So I am supposed to be ashamed of being a Canucks fan now? The memo arrived late but take a small trip out of BC with your Orca jersey and see how many times you can get heckled. When did this happen? Why did this happen? Some say it all began in the playoffs with the Torres hit on Seabrook but the seeds were sown much earlier in the season.
Rivalries between NHL teams are common-place but it has always felt like a bit of fun. Hockey just got serious. Genuine hatred for a team and fans is undeserved and Canucks fans feel the hate. When the comments go from “Canucks Suck” to “You’re A ####”, you know the tide has changed.
What were the factors behind this hatred of the team from BC?
Maxim Lapierre
Sure, signing a notoriously hated player a few months before the playoffs didn’t help Vancouver’s cause but should inking a hard-hitting centreman be influenced by the Hockey world’s opinion of him? What really matters is that he can play hockey and his presence after Malhotra’s eye injury proved a great addition, all for the cost of Joel Perrault and a 3rd round pick.
Raffi Torres
The type of player that your team loves and everybody else loves to hate. A real gritty skates that makes up with his lack of huge size with determination and aggressiveness. Gained infamy mainly due to the timing of the high hit on Jordan Eberle, 3 weeks after the Chara/Pacioretty incident in Montreal and was one of the first to be made an example of by the NHL with a 4 week suspension. By no means an angel, his style of play landed him 78 penalty minutes last season (28 in the playoffs) but the risk was worth the reward for the Canucks in 2011 with Torres becoming a major influence on the 3rd line. Another huge hit on Seabrook in the Chicago series during game 3 was deemed less serious by the NHL and remained unpunished, further adding to his hard-hitting reputation.
Rome Hit
No one likes to see a player lying motionless on ice but was this late hit deserving of the highest ever suspension in the history of the Stanley Cup finals series? A 4 game suspension which took Rome out of the entire 7 games series. Remember Chara’s lengthy zero game suspension for a worse hit on Pacioretty? Also not forgetting the retaliatory McGinn board hit on Rome, again for no suspension.
Diving
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WigPio6Wk7Y
Yes, there was some “diving” or play-acting by some Canucks players against Boston. Fans should be reminded that this was the Stanley Cup Final series. A 7 game heavyweight matchup where teams do anything they can to win. The diving was not excessive and watching the entire Canucks playoff run, the Vancouver team was definitely not the only club using these tactics (see video above). Diving occurs in all sports and a simple hockey dive search on YouTube shows that the NHL has to take a stand on all 30 NHL teams to resolve this issue, not just the Canucks.
The Bite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YsCHbg6B1k
The most over-played incident in Hockey. Bergeron puts his hands near Burrows, who in the heat of the moment takes a tame bite. A total nothing incident, more to annoy the Boston player rather than to cause injury. The American media can take a lot of the credit for this, as it was a non-factor in Vancouver and a world shattering event elsewhere. If anything, the incident provided a spark to Boston and provided no reason for the world to hate Vancouver, especially after Burrows had concentrated much more on hockey and less on agitating and chirping throughout the 2010/2011 season.
Cup Loss/Choke
What a difference a game makes. Had the Canucks won game 7, what would have happened? The question all Canucks fans ask themselves. Surely Canada would have celebrated with them. The riots may not have occurred. The Boston bandwagon would certainly be less full. In the end the Canucks lost their third chance at winning a Stanley Cup. Is choking in a big game a reason to hate a team? Luongo didn`t play his best in game 7 but he got us there, that is more than the goaltenders of 28 other teams can say. As far as the Sedins choking goes, Vancouver wouldn`t have been anywhere near the SCF without them and while they are not the `tough guys`of the NHL, most other teams would give up a lot to bring the twins to their city.
Riots
This had nothing to do with hockey other than an NHL game getting people massed together at the same period of time. The riots were pre-planned by a group of idiots, none of whom were true Canucks or Hockey fans. As shown by the clean up efforts, Canucks fans love their home-town, which is still ranked joint 4th overall as the most livable city in the world and the highest in North America.
The Stanley Cup final series was an America vs Canada affair. The Canucks never expected the support of US fans, minus any anti-Boston groups, however most would have expected Canada to rally behind the BC team. Traditional rivals, Maple Leafs and Flames fans were never going to be cheering too loudly but the neutral hockey loving Canadian fans should have been on Vancouver’s side.
