live in brings me very close to these players, and I’ve had my share of elbow rubbing with Luc Bourdon. I’m just some tech guy, so there wasn’t that much of a relationship to even speak of. That doesn’t change the elation I felt when I was there on the night the team was determined to get him his first NHL goal. I also witnessed his second one, a shot so hard that it got stuck in the back of the net. All I could think about is how much better this kid would get over the next few seasons.

To take a cue from Sean at Waiting for Stanley, this young boy would finally be able to stop throwing up in the back of his mouth and get his nerves in check to become a recognizable force from the point.

It won’t be that way, and I will certainly miss the opportunity to watch him grow into a great NHL player, yet alone becoming a man. Luc was on the cusp of a potentially great career. A young guy whose life was far too short and will be honored at the home opener on October 9th.

Luc Bourdon and his first goal in the NHL – Photo credit: Canucks.com

The GM: Out with Dave Nonis, in with Mike Gillis

Enter the next, strange focal point at the end of last season. I had often wondered about Dave Nonis[wiki] taking the fall for a string of questionable trades and signings ahead of last season (Marc Chouinard[wiki] being one guy that sticks out the most in my mind). He wasn’t the worst GM, but there have been others who have done better, especially living the shadow of Brian Burke[wiki]. It was with that, in my opinion, that he became the fall man for poor performance of the team and was given the pink slip.

Things got interesting after that. The Aquilini’s had their first, big decision to make as recent owners of the team, and many of us fans hoped that their heart would bring us something that would bring as much faith to the team to truly match the amount of sold out games at GM Place.

Enter Mike Gillis[wiki], player agent turned general manager.

It still makes me pause for a second when I ponder that selection, even this many months after it happened. It was my co-worker, the diehard Oilers fan, who told me the news, and I recall saying, “Who the hell is that?”

I don’t follow as much of the business of the NHL as others, but I was quick to learn that this was the same player agent that represented the captain of the Vancouver Canucks, at the time (and we’ll dive into this later), Markus Naslund[wiki]. He’s a former NHL player now representing NHL players to various organizations. At the press conference for his official hiring as GM, I was a little more impressed with his ambitions with the organization, but the fans haven’t seen a ton to really throw their weight behind the guy. We’ll have to come back to his performance around mid-season before we really know what this guy is going to do for us.

Trevor Linden retires

Photo credit:
Rebecca Bollwitt on Flickr

Another night that I was very fortunate to be in attendance was the final game of the season for the Canucks where Trevor Linden received numerous ovations and a huge outpouring of love for a man who has captured a city’s heart like I have never seen before.

I know that’s a cliche, but the guy is just a hockey player. Of course I know that he’s more than that, but when you break down the nuts and bolts, that’s all he was. He also donated his time to charity, but he has achieved a level of greatness that only a few other people have done in an entire lifetime. I’d bank that he’s only halfway through his own.

Once again, with the day job, I was there when he made his announcement, and it was tough to hold back the emotions. I haven’t had nearly the amount of experience to appreciate what I was witnessing, but I did have the chance to shake the man’s hand and tell him congrats on a wonderful career. That’s a moment I’ll long remember.

Update – Sep. 4, 2008: The Canucks announced today that Trevor Linden will be honored at the Dec. 17 game against Edmonton, and his number will be retired to the rafters.

So long to the West Coast Express

It’s true that the West Coast Express ended when Todd Bertuzzi was sent in a blockbuster trade to Florida for our man in the net, Roberto Luongo (so you can’t say that Nonis never made a good trade). However, when you see Brendan Morrison head off to the Anaheim Ducks and Markus Naslund making the jump to the New York Rangers, the chances of a reunion are officially done. That era is over.

When this all went down, I had to wonder if this is the worst thing to happen. The writing was on the wall, and you really can’t stop a free agent from doing what they want with their career. It’s their choice to decide what will happen with their time in the NHL when the contract is up, so these two guys decided to do something that is in their best interest. I support that but hope that their respective teams fail when it comes to any direct competition with the Canucks.

