For the all the talk of what if and if only, there hasn’t been much hope of post-season hockey in Vancouver for some time now; high profile injuries and fair to middling rosters have plagued both the Giants and Canucks all season. At the Coliseum, the G-Men put up a generous fight during the middle part of the season, but a disastrous start has been mirrored by a terrible stretch run to put them a dozen points out of a playoff spot with only a handful of games remaining.

At these high levels of sport, it’s hard to get in the right mindset to compete when the playoffs are off the table. That said, the Giants had given the Western Conference leading Kelowna Rockets all they could handle in back-to-back games just a week prior to Friday’s game. They led early and often in Kelowna before succumbing 6-5 to a late comeback, and were full marks for a 4-2 win over those same Rockets just 24 hours later here in Vancouver. Somehow, they rode Jake Morrissey to a shootout win over the Kamloops Blazers in their third game in three nights last Sunday.

Still, even after picking up four out of a possible six points on the weekend, the Giants sat a full nine points out of that final playoff spot.

This week has finally seen some relief from those hope beyond hope voices begging for a playoff berth. The Giants dropped three straight games, and management put a stop to Tyler Benson’s 80% experiment. He had come back from a lower body injury, hoping to spur that playoff push — and put up a goal and an assist in his two games in the lineup — before it was decided that he should be shut down for the season. Good for the Giants, and good for Benson. Sure, it’s a drag not to see this kid play on any given night, but avoiding unnecessary strain is just better both for his short-term health and long-term career prospects.

Ty Ronning has cooled considerably since his star turn in the CHL Top Prospects Game, but to be fair he must be tired having carried the team on his diminutive shoulders for much of the season. After just two points in 24 games last year, he’s one goal shy of 30 for the season.  His 53 points are good for second on the team (behind Chase Lang), and he’s almost certainly going to follow in his father’s footsteps in becoming an NHL regular.

There are rumours the Giants might move out to the Langley Event Centre next season, but it’s this writer’s opinion that any talks between majority owner Ron Toigo and the LEC people are solely a negotiating tactic. Dipping attendance at the Pacific Coliseum over the past few years has as much to do with a lack of on-ice success as it does to the transit-poor East Van location. Langley offers even less public transport, fewer people to draw from and far less (albeit free) parking.

The Junior A Langley Rivermen average just over 1,000 people per game, and the Vancouver Stealth are in the 3,700 range. The LEC has a capacity of 5,276, which numbers more than 10,000 fewer seats than the Coliseum. Why is this important, when the Giants are lucky to get crowds of 5K plus these days? Because Toigo loves high profile events — it’s no secret he wants to bring back the Memorial Cup and World Junior tournaments, for example. Can you see national television or international sponsors excited over Langley as the host for these events?

There are three other options that would make sense for the Giants, both to grow the brand and serve the game:

1. South Vancouver is going to be booming for a long time to come. Specifically, Marine Drive around Cambie Street is on an existing transit line, has waterfront views and  offers convenient airport access. There are numerous development options for the cagey Toigo to peruse; shopping, entertainment and utilities are all pretty much an open book in that area right now. Air-drop a 7,000-seat rink in there, and you’ve got yourself a new high density corridor from the water all the way past QE Park to Oakridge.
2. Rogers Arena could still use another high quality tenant. The Canucks might be a hard sell, and this was a non-starter under the previous regime. Trevor Linden is a big WHL guy going back to his days in Medicine Hat, however. It wouldn’t be the only such agreement, even in the west. The Hitmen share the Saddledome with the Flames; the Oil Kings play at the Oilers’ home arena, Rexall Place. The downtown rink would be perfect for Toigo’s fancy schmancy tourney proposals, don’tcha think?
3.  If the team is on the move outside of the city limits, don’t be surprised if Toigo uses the LEC to leverage new talks with the fastest growing community in Canada. Yes, the debacle in Abbotsford, where city council bore financial and political brunts of a bad deal with the AHL’s Heat, has Surrey balking at a public-private partnership to build a new WHL-friendly arena near the Scott Road SkyTrain station. But as Ewen says in his piece, the city is open to further proposals. Toigo has deep pockets, and his connections in this city run deep. A smart run would be to get TransLink in on the deal — what better way to bump the public transport image than to build the hockey arena right onto the rapid transit line?