A lot of the current hate towards the Canucks has to be due to society hating the best and cheering for the underdog. The Canucks were undoubtedly the best team in the NHL last season, Presidents Trophy winners (by 10 points) and Stanley Cup runners-up, showing that being the best is the easiest way to be hated in the Hockey world.
Your homerism sickens me. Did you know the St. Louis Blues won the Presidents Trophy in 2000? Or that the Philadelphia Flyers lost to the Edmonton Oilers in the 1987 Stanley Cup Finals?
My point is that NOBODY remembers the losers. I don’t care what place you finished in the regular season – where you played against mediocre teams like Edmonton, Minnesota, Calgary and Colorado five games per season – or that you lost in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. If you don’t win the big game, you become nothing but an asterisk. A side-joke at the bar. What irritates me is that Canucks fans act like their team is the Yankees of hockey, only with zero Stanley Cups and three Finals appearances in fourty years (compared to seven World Series victories in eleven appearances in the same time span for the Yankees).
The fact that people say the Bruins were big and bad, sure, you have your arguments. But that’s part of the game. The consistent whining, diving, and – although a one time occurance – biting makes the Canucks a team that clubs love to hate. The late hits. The senseless arguments made by their fans, evidenced in the below comments, is a testament to the lack of hockey knowledge the Canuck fanbase displays on a regular basis. And add that in to the list of things in the article, and you have a classless, albeit talented, hockey club. All the more reason to hate the Vancouver.
I don’t think that success makes a team hated, I think it just polarizes and magnifies the feelings of people about a team. I think you truly find out how you feel about a team when they’re in the spotlight, and for the Canucks, a lot of people just found out that they hate the Canucks, and a fair few people have offered reasons why this might be, and you have listed a few of them above. What I’m not clear on is what your point is. Is it that you feel that the Canucks are hated out of pure fluke? You say that people hate the best, but outside of Vancouver, not too many people hate those lovable, cuddly bears from Beantown. Here’s why I found myself ecstatic at the outcome of the playoffs:
I live on Vancouver Island but I grew up in Calgary and am a very devoted Flames fan. I had a front row seat to the playoff run last year and couldn’t help but cheer for whomever the Canucks played against. For me, I never really cared about the Canucks when I lived in Calgary, but it was when I moved out here in high school that I really developed a strong hatred for your team. The biggest issue for me is that, based on what I’ve seen and heard in my time here, from people I know and from the media, a very large portion of the team’s following does not deserve a cup.
This is a following that outwardly denied ‘really actually caring about the Canucks’ during those lean years sans playoffs, and yet managed to produce jerseys as soon as they were over. Fair enough, likely most fans would say that these aren’t real fans, but after the Canucks lost in the second round of the playoffs a couple of years ago, I listened to fans on the radio discussing all day long whether their teams only bona fide superstars ought to be re-signed. They got to the second round, and wanted to turn over their roster. The problem, of course, is that if you don’t follow your team through the bad years, you lose a lot of credibility as a fan base during the good ones.
With regards to the diving. Yeah, every team has their moments. But this is a far cry from saying that everyone takes it to the extreme that the Canucks do. You are perfectly right in saying that everyone seems to associate the Canucks with diving. I fail to see this as mere coincidence. Whenever someone comes within an inch of Luongo, it looks like he’s been shot.
Frankly, the flat out denial that the Rome hit was dirty, or the claim that the fact that it was the finals should have lessened the suspension antagonizes me as well. Personally, I don’t think it was as dirty as the Torres hit on Seabrook (which wasn’t suspended, of course), but inconsistency was an issue all season, so I don’t put much stock in comparisons with other incidents; the fact is, he broke several laws which made him suspended. And really, if his suspension should have been lessened because each game missed was more important, then by the same argument, the suspension should have been lengthened because the games Horton was forced to miss were more important. It’s moot, as far as I’m concerned.
