LATEST | Bo Horvat talks about his time as a Canuck and playing for a Canadian market

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Cooper Godin
July 18, 2023 (2:23 PM)

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It's been nearly six months since the Vancouver Canucks shipped their captain Bo Horvat to the New York Islanders. A week after arriving in Long Island, Horvat inked an eight-year contract extension, which will keep him with New York until the summer of 2031.

In a recent interview, Horvat discussed his time as a Vancouver Canuck, how talks with the team about an extension fell off.

"At the beginning, you think you're going to be a Canuck for life � especially being the captain there," Horvat said. "I grew my family there and we loved it there. To not get something done stung a little bit."

He added, "I knew anything could happen at that point when things weren't going well with Vancouver and the talks weren't continuing at all. When I got traded to the Island, I saw the facilities, the people, the organization, and everyone spoke so highly of it. When they offered me that contract it was kind of a no-brainer, and thankfully we couldn't be more happy to be there."

Horvat also went on to talk about what it was like playing for a Canadian market, where the attention and spotlight is on you more than playing in the United States.

"It's a bit less magnetized [in New York]," said Horvat. "In Vancouver. there's only the BC Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps as the only [other] major sports teams that everyone kind of rallies around and supports majorly, and you get zeroed in on where all the writeups are about the Canucks.

"In New York you have a lot more sports teams, so maybe you're not on the front page [of the sports section] but on the second page."

The 28-year-old appeared in 621 games across parts of nine years in Vancouver, recording 420 points (201 goals, 219 assists), 200 penalty minutes and was a minus-65.