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You could buy a house in Vancouver for well under $600,000 and Forester’s Pound bought him $2.20 Canadian, compared with $1.72 today.

“I came to watch as many games as I could,” said Forester, who on Monday night will be in Rogers Arena to catch the Canucks take on the San Jose Sharks.

He knew before arriving that year that the season was in some doubt, given talks between the league and the players’ association were stalled. But it came as a real blow when on Feb. 9, 2005, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman cancelled the season, and dashed Forester’s dreams.

Forester had been a diehard fan of Dan Cloutier, Markus Naslund and, of course, the bright young stars at the time, Daniel and Henrik Sedin. The back-end back then was held up by Sami Salo, Mattias Ohlund and Brent Sopel.

The Canucks had also recently picked up Ryan Kesler as their first-round pick, though the 2003-04 Brian Burke/Marc Crawford team was to be sadly remembered for the Bertuzzi hit on Steve Moore on March 8, 2004, after Moore had earlier in the season concussed captain Markus Naslund.

The team did, however, make it to the 2003-04 playoffs, getting knocked out in the first round in seven games by the Calgary Flames.

Forester was able to line his darkened Canucks’ cloud with a little silver, as he became a regular at Vancouver Giants and Coquitlam Express games during 2004-2005, and he learned to play the game he loves so much.

“There were a couple of players who played for (Coquitlam) that made it to the NHL, Brandon Yip was one. He ended up with Colorado,” said Forester, who still watches as much NHL as he can get away with.