This is obviously an article from a Vancouver fan. You can’t say people are jealous of you because you’re the best because….. they’re not. I’d put several teams in front of them including a healthy Pittsburg and the obvious one, the Bruins. Rome’s hit wasn’t legal due to the fact that it was a late hit which would be regarded as interference but he also made Horton’s head the principal point of contact and left his skates. A four game suspension was fair, it’s unfortunate that it had to happen during the Stanley Cup Finals. In Boston, we don’t believe Vancouver fans started the riots or were even involved. We feel that most Canucks would have avoided contact and ran for help like the Sedin twins. As for Lapierre and Torres? They are tough hockey players I’d appreciate more if they were in Boston….. except for the fact that they are typically dirty players with no ability to back up their constant play of questionable legality. As for diving, I could just as easily post a video of 5 second clips of Vancouver diving but I think it would max out at 10 minutes before I get a chance to post them all. Lets be fair and just say that no one dives like Montreal. In the end, it was the bite, the Sedin’s wining to the refs, Rome’s late hit, Luongo’s big mouth, Lapierre being Lapierre, Torres being Torres, and the diving that lead the majority of the hockey world to hate you. With all Boston’s faults that you can bring up, when it comes down to hating you or us more, you made it just too easy.
It’s fans like you and your comments that make Boston fans the most embarrasing in all of hockey.
Call me crazy here, but I think burning your own city is a little more embarrassing… Maybe the fans didn’t strike the matches, but they were sure to cheer it on while they captured it with their phones.
If you actually watched Vancouver news – it wasn’t Vancouver Fans that did the rioting – it was the Vancouver Fans that did the cleanup the next morning.
Yeah, I’m sure the Vancouver news would tell it like it is. Haha. Go on YouTube and watch all the actual footage of fans in jerseys filming and screaming and egging everyone on. At some point you need to take responsibility for your actions as fans. Maybe they weren’t doing the physical burning and looting in some cases, but ultimately encouraged this behavior to go on and continue. Props to the people who came out and cleaned the next day, but the damage was done.
Anyone who thinks those werent “Vancouver fans” is only fooling themselves. Yes, there were certainly some that were only there to cause trouble but its obvious that a large majority of the people were indeed Vancouver fans. Vancouver media outlets only said that to try and disguise what happened in an attempt to save the cities reputation.
Thank you for litterally offering no argument, not saying one word to counter any point I’ve made, and essentially providing the worst rebuttal mankind has ever seen. You called me embarrassing and didn’t disprove anything I said. What’s embarrassing is the majority of this article and you’re reply to my response.
I think the author downplays the entitlement issue too much. Human beings have a visceral reaction to people who carry themselves as entitled, especially when in the mass view that sense of entitlement is not earned. From the French Revolution, to the spoiled rich kid we all knew in school, people react negatively to those that carry themselves as entitled to something, without necessarily earning it.
Vancouver both fans and media, for a number of reasons came off more entitled to the Cup, as if it were a coronation, rather than a triumph. And that irked most people. Everyone knows that the Stanley Cup is earned, not bestowed. Even the Oilers and Islanders dynasties did not take winning the Cup for granted when they were on their run. So to act any different angers the non-partisan fan of the sport.
All of the reasons the author points to are just the rationalizations for this primal reaction to hating the entitled.
I am a Bruins fan and season ticket holder. I happened to be in Seattle for Game 2 of the SCF, the only Bruins fan in a bar full of Canucks fans. I sat quietly, watching the game drinking beer, and any conversations I had were reserved observations not impassioned rhetoric meant to antagonize. When the Bruins scored, I cheered a little but got ready for the next whistle. When Vancouver scored, I just looked despondent. When Burroughs won the game, I was more dejected than angry, because I knew the history the Bruins had with being down 0-2 in a series (the Montreal Round 1 series not withstanding). What got me was that only one Canucks fan said “good game.” The rest saw my spoked B and felt the need to taunt. This caused me to seethe. Politely I said, ‘The series is not over yet’ with as much bravado as I could, and then left. Later I was at a concert and there was a large group of Canuck fans passing around an inflatable Cup like they’d won the series instead of just a game.
That’s the entitlement I’m talking about. And that is why I think for most fans who weren’t Canucks or Bruins fans, Vancouver losing was satisfying. Especially in Canada. Don’t act like you’ve won it, until the Commissioner is handing you The Cup.
“The Canucks were undoubtedly the best team in the NHL last season…”
Yeah. Sure. I mean… except for that time they didn’t win the Cup.
+ Luongo totally eats it.