On top of that, I hope that fans who have been calling for their heads are finally happy to exist with a team minus Naslund and Morrison. Your wish has finally come true, even though Bertuzzi[wiki] is back in our conference with Calgary. That almost seems like karma, but that remains to be seen.

Gone baby gone

So who else has left the confines of GM Place?

Going through a quick list, we already know that we’ve lost Luc Bourdon, and I have already mentioned that Trevor Linden, Markus Naslund, and Brendan Morrison have departed in their own ways. Ryan Shannon was re-signed and then recently traded away to Ottawa, Byron Ritchie is off to the Swiss League, third string goalie Drew MacIntyre took the free agent train to Nashville, and the same can be said about Mike Weaver, now with St. Louis. I might have missed some others, but those are the notables to me.

That might not seem like a lot in terms of hard numbers, but the face of the team has changed dramatically.

Update – Sep. 4, 2008: Brad Isbister has also left us for Ottawa.

The next C

On the heels of mentioning the departure of Markus Naslund, that means Vancouver has an opening for the captain of the Canucks. The next two candidates for the C, Morrison and Linden, are both gone so before we get into new faces of the team, who would be the most likely person on the current roster to be the next captain?

For me, my money is on Willie Mitchell. It’s not a choice based on stats or brilliance as much as it comes down to a guy who plays his butt off. He is willing to block the shot, throw down the gloves, and argue it out with the referee on a bad call. He’s seasoned and understands what the game takes. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s a B.C. native, something fans can get behind as well.

Other candidates could be Matius Ohlund, Sami Salo, or Ryan Kesler, but I’m not sure how any of those fellows fit the role as well as I think they should. Kesler is certainly a young player with a ton of potential, and I could be comfortable with him as the captain. However, Salo and Ohlund are players who don’t give me the heart and grit that I see Vancouver as in need of.

Even though my mind is pretty set on Mitchell, I can’t help but think back to the early days of Ryan Kesler when he went head to head with the captain of the Calgary Flames, Jerome Iginla. Kesler was quoted as saying that he didn’t know if the Flames’ captain fought, but he found out pretty quick when Iginla dropped his gloves within mere seconds of Kesler dropping his own. It’s pretty gutsy for a young guy to do against a veteran like that, but it makes me feel like I could survive if #17 wore the C over #3.

The Mats Sundin epic saga story of a comic strip graphic novella

When it comes down to it, I don’t care where Mats Sundin[wiki] plays. I just want this story to be over. Give us a decision and move on. All I ask is that if he signs with Vancouver, do not make him the captain.

New faces, familiar names

So what else has Gillis nabbed us to help fill in the gaps? Well, it’s not all such doom and gloom, but there are a lot of new faces coming into Vancouver.

Pavol Dimetra, Steve Bernier, Darcy Hordichuk, Kyle Wellwood, Ryan Johnson, Jason Krog, Rob Davison, Mark Cullen, and the recent addition of Lawrence Nycholat from Ottawa. Nolan Baumgartner is making his return to Vancouver as a free agent, and Curtis Sanford, Zach Fitzgerald, Mike Brown, Rick Rypien, and Nathan McIver have all be re-signed. I only mention those re-signings because of the likely-hood of seeing these guys a little more this year.

That’s a lot of new faces, but all we are asking for, as fans, is a little more scoring. That will make us and Luongo mighty happy.

Shrugging my shoulders

So what are we to expect this season? I have no idea. Even the intrepid DaveO has said that he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. The excitement for the kickoff this October just isn’t there like it has always been, and I’m not that far behind him in saying that.

What is there to get excited about? Who are all these new guys? What will the lines look like?

On one side of the equation, there is the unknown. On the other side of it, it’s what we don’t know that will be exciting to watch unfold, but if we’re living on the cellar floor come the all-star break, life won’t be so grand.

Still, there’s a little electricity that is growing in the air as we are just a few weeks from training camp from kicking off in Whistler. There is also a lot of excitement that comes with a hockey season spent getting together with friends to catch a game at a pub, and some of the best people to do that with are my Crazy Canucks buddies. We’re gearing up for a third season of the podcast, and it’s hard to believe that we’ve made it this far.

