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About Mike Boone
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Mike Boone
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http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/columnists/mike_boone.html
About
I grew up in Park Extension, within walking distance of Dickie Moore's Dairy Queen on Jean Talon. Moore had a place on L'Acadie Blvd., and we used to see him driving around in his convertible with a Samoyed and a very dishy wife.
While "studying" at McGill University during the 1960s, I used to attend games at the old Montreal Forum. My fellow undergraduate reprobates and I would scramble up the stairs to get centre-ice spots in the top standing room section, where aged ushers didn't know or care what we were smoking.
I stood out in the cold for six hours to get tickets to the 1975 New Year's Eve game between the Canadiens and Central Red Army. With the exception of the birth of my daughter, the 3-3 tie was the greatest event I've ever seen in my life.
The Canada-U.S. Gold medal game comes close .... but I wasn't there.
I've been a professional journalist since 1974, when I joined the Montreal Star sports department. I've covered the 1976 Olympic Games, the 1979 Expos, pop music and MSO tours of Europe and Asia (classical musicians are WAY more fun to drink with than athletes). I wrote a TV & Radio column for 20 years and, since 2000, have written a City column for The Gazette.
The best part of being a Habs Inside/Out contributor is attending games at the Bell Centre. I think it's a great building: noisy, raucous and packed to the rafters with Montrealers and visitors who live for hockey.
And I still get goosebumps every time Michel Lacroix booms out "Accueillons nos Canadiens ..."
Having seen the Boston Red Sox win two World Series and the Pittsburgh Steelers add a couple Super Bowl titles, I suppose I can die happy ... but not before another Stanley Cup parade. And I'd really like my daughter to see a historic New Year's Eve game.
I like all the players. Covering baseball gives me a profound appreciation of pro athletes who aren't jerks.
My weltanschauung was summarized by the late great Bill Hicks when he said "all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves."
Have a nice day.
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Who the F is Siarhei Kastsitsyn?!?!
We don't know how much of a stampede there has been on Koivu or Tanguay. I don't actually expect Koivu to sign for a few days...I really don't think he cares that much about the size of the salary at this point...he's going to take a look around the landscape and probably try to pick a contender.
I'm not as sold about him going to Minnesota...many seem to take this as a done deal. He said it would be nice, but he also expressed reservations about stepping into his brother's personal space while he's developing his own personality as an NHL star.
Washington has about $4 million in cap space and need a centre to replace Fedorov. San Jose has almost $5 million in cap space, but don't have as clear a need for a centre unless they deal one of Marleau or Thornton. New Jersey has $10 million in cap space. Carolina need a centre and have $7 million in space...
Koivu will have some interesting offers to ponder, I suspect...
According to NHL.com Kovalev signed for 2 years $ 9 M with Habs... How about that?
Link please?
I´ve lost it... Still looking... I was kinda all over the net... I´ll send it here asap...
I think it might be the false alarm from earlier today.
I bet my house on that it WAS in this story http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=433109 Seems like they took it away...?? Sorry..
Seems it's still out there. Althought NHL.com has been too fast at reporting it. http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=432992
If anyone can counter that report, I would be glad to hear about it.
____________________
In Habs we Trust!
Cammalleri was an overpay, coming off a career year which he's unlikely to repeat. *Never* buy high.
Tanguay for the same term/dollars would be much more palatable.
Gomez+Cammalleri = $13.35M
Sedin+Sedin = $12.2M
Gainey should have offered the Sedins $7M each for 5 or 6 years. OTOH, Maybe he did.
The Sedins took a hometown discount. Just because we can throw out higher numbers doesn't mean we're guaranteed them, the players themselves still have opinions as to where to go.
(100 in 25!-- ...what?)
Gainey couldn't offer the sedin's anything they never officially hit the ufa market.Never buy high? What do you think july 1st is, a yard sale? Have you ever heard of a top 6 forward selling himself to the lowest bidder on july 1st?
Sigh.
Buying high, in this case, would be signing, say, Cammalleri because he's coming off a career year. Buying low would be, say, Tanguay.
Tanguay is the better player, but he'll get less of a contract than Cammalleri's because he's had an off year.
Actually tanguay has had an off last 2 seasons and still made 5.75 million dollars. Tanguay is the better playmaker but cammilleri is the better goal scorer and can play any of the 3 forward positions.I still think we are going to keep tanguay and kovalev also. Oh i forgot.......sigh.
You could be right on signing one of those two. We still have 10.5 million left in cap space. Depending what happens with or RFs, Bob may be able to pull something out of his sleeve.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The patience that Bob Gainey showed me when he could have gotten rid of me years ago, I am just really grateful for it." - Mike Modano, June 30, 1999
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=49660
not a career year, his 2nd 80 pt season in 3 years.
82 > 80, therefore "career year."
I like the Gill contract. Spacek, not so much.
For all the experience the Habs now have on the blue line, *no one* has regularly played the right side. This will hurt the PK most of all.
what's the deal on havlat?
- Pride + Envy = Second Place
He signed with the Wild.
6 years, 30m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The patience that Bob Gainey showed me when he could have gotten rid of me years ago, I am just really grateful for it." - Mike Modano, June 30, 1999
I lived in Calgary last year and saw Cammi play. He is very comfortable playing on the wing. He's a deadly one-timer shooter from the right side and he should be able to put up similar numbers here with Gomez feeding him. He's got wheels and some grit but has a tendancy to leave the defensive zone early and gets caught out of position. Jacques Martin should be able to cure him of those bad habits.
It would appear that the big offers that Komisarek's agent was expecting never materialized. I'm guessing once he saw the king's ransom Anaheim got for Pronger and the $6m extension Niedermeyer signed that his client would easily get in the $5m + range. Signing so quickly with Toronto for such a (relatively) low figure would suggest that his agent got scared that nothing better was ever going to come along and so he jumped.