“If you think the Bruins were involved in “a number of bench clearing brawls”, you should take in a few more highlights around the league. There was NO bench clearing brawls in the NHL at all. Sure there was a few fight filled games with Montreal, but that is a part of a rivalry between two teams who hate each other”
You are correct bench clearing was the wrong choice of words. The correct description would be “fight filled”. Last year the Bruins were 2nd in the league in fights with 55. The Canucks were 18th with 25 fights. I recall a Bruin-Star game with 4 fights in the first 3 seconds of the game. In one game Thomas skated the length of the ice to take on Carey Price, that was a mistake. Montreal was far down in number of fights. The Bruins led by Thornton, Campbell and Marchand, delight in being compared with the old “Big Bad Bruin” label, yet had everyone cheering for them. If this is the way the NHL wants to go they should come out and say so, and not pretend they are trying to clean up the game. They have become very selective and careful not to take this crap out of the game, and actually appear to encourage it, as they could take fighting out of the game or severally reduce it if they really wanted to.
Being from Edmonton and watching the woeful Oilers last season, I was an admitted Canuck bandwagon jumper at the start of the playoffs: Canada’s team.
My attitude quickly changed after watching the first rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. To make a long story short, the diving, biting, bitching combined with a laughable performance from the Sedins made me sick to watch such a deplorable brand of hockey. By the finals i had developed an almost hatred for the Nucks you can’t help but root for the Bruins and their balls-out hard nose “Canadian” brand of hockey.
If I want to see milky eyed whiners flopping and diving I’d watching intenternational soccer matches. That’s why everyone east of Surrey hates you. Enjoy your Capri Sun and orange slices as you consolation prize. It’s a man’s game to win the cup.
Why do I really hate the nucks? It’s not because your team is so skilled, and has great chemistry. I really envy your team for those things. What I hate is that despite the amount of talent on your team, you play the game like a bunch a cheating thugs. Your team has all the pieces to become a dynasty during this decade. Basketball fans will remember the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s. Except for Dennis Rodman those teams were class acts all the way, and even though they were so utterly dominant I’ll always think fondly of them because they played the game the right way, they were better, and worked hard to win. Right now the Canucks are better than any other team out there, IMO, by a long shot. You should have fans all of North America, but you don’t because of how you play the game. Lose the “out to get us” attitude and stop with the thuggery and diving, and I promise you that hockey watching 12 year olds everywhere will be wearing Kesler and Sedin and maybe even Luongo on their back.
“The riots were pre-planned by a group of idiots, none of whom were true Canucks or Hockey fans.”
Ok, look, I understand that the people who sparked the riots were in the minority of Vancouverites. Maybe they even were suburbans who came to the city, heady with the thought of phat lewts. They probably would’ve rioted, win OR lose. But to claim that they were neither Canucks fans nor hockey fans? C’mon, already. (They’re Canadian, there’s no way they’re not at least hockey fans.) Maybe they stole and put on those $300 jerseys when they were rioting?
Every fanbase has its share of a-hole fans. It might be a bandwagoner; it might be the guy who watches every game at the corner bar and becomes and obnoxious drunk; it might be the bitter 20-yr season ticket holder who is a totally nice guy except when his team loses. But unless every single rioter was interviewed and says “I never supported the Canucks before tonight!”, well, the fans and the team both have to admit that while these select few do not necessarily represent the fan base as a whole, they’re a poor representation of the rest of the fans, and then… say they’re disappointed in those people, and move on.
Unfortunately, people have long memories, and no matter how much good news comes out of Vancouver, it’ll be a while before it stops being colored with “…but you guys rioted after the 2011 Stanley Cup.”
I love the claims that none of the rioters were Canucks fans, who are nothing but class. Was it also a bunch of non-hockey fan anarchists who were throwing waves of water bottles down at Bettman and Chara during the Cup presentation?
Stay classy, Vancouver.
Nuck fans, listen. This is not about your players. Every team has what other fanbases consider d-bags. Every team has players who make questionable hits. The Canucks are highly skilled, there’s no disputing that. They blew their chance to bring home the Stanley Cup…it happens. People will make fun of that but that would happen to any team. These are not the things causing the Canuck hate.
The real problem is the whining of the Canuck management and the fans. Nobody likes a whiny “poor us” attitude, and you guys got it bad. Keep your heads up, stop bitching, support your team, and stop worrying so much about what everyone else thinks. Maybe in time this goes away, but articles like this only perpetuate the perception.
