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Recchi on Vancouver: “22 years...The most arrogant team I played against”

Mark Recchi

Boston Bruins’ Mark Recchi during Game 6 of a second-round NHL playoff hockey series against the Philadelphia Flyers, Wednesday, May 12, 2010, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Matt Slocum

Ex-Bruins forward Mark Recchi appeared on Boston sports talk radio today, discussing last year’s Stanley Cup victory and what he thinks of the B’s this season.

Oh yeah, Recchi also ripped the Vancouver Canucks to shreds.

In speaking with “Gresh & Zo” on 98.5 the Sports Hub, the Wrecking Ball slammed the team Boston defeated in the Cup final.

"[In] 22 years they are the most arrogant team I played against and the most hated team I’ve ever played against,” Recchi said. “I couldn’t believe their antics, their falling and diving. It was very frustrating, but at the same time as the series wore on we knew we were getting to them and we knew our physical play and our skating, I think it caught them off guard a little bit.”

There are two ways of looking at Recchi’s comments. The first is “no big surprise” -- the Bruins and Canucks totally despised each other by series’ end. Also, being retired allows Recchi to speak more freely than if he was still a Bruin (and he was pretty outspoken as a Bruin to begin with.)

But there’s also a “really, he said that?” angle -- mostly because of Recchi’s standing in British Columbia. Born and raised in Kamloops, he played his junior hockey with the WHL’s Blazers (a team he now owns). He was named Kamloops’ Male Athlete of the 20th Century and even had a street named after him.

Kamloops is real Canucks country -- something Recchi knows all about.

“We all grew up Canuck fans [in Kamloops],” Recchi told the Vancouver Sun back in June. “I grew up watching Stan Smyl, King Richard [Brodeur] and it was exciting when that group of guys got to the finals [1982]. I was a big Vancouver fan.”

Keep in mind Recchi was only speaking about last year’s Canucks team as the most arrogant/hated ever. And he did appear on a Boston-centric radio show which, as Milan Lucic showed earlier in the week, doesn’t exactly strive for objective coverage.

That said, his comments only confirm that Vancouver is the NHL’s most despised team -- by a longshot.