page_title: Vancouver Canucks
section_title: 1982 Stanley Cup run
hierarchical_section_title: Vancouver Canucks / History / 1970–1982: Early years / 1982 Stanley Cup run
caption_attribution_description: English: Statue of Roger Neilson outside of Rogers Arena during the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, June 2011.
context_page_description: The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. They compete in the National Hockey League as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The Canucks play their home games at Rogers Arena, formerly known as General Motors Place and nicknamed The Garage, which has an official capacity of 18,910. Travis Green is the head coach and Jim Benning is the general manager.
  The Canucks joined the league in 1970 as an expansion team along with the Buffalo Sabres. In its NHL history, the team has advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals three times, losing to the New York Islanders in 1982, the New York Rangers in 1994 and the Boston Bruins in 2011. They have won the Presidents' Trophy in back-to-back seasons as the team with the league's best regular season record in the 2010–11 and 2011–12 seasons. They won three division titles as a member of the Smythe Division from 1974 to 1993, and seven titles as a member of the Northwest Division from 1998 to 2013. The Canucks, along with fellow expansion team, the Buffalo Sabres, are the two oldest teams to have never won the Stanley Cup.
context_section_description: The Canucks made their first significant playoff impact in the 1982 playoffs. In their previous five playoff appearances, the team had failed to win a single series. Though the Canucks finished three games under a .500 win percentage in the 1981–82 regular season, they began gaining momentum by finishing the campaign on a nine-game unbeaten streak. Meanwhile, Smyl emerged as the club's leader, replacing McCarthy as captain after the latter was sidelined with an injury late in the season (he would retain that position for a team-record eight years). Continuing their success in the playoffs, the Canucks made the Stanley Cup Finals with a combined 11–2 record in series against the Calgary Flames, Los Angeles Kings, and Chicago Black Hawks. Despite having a losing regular season record, Vancouver had home ice advantage in the first series, having finished second in the Smythe Division to the Edmonton Oilers. The Canucks also had home ice advantage during the second round series against the Kings, who upset the Oilers in the first round.
  Late in Game 2 of the Conference Finals in Chicago, Vancouver Interim Head Coach Roger Neilson, frustrated with what he felt was the poor officiating in the game, placed a white towel on the end of a hockey stick and held it up in a gesture mocking surrender (waving the white flag). The players on the Canucks' bench followed suit. When the series shifted to Vancouver for the next two games, the team's fans cheered them on by waving white towels above their heads. The habit stuck, becoming an original Canuck fan tradition now seen across the league and in other sports, known as "Towel Power." The Canucks proceeded to win the series in five games, making it to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in their history.
  Entering the Finals against the New York Islanders, the Canucks were the first team from Western Canada to play for the Stanley Cup in 56 years, when the Victoria Cougars reached the 1926 Stanley Cup Finals. It also marked the first ever coast-to-coast Stanley Cup Finals. Competing against the Islanders – the Stanley Cup champions of the previous two years, who had finished with 41 points more than Vancouver in the regular season standings – Vancouver took the first game to overtime. In the final minute of the extra period, Canucks defenceman and fan favourite Harold Snepsts gave the puck away with an errant pass from behind his net, leading to a Mike Bossy goal. Like the first game, the Canucks held a 3–2 lead after the first two periods in the second game, but were not able to keep their lead, and lost 6–4. The Canucks were unable to complete their Cinderella run and were swept, losing their next two games by 3–0 and 3–1 scores. The 1982 playoffs proved to be the last year in which Vancouver won a playoff series until 1992.
caption: A statue of coach Roger Neilson outside of Rogers Arena, commemorating the 1982 Stanley Cup run.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D90", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:06:03 09:36:04", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "870", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6954", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:06:01 14:39:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:06:01 14:39:52", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1120723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "126797/20000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "19/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "22", "EXIF SubSecTime": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4288", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2848", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "33", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}