Posts by Dave Stubbs

Freshly minted Canadien Georges Laraque spoke to a dozen or so Montreal hockey media this evening on a teleconference arranged by the hockey club, saying it will be his job to let the team's skill players do their job and not be run out of the arena.

Here, in its entirety, is the audio of the 23-minute bilingual session.

A couple of highlights in English:

• About 3:45 in, Laraque speaks at length about his 2003 comments about not wanting to play for the Canadiens;

• At about 19 minutes, he speaks candidly about having been able to take advantage of a Canadiens team last season that didn't have a heavyweight on its roster.

(Apologies for the sound quality; teleconferences are what they are...)

Jim Kelley of Sportsnet.ca weighs in on the curious case of Mats Sundin.

"I have no problem with Mats Sundin saying he needs more time to make a decision about whether or not he wants to play hockey again next season. I do have a problem that he waited until after pretty much all the offers were on the table before he announced that decision."

It was in March 2003 that Georges Laraque wrote a column for the RDS website headlined: "Why I don't want to play in Montreal."

It appeared shortly after the trading deadline, and it dealt with the pressure players face in Montreal, the way he believed they're turned on by the media and fans alike, and how so many players enjoy fruitful careers once they're traded from the Canadiens.

We talked about the controversial column when Laraque came to Montreal in August 2003 to play in the Canadian ball-hockey championship, and he was sticking to his guns. The resulting story appears below.

Not quite the sweater of the Canadiens, but Georges Laraque, then 26, did cut a dashing figure in the Montreal All Blacks ball-hockey shirt in August 2003.
Marie-France Coallier, Gazette

Not true whatsoever that Georges Laraque will this coming season make his debut with Montreal. He did that five summers ago – with the Montreal All Blacks in the Canadian Ball Hockey Championship held in this city.

Laraque was the almost secret weapon of the All Blacks, who the early Sunday morning we met at the Montreal airport baggage carousel had jetted in from Edmonton and was waiting for his sticks to be delivered.

He then was a five-year member of the All Blacks, albeit a player whose attendance record was somewhat spotty – in fact, he hadn't played a single game for the team that summer before he was drafted to help in the championship tournament.

The story follows on Laraque's arrival to run around and chase a hard orange ball. (Sadly, we never did report his final statistics at the end of the tournament...)

Not quite the sweater of the Canadiens, but Georges Laraque, then 26, did cut a dashing figure in the Montreal All Blacks ball-hockey shirt in August 2003.
Marie-France Coallier, Gazette

Not true that Georges Laraque will this fall make his debut with Montreal. He did that five summers ago – with the Montreal All Blacks in the Canadian Ball Hockey Championship held in Montreal.

Laraque was the almost secret weapon of the All Blacks, who the summer we met at the Montreal airport baggage carousel had jetted in from Edmonton.

He then was a five-year member of the All Blacks, albeit a player whose attendance record was somewhat spotty – in fact, he hadn't played a single game for the team that summer before he was drafted to help in the championship tournament.

The story follows on Laraque's arrival in his hometown that morning to run around and chase a hard orange ball.

Canadiens forward Michael Ryder has signed a three-year, $12-million contract with the Boston Bruins, rejoining coach Claude Julien, his mentor with the AHL Hamilton Bulldogs.

According to TSN, Mats Sundin might not be ready to declare his intentions re: his playing future, if any, by Tuesday's start of free agency.

A rocking gala in Montreal this Tuesday, St. Jean Baptiste night, raised a terrific $155,000 for the Gainey Foundation.

Read more below, and thanks to all who supported the evening in a great many ways.

The NHL and the NHLPA announced today that the team payroll range established for the 2008-09 league year, pursuant to the Collective Bargaining Agreement, provides for a lower limit of $40.7 million, an adjusted midpoint of $48.7 million and an upper limit of $56.7 million.

This represents a 6.4 per cent increase from last season's cap, and the fourth straight year the cap has been bumped up.

The maximum a team can pay a player in the season to come is $11.34 million.

And for this fiscal responsibility we lost a year to a lockout.

In 2005-06, the first year after the lockout, the salary cap was $39 million. 

The Canadiens cap hit for 2008-'09 stands at about $44 million – pending new contracts for restricted free agents Andrei Kostitsyn, Jaroslav Halak, Josh Gorges and Ryan O'Byrne – plus possible UFAs Mats Sundin, Michael Ryder and Mark Streit. 

Photoshopped a Canadiens jersey on Mats Sundin. You'll find it with Hockey News blogger Ryan Dixon's post suggesting that the imminent UFA would be a perfect fit in Montreal.

