During Thursday night’s Canucks home game against the Minnesota Wild, the tradition continued, as someone felt it necessary to throw a large salmon onto the rink:

The Salmon Chuck

That’s referee Frederick L’Ecuyer getting all creeped out by the dead fish, prompting this instant-classic line from the Wild booth:

“Oh, just pick it up. It’s just a salmon, for cripe’s sake. You act like it’s poison. It’s just a salmon!”

So this is symbolic of … what, exactly? The Canucks always swimming upstream in the playoffs and eventually getting smoked?