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On Jan. 9, Tonja Stelly had to be in two places at once. That’s nothing new to her. It’s become a tradition over the past three years, whenever the NBA and NHL schedules collide in just the right way. The Knicks were playing the Portland Trail Blazers inside the world’s most famous arena, Madison Square Garden, that Tuesday. Her son Quentin Grimes, a guard with the Knicks at the time and currently with the Detroit Pistons, had a 7:30 p.m. tipoff. Twenty miles to the east, her son Tyler Myers, a defenseman for the Vancouver Canucks, had a game at the same time, against the New York Islanders in Elmont, N.Y.
The NBA and NHL schedules don’t overlap in an easy way for Tyler and Quentin to see each other play live. “We kind of have to keep tabs on each other from afar,” Tyler said. But Quentin playing in New York to begin his career helped when the Canucks would swing through the city to play the Rangers, Islanders and Devils in succession. Tyler attended one of Quentin’s home games a couple of years ago, and they shared a couple of dinners together. “As you see them mature into adults and find their way, especially since Tyler was gone at such a young age, to see that circle back to them now as adults is pretty special,” Tonja said while fighting back tears. “Pretty special.”
They are an odd couple: Knicks rookie shooting guard Quentin Grimes and his half brother, Tyler Myers, a 13-year NHL veteran defenseman who plays for the Canucks. Myers was born in Houston, but was raised in Calgary with his oil-man father and led the hockey life. He became one of the slickest skaters patrolling the blueline, known for his finesse, even at 6-foot-8. He won the NHL’s Rookie of the Year award in 2010.
Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini is a rich man, but an NBA franchise looks like it might be out of his price range. At least for now. The billionaire, who grew up in East Vancouver and owns both the Canucks and Rogers Arena, spoke about the possibility of bringing an NBA team to Vancouver in an interview with Sportsnet 650 on Thursday. “There’s been some discussions on [bringing an NBA franchise to Vancouver],” Aquilini said. “It’s obvious because we’ve got a building, it’s plug and play. We still have the hoops. We still have the floor. Everything’s there. The locker room and everything is there. We’ve discussed it.”
Marc Stein: Celebrini has extensive experience with the Vancouver Whitecaps of MLS and the NHL's Vancouver Canucks and has long been credited by the Hall of Fame-bound Steve Nash — now a Warriors consultant — for the impact he had on the fitness that enabled Nash to play until nearly 40
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A half-dozen other NBA teams contacted Fatigue Sports citing interest in Readiband. One NFL team that requested anonymity to protect its competitive advantage began using the device this season. Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders and the Canadian men’s national soccer team are also clients. The NHL’s Vancouver Canucks were the first to contact Fatigue Science in 2009, desperate for solutions to sleep issues associated with having the league’s most exhaustive travel schedule. After a couple years of collecting data and implementing schedule changes, the Canucks were so impressed with the results that they purchased the exclusive rights to the technology for three years to prevent other NHL teams from obtaining it. That deal ends after this season and Fatigue Science expects more NHL teams to sign up. “What it allows the team to do is to say, look, how long does it take players to get to sleep after games? How do naps affect their performance? Take all of that, look at the holistic view of the whole team and then they can make smarter decisions to create sleep opportunities,” Byrne said. “Teams can say, ‘we finished this road trip, let’s just fly home.’ But you can look at the sleep patterns and say, you know what, that’s not the smartest thing to do because you’ve got a game two days from now and you’re not going to recover. This allows them to make smarter decisions.”
For the Readiband to provide accurate sleep data, players must wear it, which could be tricky if some might not want to make known their nocturnal habits. Byrne, citing the last five years with the Canucks, said early tangible results typically encourage players to embrace the project: “They’ve changed the team culture so that the players actually are now conscious about how their sleep affects their performance.” “We can really dial in on guys individually,” Holsopple said. “I think if you take a third of the team who’s going to do this thing religiously and live by it, you’re going to see improvement in their recovery and their ability to stabilize their performance day in and day out. If you take the middle third of the team, they’ll do it some, they’ll improve to a certain degree, let’s say maybe 50 percent change in what they do can make a big difference for them. “And then if you get that bottom third, the guys who are just typically resistant to new things, even if you can get them to change 20 to 30 percent, to me that’s a victory in the first year because we’re just trying to change the culture.”
