Former Vancouver Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau says that the team’s management threatened to fire him for his funny videos.
When with the Canucks, Boudreau was available on the website Cameo where celebrities make short videos for fans. Anyone could get a personalized video message from Boudreau as long as they were willing to pay a fee.
Most of the requests that the bench boss received included birthdays or celebrating life achievements. Lots of the videos showed off Boudreau’s incredible personality and started to go viral. However, Boudreau says Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin quickly put an end to things and threatened to fire him if he didn’t listen.
“I remember when I was in [Vancouver], I’d get them once a week or something, and I wouldn’t get a lot of them,” explained Boudreau about the videos on the latest episode of the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast.
“Patrik Allvin comes in, and he says, and by the way, this is the fifth day of camp, ‘You can’t do anymore Cameos. You do them, you’re going to get fired,’ and I’m going, ‘Okay, so I cancelled them right away.’”
“To me, it was such an innocent thing; I never said bad things about anyone, I didn’t use the F-bomb ever.”
Bruce Boudreau’s Cameo messages are pure gold! 😂📱
🎥: @IanSeggie, @of_pettersson pic.twitter.com/nn1LKilb0N
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) December 27, 2021
Boudreau’s profile on the website is still live, although he is not available for requests. He has more than 200 reviews with an average score of 4.95/5.
The now 69-year-old won over a lot of fans during his time in Vancouver, and not just because of his Cameo videos. Boudreau is never shy about showing his personality, and that endeared him with a lot of local fans.
The Canucks eventually fired Boudreau in a long, drawn-out process. He has since coached Team Canada at the Spengler Cup and works as an analyst for NHL Network.