Let me get this straight. The rest of the hockey world outside Vanvouver hates the team because they won the President’s Cup and were Stanley Cup runner-ups? Really? So, it has nothing to do with the Canucks being an easily unlikable team, a coach who still doesn’t “get it”, management that is paranoid that the league is out to get them, and, last but not least, Thing One and Thing Two (I’m sorry – the Sedins).
If any team has the right to be hated for being too good, it would be the Wings. Yet, one just doesn’t hear all the venom and vitriol directed toward them – not even from Hawks fans. Do you know why? It’s called respect. The Wings have been supurbly run for a while now and has become the model for teams striving for excellence. They are a fine-tuned machine from top to bottom and they do it right.
Canucks fans, do the rest of us hockey fans a favor and quit feeling so damn sorry for yourselves. Respect. It’s earned, not a right.
No, you guys are hated because of articles like this. Minus the riots, you spend the entire article justifying every point instead of seeing things as they are. You’re making excuses that nobody wants to hear. Lapierre serves a purpose, but he’s an a$$hole, no other way to look at it. Torres is a few cheap hits away from being Matt Cooke, and somehow he’s a ginger. Rome isn’t a bad guy, but the hit was late and unnecessary – you’d say the same thing if it was one of your guys on the other end of the hit. Diving, every team does it but it sure seems like every game somebody in a Van sweater is sprawled out on the ice looking up at the ref to see if he did a good enough job selling it. The bite was blown out of proportion but it’s weak. You’ve got a problem, drop the gloves or suck it up. Also we’re all sick of hearing about how great your team is and having it rubbed in our faces all year. When you choked it was a glorious beam of justice. Last time I checked the cup was earned, not just given out. It’s almost like you were entitled to it and expected everyone to lay down in your presence. And now you’re complaining because people hate your team and can’t figure out why. Justify everything however you want, but the fact of the matter is you’re looking at things with your heart and not your brain. Change the sweaters on the team, pretend every gloatful article and entitled post is from some other team’s fanbase and then I guarantee you that you wouldn’t be able to honsetly re-write this article.
2 common refrains heard in the lower mainland, before and after the riot.
“We are all Canucks”
“Those are not real Canucks fans”
The first statement imperiously forces total inclusion — we, the city, are all behind our team. While the other latently acknowledges the rhetorical nonsense of the former — when in fact, the rioters were real Canucks fans, you can tell because a good number of them were wearing Kesler jerseys.
Everything you listed has only to do with why people hate the team, not the fans. Vancouver fans do have a reputation of being among the most paranoid and irrationally defensive fans in the NHL. This article will probably take care of that though.
Effing HILARIOUS CDR!
Great article, Daniel! And yeah, like a lot other writers here, my first thought was, “Well, yeah, people are jealous.” (Or as an ardent fan of a talk show host once posted, “All of you biches is just jellus!”)
When you think about it, it’s quite funny. In last year’s playoffs the Canucks were thrown around like rag dolls by the larger, rougher Blackhawks, and this year they were thrown around by a larger rougher Bruin team. This is a team that is proud of the name “big, bad Bruins”. The Bruins seem to be made of Teflon as they were involved in a number of bench clearing brawls last season, and I don’t recall the Canucks being involved in even one. Yet the Bruins seem to be loved by everyone. I guess other teams were picking on the Bruins. I have to give the Bruins credit as they showed the rest of the league how to neutralize the Sedins. Different Canuck coaching would probably have split up the Sedins when they were not only not scoring, but were a defensive liability as well. The Canucks were out coached in the finals.
This post is littered with the reason a ton of people hate the Canucks fanbase. Always so defensive and woe is me attitudes coming out of the lower mainland mixed with uninformed comments.
If you think the Bruins were involved in “a number of bench clearing brawls”, you should take in a few more highlights around the league. There was NO bench clearing brawls in the NHL at all. Sure there was a few fight filled games with Montreal, but that is a part of a rivalry between two teams who hate each other.
It isn’t the people that are disliked, it is just an attitude from the cockiest team and fan base that has never actually accomplished anything (LA is also guilty of this). Coming from Calgary, I am jealous of the quality of team the Canucks put on the ice but the disdain I feel for the team and fan base comes purely from attitude.
