This weekend’s notebook touches on the three Canucks games played over the week, as well as Bettman butting in on city council dealings and a concrete reason as to why no sports team should ever go to the Donald Trump White House.

Expand on that, please

After a massive comeback victory against one of the best teams in the Western Conference, the L.A. Kings, the Canucks looked absolutely toothless in the third period against the expansion Vegas Golden Knights. Regardless of what Travis Green and Sidney Crosby will tell you, the Golden Knights are not a good hockey team.

David Perron, while a perfectly good veteran who has shown the ability to score in bunches, is not a world class forward, and that’s exactly what he looked like against the Canucks. In a game in which Vegas played a very tight defensive game (which they were able to do because Luca Sbisa was out of the lineup with an injury), the Canucks weren’t able to do anything.

Some might say it was a disappointing loss for a team that hopes to make the playoffs. That would be the nice way of putting it.

It’s not all bad

But, honestly, that was the only bad effort from the team in the three games they played on the week. The win against L.A. was massive, and the loss against St. Louis was a hard fought game in which the Canucks got outplayed but not by a significant margin. It very, very easily could have gone the other way.

Gary Bettman wades in again

This is a thing Gary Bettman actually said: “And I’m not weighing in to the political scene in Calgary any more. Not that I weighed in to begin with, all I did was answer questions as truthfully as possible and people didn’t like my answers. I’m sorry.”

You weighed in, bro.

Are we really doing this again? In Ottawa’s case, a downtown arena is pretty badly needed, but how about those folks in Kanata who decided to move out to the middle of the nowhere because that’s where the Senators are located? I don’t suppose those nice people are getting any mortgage breaks. There never should have been an arena out there to begin with, but now the fans are the only ones being punished.

Meanwhile, dude is talking about bringing a team to Houston. Cool. 

Ty Oh My

Giants forward Ty Ronning—son of former Canucks fan favourite Cliff—is on an absolute tear. The diminutive sniper has scored a goal in each of the past 10 games and now has 23 in as many games this season.

He’s making the New York Rangers look very smart for nabbing him with their seventh-round pick in the 2016 draft. If the Burnaby, B.C. native goes on to have a productive NHL career, it would be a bad look for the Canucks. Not that many people are seeing his magic up close.

The Giants’ attendance woes have worsened, even as the team has taken a massive step forward this year. Hmm, maybe attendance isn’t purely based on whether the team is good? Maybe the Giants shouldn’t have moved out of Vancouver? Interesting.

Don’t go to the White House

So this happened. 

Yeah, seriously. As if sports teams didn’t have enough reasons not to visit a leader that very explicitly doesn’t respect them or their rights as individuals.

The same goes for women, who couldn’t possibly have felt like the current president respects them and now have yet another reason to feel that way.

Turning the page

In happier news that still relates to figures in sport being honoured, the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame has announced a brand new, temporary feature entitled Sports Page: The Exhibit. It highlights the 40th anniversary since the launch of Sports Page, the sports television program that ran from 1977 to 2001 on CKVU and from 2001 to 2005 on CHEK.

Several notable alumni will be featured in the exhibit, including Don Taylor, Barry MacDonald, Dave Randorf, John Shorthouse, Scott Rintoul and Blake Price.