Bring on the season. No one expected that the first year under Coach Vingeault would have seen the Canucks in the playoffs, and even that year was one of speculation at the start. Here’s hoping for another year like that.

In light of the recent episode #61 of The Crazy Canucks at the 2008 Open Practice at GM Place, I thought I would post a few of my favorite photos from the event that I took. J.J. had some great, extra seats that we took turns checking out from behind the bench, and Rebecca scored some good shots here as well.

Rebecca poses as an Ultimate Canucks fan.

J.J. took the reigns on a 30 second shot with Scott Rintoul from TEAM 1040 on the jumbotron in GM Place. The rest of us got in on it as well in the background, including Alanah.

DaveO poses with the real MVP of the day, who was strangely missing from the event…

I have to say that it was a pretty cool day. We didn’t get to see as much of the practice as we did from press row last year, but it was a lot of fun to hang out with the guys behind the Ultimate Canucks Search, who are absolutely hilarious guys. They’re also pretty damn good at what they are trying to do.

One thing worth mentioning was the shootout competition that they had at the end of practice. Willie Mitchell pulled his jersey over his head in a headless horsemen-like fashion, skated all the way from center ice like that, and scored on Luongo. It was priceless. What a guy.

We had an amazing opportunity with The Crazy Canucks to officially be apart of the 2008 Open Practice at GM Place about a week ago. In the midst of the forced down time with strep throat, I was able to get the audio turned around pretty quickly. I think it turned out alright.

Aside from covering the usual episode topics, we hung out with and interviewed the guys from the Ultimate Canucks Search, as well as one of the Ultimate Fans, Richard Loat (of Facebook application fame).

JJ got on the microphone to interview passers-by, while we also got the chance to sit down with Kent – the voice behind the We Are All Canuckleheads podcast.

We had a blast, and it was great to have the entire gang together to record one of those rare “face to face” episodes.

45:53 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

Check out the link to the post to get pictures and more details from TCC of the event.

Northern Voice kicks off tomorrow night with the super spectacular dinner, followed by MooseCamp and then the main event on Saturday. This week has turned out to be a lot more hectic that I imagined it to be, and it’s going to be non-stop all the way through Sunday.

The Crazy Canucks will have a fairly major part in all of this madness. I’ll be leading a session for an introduction to podcasting on Friday, our session on sports blogging and podcasting is Saturday afternoon, and then Sunday has our podcast crew front and center at GM Place for the Canucks Open Practice. We’ll be on the concourse raising a ruckus and having lots of fun with fellow Canucks fans at the event, media passes and our own location on the concourse included. All brought to you by those super cool folks at the Ultimate Canucks Search.

I hope to have more time to make more detailed posts about each of these things. In case I don’t find the time, you can’t say that I didn’t mention it.

This was recorded last Friday night and posted today. Been a tough last few weeks as Canucks fans. But what can I say? I just like hockey, not to mention good drink and talking hockey. Plus it’s a super short one, so listen up!

What would you expect while our team is currently sitting outside a playoff spot? A drunken, raw and rant-filled episode of course!

Record as of this episode: 26-21-6
Northwest Division: 4th
Western Conference: 9th

We go mobile for this quickie episode while our team is on a downward spiral. Dave and John take to the streets and record their thoughts on our recent loses while tossing in some speculation, rumours, and flat out wake up calls to the team and some fans. Just for kicks, Dave even throws in a shout out to the Agridome… and something to do with horses.

11:05 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

Episode #55 was released yesterday.

Surprising enough, we are all together for this episode, but just for a brief time. Dave chimes in by phone from downtown Vancouver as we gather all of our thoughts on the games against the Rangers and Islanders. We also cover a variety of topics regarding the team in terms of new players, Superskills, ownership of the team, the coming All-Star Game, and other news topics about the NHL.

55:34 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

I’ve been thinking of doing a more, detailed post about how a typical episode of The Crazy Canucks comes together, but I’m going to make a simple list of all the gear we use to make it work.

