Canucks under heat from fans after raising overhead scoreboard before game 7

Vancouver, B.C.--Wow, what could possibly be added to the list of trouble and heartache that the city is facing these days? First, the local hockey team makes a valiant, grueling run at Lord Stanley's Cup only to fall in the final game of a war-like series. Second, the loss, a 4-0 drubbing, sets off some of the worst rioting and looting the city--and all of Canada--has ever seen.

These are truly (temporary) dark days for the world-class city that hosted the planet during the infinitely successful Winter Olympics not quite a year and a half ago. However, there may be darker days ahead before the sun shines again off the Straight of Georgia. Hockey fans are again irate, loaded with questions and the Royal Mounted Canadian Police have been placed on high alert.

Yesterday, it was reported that the Vancouver Canucks front office, after extended clandestine meetings, requested that the Rogers Arena overhead scoreboard and and its accompanying jumbo video screen be raised up fifteen feet before last Wednesday's start of game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Yeah, so what? You're probably asking yourself why would the team do this and how could this possibly upset the nearly two million metro area residents and the Province's 4.5 million inhabitants? What does the height of a scoreboard have to do with anything?

With the exception of a few monster truck events and a few circus appearances, the scoreboard, which was updated in 2007, has been hanging at the same height since the facility opened in 1995. Why adjust it now?

The team raised the scoreboard using the elaborate cable-pulley system mounted in the rigid roof trusses to avoid damage to the flashing, blinking system in the "slight chance that the Bruins won game 7."

"One word," said Rogers Arena director of facilities management Gabe McNulty. "Chara!"

Zdeno Chara is the captain of the Boston Bruins, a player who stands 8 foot 9 inches without skates and 11 feet 4 inches with skates. The Canucks were so paranoid about Chara winning the game and, ultimately, raising the iconic Stanley Cup high above his head and smashing it into the scoreboard.

"If Boston and Chara won the cup, he would have raised the priceless, silver trophy high above his head and banged it into the $10 million scoreboard," said McNulty. "We had to take precautions against such a situation arising. It's just unfortunate that our wonderful, passionate fans found out about our plan."

"This is bogus, eh," said one fan, still wearing a bandanna over his face a week after the CBD riots ended. "I love the Canucks, but they were basically saying that the Bruins were going to win that game by raising the scoreboard. Totally bogus."

Rumors have also circulated that the NHL requested the scoreboard be raised so that the Cup itself was not damaged when Chara took hold of Mr Stanley.

"That is preposterous," said Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner. "We don't delve into how teams conduct specific features of their individual home arenas. And, it should also be noted, that we did not ask Chara to only lift the Cup up halfway. We did not tell him to 'cradle it at his waist or get on his knees before raising it.' I think I read that on a blog somewhere."

Back on the east coast it was a different story. During the packed Bruins victory parade on Saturday, Logan International Airport halted flights for one hour in the afternoon in anticipation of Chara raising the cup on the players' stage in the heart of Beantown. "He's a tall son-of-bitch and I'm not going to deny altering flight patterns because of him. This is passenger safety we're talking about. Flights coming in over downtown would have had to negotiate a silver cup piercing through the clouds in order to land at the airport. We wanted to avoid this at all costs," said Logan's director of flight routing Danny O'Leary Shaughnessy McBride.

Chara has kept a great sense of humor through "Height Gate" (named by an MIT mechanical engineering student), but just wants it all to be over. "I get it, I'm tall," said Chara. "I was very conscience of not hitting the scoreboard out in Vancouver and, today during the parade, I would have lowered the cup if I saw a plane coming in. I hate that I am causing all of this controversy."