The city already has a NBA ready sports complex in the Rogers Arena, which has a sitting capacity of 19,700 for basketball games. The building housed the Grizzlies prior to their move to Memphis. However, many still question whether the Vancouver market could support the NBA. Attendance was not much of an issue during the franchises first four years in Vancouver, but it significantly declined after the shortened lockout season and the sale to Michael Heisley. Francesco Aquilini, owner of the Vancouver Canucks, are among those that are not entirely sold on the city’s support for the NBA.
Ever since the Grizzlies were up and relocated to Memphis there seems to have been a longing for another NBA franchise in Canada. And up to recently there was that talk of the troubled Sacramento Kings team possibly relocating back to Vancouver. And we have a few Canucks trying to make it happen. A guy by the name of Garret Fergusson has started this online petition to bring the NBA back to Vancouver to help the cause a little.
Responding to questions that have arisen following comments Friday on ESPN Seattle radio that Vancouver is the “most viable” destination should the ownership group of the Kings exhaust their attempts to remain in Sacramento following a failed deal to construct a new arena, Vancouver Canucks and Rogers Arena owner Francesco Aquilini said he is not actively in pursuit of bringing the league back to the city the Grizzlies called home from 1995-96 through 2000-01. While preferring not to address the Sacramento situation directly, Aquilini told The Province on Monday: “I can tell you we don’t have any plans to bring an NBA team to Vancouver.”
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With investor Chris Hansen working to build an arena in Seattle, Vancouver wouldn't seem to be first in line for a relocated franchise, but Bucher said the city has a few things working in its favor. "They have the corporate infrastructure, they have a building that they can readily move into ... they also have a very hot hockey team there currently," he said, referring to the Canucks, who are in first place in the Northwest Division. "It's a place that [the NBA] doesn't want to give up on."
NBA star Steve Nash is as keenly interested in the playoff run of the Vancouver Canucks as any British Columbian, but with a personal connection thrown in. Nash's brother-in-law Manny Malhotra is a Canucks forward currently recovering from a serious eye injury. Nash, a Victoria native and all-star point guard with the Phoenix Suns, was at Rogers Arena for Game 2 of Vancouver's conference final against San Jose. The 37-year-old wants to be in the building again for a Stanley Cup final involving the Vancouver Canucks. "I would definitely hope to make some games," Nash said Tuesday during a conference call. "It would be a big disappointment if they got all the way to the final and I couldn't make any. I'll definitely try to get there.
The Vancouver Canucks forward is scheduled to undergo a surgical procedure less than two weeks after taking a puck to the eye. The NHL team has been mum on the specific nature of the injury and made no announcement, but NBA star Steve Nash sent an update about Malhotra's condition to his Twitter feed on Monday afternoon. "I need my brother in law, Manny Malhotra of the Vancouver Canucks, to have a successful eye surgery tomorrow saving his eye and vision," Nash wrote. Malhotra is married to Nash's sister Joann.
For more than five years, Canucks Sports and Entertainment chairman Francesco Aquilini has eyed the NBA, looking for a portable franchise that could be bought for a bargain and moved to Vancouver. Those sights are now set on the New Orleans Hornets. Sources say Aquilini, whose family owns the NHL’s Canucks but was never involved with basketball’s Vancouver Grizzlies, is inspecting the Hornets, who are being sold by the NBA and could be relocated in the next few years. During an interview this week, commissioner David Stern said Vancouver is one of several markets interested in a relocated NBA franchise, and went out of his way to praise the strong business performance of the Canucks.
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