Burke HAD to do something having lost out on the Sedins and Ohlund (and this after he flew to Sweden to make his pitch personally!), so he gets a player that he can pretend was his focus all along.
You gotta wonder, if they actually do trade Kaberle for Kessel...who the hell is going to play the point on their PP? Komisarek? Schenn? Finger? Exelby? Van Ryn? Ian White is about it really...
(now I hope and pray The Monster signs in Dallas - it will make Burke's off-season of discontent complete!)
Kovy, Tang, Lang, Saku? The Habs still need 1 or 2 of these guys.
Wasn't a big fan of Alexei last year, but now that the dust has settled, I'd take him out of that group. I suspect BG wanted to sign Tanguay, but his camp is probably asking for one of these new-fangled 22 year contracts.
Personally, I feel the Koivu years should be over, and I guess Habs management feels the same. Otherwise they would have signed him before today.
I would really like to see Tanguay back again. When he's healthy, he's dynamite. However, he'll probably find playing for Martin just as palatable as he did Keenan. Yet for all the talk of adding Cup rings with Gill and Gomez, people forget Tanguay has one of his own - and I remember him scoring some biggies for the Avs in the '01 final.
It's been an interesting day. For years I've been a believer in Mr. Gainey, but I'm not sure about what I've seen today. The Canadiens are settling for the table scraps of free agency, and paying for filet mignon.
The Canadiens have the best fans, the best building, and now the best practice and conditioning facility in the league. If the Heatleys and Hossas and, yes, the Lecavaliers still aren't sold on playing in Montreal, maybe it's time the Habs found a better salesman than Bob.
The team that needed to get bigger keeps getting smaller. BG is spending cap space like a sailor on leave. He's turning out to be the second coming of Réjean Houle.
meanwhile, the Laughs are following a proven plan (hello, Ducks!) and will run us out of our barn next season.
Depressing.
Quo vadis, Bob?
Not everyone likes mercurial in fans. While its nice to have high highs, the low lows can kind of suck.
(100 in 25!-- ...what?)
He scored the Stanley Cup series winner.
Spacek - 45 points
Cammalerri - 82 points
Gomez - 58 points
Total - 185
Alex Tanguay - 41 points
Mike Komisarek - 9 points
Chris Higgins - 23 points
Total - 73 points
Good decisions in my opinion. Even with the loss of McDonagh and potentially Koivu.
Except tanguay and Higgins were injured most of the season Komisarek's job isn't to put up points and that all together our new players cost roughly 8 million more
Does anybody have any info on Koivu? Could he still sign? I know we have Camo, Pleks and Gomez at centre, but couldn't Camo play wing to Gomez? Couldn't Koivu sign and then have Pleks get traded?
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOB PLEASE SIGN KOIVU!
Yes, Koivu has had offers from a couple of teams, but he wants to wait and see what Montreal will do, as he would like to stay in Montreal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The patience that Bob Gainey showed me when he could have gotten rid of me years ago, I am just really grateful for it." - Mike Modano, June 30, 1999
By my math, we have almost $10,000,000 left with 18 players. Does not include Max, Webber or Stewart. If Kovy comes back at 4.5 ml and with those three that would leave us $3 ml to spend.
According to HockeyBuzz(http://www.hockeybuzz.com/cap-central/team.php?team=MON), we have 13 million (closer to 14), so we could technically sign Kovalev and another. Not too shabby.
EDIT: Or, I don't know how to work with cap numbers. No surprise here.
(100 in 25!-- ...what?)
To expand, $13.8 - $8 ml for Pleks,Lats,Matt,Stewart, Max and Webber leaves $5.8 ml to sign Kovy or whomever.
according to NHLcap we have 13.8 mil left. about 8-9 mil of that will go to signing RFAs which leaves about 5 mil for one more top line player. i'd bet on one of kovalev or koivu. hope for koivu. don't think cammalleri will be playing center for us. he's better on the wing and would be a good pair with gomez
Maybe Komi and Koivu are already done deals in Montreal and they're waiting to fashion their contracts to give us the right cap numbers. If they'll take creative deals we've got room for a big signing still.
Yeah... interesting that none of them have been jumped on since they were so dominant last year. As we were watching our side implode against the Bruins, I said to a friend that we needed to explode that team and start over again - tweeking wasn't going to cut it. Guess I wasn't the only one thinking that way...
we are better. i think it is obvious that komi had no intention of playing in montreal. i like our d better.
Yep... if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!
I'm kinda amazed Koivu hasn't gone to join his brother yet. He's Also one of the best centres on the market.
As for Kovy and Tanguay those players only go after teams have given up on bigger name players such as Gaborik and Havlat.
line-up
gomez - cammalleri - ???
Plekanec - a. kost - s. kost
lapierre - latendresse - pacioretty
metropolit - stewart - chipchura / laraque / d'aggostini
markov - hammer
spacek - gill
gorges - weber / o'byrn
price - halak
who's the leader on this team? who signs next? it's either kovalev. or koivu re-signs with plekanec moving back to the wing, which is where i think he belongs. can we re-sign both? can they co-exist?
Gomez and cammalleri are both centers, so I doubt they'll play on the same line... which mean a resigned lang/ koivu in place of pleks, who could be traded. if we resign kovalev it will be him and a. kost on the wings with pacioretty/dags as a second line...
cammalleri is better on the wing and will probably play with gomez. doubt he will play the middle for us
The leadership is a big question.
It's not one of the new guys. It's not Markov as much as his tenure and talent level would suggest.
I don't know.
could Lapierre get an A? wouldn't surprise me