Also, I agree about the coaching costing the Canucks the cup.
Haha no one loves the Bruins, they’re also one of the most hated teams in hockey. That’s how much people dislike your team — were it almost any other team in the Western conference against the Bruins for the Stanley Cup, the Bruins would have been the team everyone rooted against.
Being in Montreal I often hear a lot of Habs Hate as well. I think it’s all just part of sportsmanship – makes it all a little more interesting doesn’t it? Every story needs a good villain and with all the various rivalries around the league every team (and/or its fans) is at some point somebody else’s bad guy. Great Fun…
Wrong Allyson.
The B’s are an Original 6 team and the first American team. More people love them than hate them AINEC.
Nice try trying to pass the buck on the hate, but trust me, there isn’t an NHL team that is currently more hated than the Canucks. They’ve earned it!
i think that people lump all canuck fans into the same pile…like when some idiot fans attacked theo fleury and what had happened to him….theo shot back that, he expected that from canuck fans and denounced us all…..we are all passionate about our teams, but the majority of canuck fans are also hockey fans….the few vocal hot heads, do not represent the canuck fans..
we all as fans see what the other team does to win and put them down, but we fail to see our teams, less than stellar tactics….i know a lot of canuck fans and we don’t hate anyone.
They dislike the Canucks because now our team is truly better than the haters’ teams. So they’ll say anything to try to get an edge.
For those of us fans, that’s the stuff that cheers us on in the offseason, which apparently is pretty much the only the time our team isn’t winning. Put the ice back in, lace up the skates and we won’t even notice the slammers. Why would we, when have excellent winning hockey to watch.
Unfortunately Deamontonions, cowtowners, hogtowners, et al can’t do that at home. And the more invective they spew, the better we must doing. Not that I’m pylon-baiting or anything. :-)
Yeah
Yeah, that totally fits. The more people doubt Luongo, the better Schneider does… That totally lines up with reality
I think that a lot of this got started with Ron McLean’s hatchet job on Alex Burrows after the Auger incident.
People who love their team, hate their rivals and Canada is one giant hockey market where rivalries run deep. If you took this team and made them 3rd in the conference, took away their playoff run, and were to call them only outside shots at winning it all, there would be no hate. I know this because that’s where they were 2 seasons ago. The hate was amped up 100 fold when the ran away with the presidents trophy! It’s not just that they’re winning, it’s that the rest of our teams are so far from being contenders! Montreal is the next best team in Canada and they’ll probably finish 5th at best in the East. The rest likely miss the playoffs- most aren’t even contenders for 8th in their conference! It’s easy to hate a winner, fun too, but it really just gives us disappointed fans a forum to express our frustrations. Who wouldn’t take that team in their city? Could you imagine if you put a Toronto jersey on that team? The rest of Canada would be so full of rage they would threaten separtism! No we hate you Vancouver.. Your team anyways, but secretly we hate the idiots who have mismanaged our teams even more. Enjoy the hate while it lasts!
Man, I love that we’re widely regarded with the utmost contempt. Everyone hates the Yankees/Patriots/Lakers because they’re, you know, really good. Would you rather have other teams unaware or indifferent towards you? Does anyone hate the Islanders or the Oilers…
Welcome to the big time. Bring on the hate.
Absolutely, people will always hate the Canucks and it has always been that way, but such a fierce anger towards Vancouver fans is unwarranted.
Yea, that comment doesn’t work. The Yankees/Patriots/Lakers have won championships…..
I’d add the additional items:
1) Arrogance of (certain) fans which seems more prevalent than for other teams not named Montreal or Toronto.
2) The bandwagon nature of (certain) fans (which probably contributes to #1 given they are arrogant without actually even knowing hockey).
3) Schadenfreude.
4) Canadians (which accounts of the majority of viewers) want THEIR own team to win (Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, etc) and by default, don’t want Vancouver to win.
I agree with you in most part.
There are a lot of Vancouver “fans” that are arrogant and rude, probably more so than other teams yes but also involves a larger fanbase (generally) and is usually caused by uneducated angry teenagers finding their way onto Hockey forums.
Schadenfreude, definately but I would have rather seen a Canadian team win the cup if it were the other way round.