As a kid, I loved this guy. To me, he was the same style player as me and would use his quick jump and speed to get ahead of other players and stay there. It looked effortless to him. I’ve worn number 10 on the back of nearly every hockey sweater I’ve worn because of this guy.

Simply put, Vancouver owes a lot of it’s success and fans to this guy. He’s a Hall of Fame player, multi-Richard winner, three-time first team all star, and led the team to many wins and playoff victories (sadly, no cups). He should have his number retired because he was always a force that made the ‘Nucks dangerous to play against and exciting to watch throughout the ’90s.

(With all due respect to Markus Naslund, Trevor Linden and Stan Smyl – Pavel Bure is the only Canuck (whose career has concluded) who has embodied the kind of greatness on the ice that it takes to have your number taken out of circulation.. in my opinion a team with zero cups in forty plus years should not have four numbers retired and if I had to pick just one it’d be Bure’s #10.

The other three were to varying degrees good players and great citizens, and Naslund’s high water mark in the regular season truly was at the top of the league, but storied franchises have scads of stories like theirs going back through history. To me retiring those three jerseys says more about what the Canucks franchise was – ie. thoroughly mediocre – than about what they aspire to be.

But.. not everyone thinks retiring a jersey should be as rare as I do.)

Anyway. On the ice, Bure’s performance merits a spot in the Hall of Fame and in the rafters at Rogers Arena. To a large extent that’s all that matters.

Re: “(ie: he was apparently happy because that 60th goal was a conditional clause in his forthcoming contract)”

“When you’re chewing on life’s gristle,
don’t grumble, give a whistle,
And this’ll help things turn out for the best.

Always look on the bright side of life”

No fans know the true story as to why he demanded a trade. As blomfeld mentioned, it may have been as early as 93 that he was thinking/talking about it. From what I’ve heard (and what I choose the believe) it is because of Mark Messier’s and Mike Keenan’s hostile takeover of that dressing room and Trevor Linden’s subsequent banishment. If I’m correct in my beliefs, than I don’t think Bure can be blamed for wanting out.

I’m in full support of this and will be watching his number go up to the rafters with tears in my eyes, no doubt. Not as many tears as when #16 went up, but more than when #19 went.

Pavel Bure was without a doubt the most “explosive and exciting” Canuck to ever play. And yet I’ll always remember him jumping up & down in “solo” celebration after scoring his 60th goal during a humiliating 8-1 loss to the LA Kings (ie: he was apparently happy because that 60th goal was a conditional clause in his forthcoming contract). His time in Vancouver was simply both glorious and tragic. However if I was a Canucks fan, then I’d probably frown upon his number being retired like this.

Yes, numbers can be retiered primarily becuase a player is loved by the fans. Mike Richter is a great example of this. Despite what a lot of my fellow Rangers fans would say, he was a very run of the mill goalie. He had a couple good years, but was also prone to giveing up soft goals in bunches. Yet he was loved by Rangers fans thanks largely to how he played in the 1994 playoffs (funny enough, the highlight of which was his penelty shot save on Pavel Bure in Game 4 of the finals), so his number was retired despite not doing anything all that great in his career.

It can also work the other way though. Pavel Bure is one of the best goal scorers ever in the NHL (he has the 3rd highest goals per game average). If not for his bad knees and other injury issues, he very well could have come close to Gretzkys all time goals number. Thats why hes in the Hall of Fame, and thats why I can see an argument to retire his jersey.