• Skype – Without this, we have no podcast. With Alanah doing her thing on the island, Dave on the north shore, and the rest of us in Vancouver, this is the crucial piece of software that ties us together. This also allows us to bring on any other guests that also use Skype on their PC.
• Ubercaster – This is the recording software that I prefer to use. I’ve watched Ubercaster go through the ropes of development and been impressed with every step of the way. It also has a built-in function to record Skype conversations, making it even easier to record our conference call. It is worth the time to setup templates for your podcast because it makes it very easy to fire up the program, open a template, conference call on Skype, and you’re rolling.
• Levelator – Due to the various setups that everyone has and the fact that Skype is really difficult to control audio input levels on, I always export the vocals first to run them through Levelator. You might not get the best audio quality from our “Voice Over IP Hot Stove”, but at least you’ll be able to hear all of us.
• Apple iMac – This is the work horse that ties together our recording hardware and software. Speaking of…
• Behringer Eurorack UB1204FX-PRO 8-channel Mixer – With anything you do in the world of recording and/or broadcasting, you can never have enough inputs. Most podcasters don’t need this much, but I’m a geek. You never know what you’ll wanna try to do, and this mixer has a slew of other nice features as well.
• Shure SM7 and Behringer XM2000S microphones – I have one of each of these, and perhaps a bit more of overkill for the average podcaster. However, I’ve been doing the radio thing for ten years now. I have accumulated a collection of toys.
• iPod nano (2nd gen) + Belkin TuneTalk Stereo – This is what I’m using to do mobile recordings these days. The quality is really surprising, and for podcasting, you can’t ask for more than something that sounds good as well as being small and very portable. Records stereo WAV’s at 44.1Khz as well as mono. I also put a standard microphone wind screen over the Belkin add. Additionally, I taped down the small switch on it because it had enough movement on it that it caused a slight rattle in the recordings.
• FeedBurner – We push our RSS feed through their service simply because they are really good at what they do.
• WordPress + PodPress – This is the CMS/blogging platform that we use to publish TCC episodes. PodPress is a plugin for WP that we use on the site that allows people to listen to our podcasts from the website as well as download them or make them available in our RSS feed.

Making it all come together has taken me about a year and a half to get efficient at. Every episode has something different to it, and I’m very much a fly by the seat of your pants editor. As the recording is happening, I can envision how I’ll go back and edit something, make a mental note as to where it was in terms of time of the epsiode, and get the podcast encoded and uploaded in about 20-30 minutes after we are finished recording. After that, it’s just a matter of making the blog post and publishing it to the world.

Recorded and posted today.

So it’s been a while since the last episode. Big deal, wanna fight about it? And truth be told, the end of the year got really hectic for us to all link up and get a new one recorded. We tried a few times, but the real world kept getting in the way, not to mention a string of Canucks games. We love our podcast, but recording during the games? Not unless you’re buying the beer.

Anyhow, the crew is back in form, but Alanah is a healthy scratch. The rest of the crazies gather together to reflect on the past few weeks and talk a little hockey. Of course we’ve got the Canucks, but we also get into the Spangler Cup, World Juniors Championship, and the very impressive Winter Classic in Buffalo.

Nearing the half way point in the season, there is much about the Canucks to discuss, and we do our best to sum up the action since our last episode. As always, we look ahead to the coming games, anxious to see both New York teams come to town for the first time in five years, and there is even some Surrey love.

50:33 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

Late to post it here, but we recorded and posted this one on Monday night.

There are only four of us in this episode, but Alanah shall return again soon. In the meantime, we all gathered together before the game tonight against the L.A. Kings to get you some of our thoughts on the last few games that have been.

Record as of this episode: 16-10-2
Northwest Division: 1st
Western Conference: 2nd

We hit the last few games to give our thoughts on how they went, but a lot focus comes back to the recent game in Vancouver against the Penguins. There was a lot of build up to the game, and we all feel like it lived up to be quite the event. We also look ahead to the coming games while looking even further at the new schedule that will take affect next year. We also hear from a listener in Seattle about his thoughts on the NHL expanding more into the Pacific Northwest.

40:48 minutes
The Crazy Canucks