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The Vancouver Canucks are talking rebuild, which is nice for the franchise, but raises an interesting and obvious question.

Like, uh, what took so long?

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History has been kind to John Tortorella’s 2014 Vancouver curtain-closer when, in his wondrously cutting and bombastic style, he put the franchise on blast, labelling it stale, suggesting it needed to be turned upside down to have its pockets shaken clean.

In other words, it was time for a rebuild.

Even then, it was viewed as Tortorella’s most relatable, clear-sighted moment in his short Vancouver stay — or was it Point Roberts? — and years later it has become one of the few times in life we look back on him and remember a philosopher king.

But Tortorella’s infamous warning has played out much like asbestos studies in the 1930s, which proved the durable fibres were essentially airborne death, a rather troubling point manufacturers ignored and suppressed.