The Sedin twins are like my baby

I’m not 100 per cent certain, but I think that my baby is very good looking. I know I’m biased, but I’d like to think that I’d be able to admit it if he looked like a little gargoyle.

When he first came out he was an off-putting grey colour, but that went away within minutes. He also had a massive conehead — it actually freaked me out a little it was so long and pointy — but that amazingly was gone within eight hours.

Since then he’s been pretty darn adorable, in my opinion. I’m a little surprised because I’d say that most babies aren’t particularly comely. Many have blotches, acne or birth marks on their faces that recede over time. Some take a while to grow into their features. Others just have the bad luck of having ugly parents.

It’s not just me, however, who says my baby is adorable. Complete strangers say it too. Often they’ll see me and my wife approaching with our baby and they’ll offer a token, “Aw, isn’t that adorable,” before they actually see his face. When he comes into full view, however, they’ll take a breath in and say, “Wow, he really is a cutie,” as they take a step back and sneak a longer look, their mouths open a half inch more than is generally deemed acceptable.

So how are the Sedins like my baby? I think they’re pretty adorable too. There’s a Sportsnet commercial that airs in Vancouver with the two of them skating towards a camera in a darkened arena before they power-stop simultaneously while shooting identical confident gazes at the camera.

That commercial always makes me smile. To me they look like two big babies dressed up like hockey players. I don’t mean that in an insulting, “they’re helpless, puny crybabies” kind of way. I mean that they seem honest and pure and earnest and they look like they’d smell nice. They’ve also shown admirable perseverance in carving and maintaining their awesome red chinstrap-goatee beards for so long.

Ryan Kesler may be the heart of the Canucks, Roberto Luongo the spine and Kevin Bieksa the rectum, but Daniel and Henrik are the team’s steely and focused blue eyes.

The two of them have actually helped me grow to at first not despise, then tolerate, then perhaps even like the Canucks a little bit. As a kid growing up on the prairies, my allegiance was secured by the Calgary Flames when a tiny man named Theo Fleury went five-hole on Grant Fuhr to topple the mighty Edmonton Oilers at a time when Alberta hockey was the best in the world.

When I wasn’t ignoring the easily-forgettable Canucks of the 1980s I was growing to hate the Canucks of the 1990s and early 2000s. I moved to Vancouver in 2004 at a time when the offensively-inept Canucks of Marcus Naslund, Todd Bertuzzi, Matt Cooke and Ed Jovanovski were either boring you to death or sucker-punching you to paralysis. They were so easy to hate. The twins were there but they were a cute little sideshow.

Now the Sedins are the cute main attraction and I find it almost impossible to hate this team. Believe me, I’ve tried.

I’ve even resolved to make the ultimate fan sacrifice and let my kid cheer for a different team than me if he so chooses (the Sutterville Flames aren’t offering much to cheer about these days anyway). If my son chooses the Canucks, I won’t fight him. Who could, what with that adorable face of his.


Photo Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press
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 Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press