Billy Boucher, the last Canadien to wear sweater No. 13, photographed in 1924-25. The Canadiens wore the globe crest instead of a CH that season, celebrating their 1923-24 Stanley Cup "world championship" victory.
Rice Studios; Gazette files 

So Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey seems headed to Sweden this week to chat with Toronto Maple Leafs captain Mats Sundin to see whether there's common ground to explore between organization and player.

Sundin, an unrestricted free agent a week from today, is talking exclusively with the Canadiens until he's officially a UF, a right granted to Montreal late last week by Maple Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher, the man who acquired Sundin from the Quebec Nordiques 13 seasons ago.

If he signs a contract with the Canadiens, Sundin will become the second consecutive Leafs captain to ink a free-agent contract with Montreal. Doug Gilmour was the first.

The Gazette's Dave Stubbs explores the Sundin case this morning, wondering whether the hulking Swede would fit the No. 13 Canadiens sweater. Last time that number was worn by a Hab was in 1921-22, when Billy Boucher, 5-foot-7 and 155 pounds, tugged it on for part of a season.

Trevor Timmins, the Canadiens' director of player recruitment and development, chats with the media in this five-minute audio clip to review the NHL Entry Draft from a Canadiens perspective.

From The Gazette's Pat Hickey, audio of a wide-ranging, 15-minute interview with Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey on the eve of the NHL entry draft.

• Hickey on what might happen tomorrow night.

• In other words ... Boone's take on Gainey's remarks.

A few of your Canadiens snapped outside the Ferrari garage and in the Paddock Club during the Grand Prix of Canada on the weekend. We're betting that they didn't pay for a ticket.

And here's Mike Komisarek talking about the spectacle of F1 racing.

OK, maybe I'm still foggy from Formula One Grand Prix exhaust fumes, having killed the brain cells I can't afford to lose, but isn't everyone making a little too much of this?

I mean, it's a jingle. Famous and time-honoured and all, but it's a jingle. Because it's been around forever doesn't make it anything beyond... familiar. Part of the Canadian fabric? That some people actually have it as a cellphone ring? Please.

It's a pleasant little ditty that TSN doesn't really give a lick about except that they can stick it to CBC for having bought it. Not unlike the kind of thing you win on eBay that you really didn't need and spent way too much for, but needed to have it just because someone else was bidding on it, too.

I think I came home from the Grand Prix with a bad case of Boone's Mr. Grumpypants, but I can't fathom this.

It's not like they've replaced O Canada with the 1974 A&W Root Bear jingle, the first thing a kid learns to play ever on tuba in beginner's band. (Visit co-writer Bob Buckley's website to hear it. Click on Demos and scroll down to Golden Oldies. And see below for the sheet music.)

Patrice Brisebois and the Ferrari he'll race this weekend.
John Mahoney, Gazette

Canadiens defenceman Patrice Brisebois is an unrestricted free agent as of July 1, and while he says his agent, Don Meehan, hasn't had talks with GM Bob Gainey yet, he's hopeful he could remain a Canadien.

Brisebois will run his own muscular Ferrari this weekend in the Ferrari Challenge, a support race to the Formula One Canadian Grand Prix on Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

At The Gazette's Vroom With A View blog, you'll find the audio of a 10-minute conversation this morning with Brisebois, related to his racing, hockey and the tragic motorcycle death of Vancouver Canucks defenceman Luc Bourdon.

Penguins captain Sidney Crosby takes a first-star bow after his team's 3-2 victory in Game 3 last night.
Dave Sandford, Getty Images Sport

Post-game interview with:
DETROIT RED WINGS COACH MIKE BABCOCK

NHL's Frank Brown: Questions for Coach:

Q. You outshot them by a pretty big margin early on. I think it was 9-1, or 9-2. How much of a role did that play in tonight's outcome? Do you think things would have ended differently if you got one early?

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: I think tonight we got off to a pretty good start on the road. I thought we were under control. Then I thought they had a pretty good push after a timeout, scored a goal. And I thought they controlled the next, I don't know, 20 minutes of the game.
And then I thought we battled back pretty good. The third goal was a tough one for us to give up, just because it makes it hard to come back. But I thought we had a good push at the end.
The other thing, I didn't think we used our bench good enough tonight. I thought the specialty teams were early. I don't know if we used enough guys.

Setting the stage for tonight's Game 3 with a notes package furnished by the NHL:

Unhappy camper: Therrien after Game 2.
Claus Andersen, Getty Images

Post-Game Interview With:
PITTSBURGH PENGUINS COACH MICHEL THERRIEN

NHL's FRANK BROWN: Questions for Coach.

Q. You had a conversation with Malkin about him being the leader in this game. How do you explain him having zero shots in this game?
COACH MICHEL THERRIEN: It's really tough to generate offense against that team. They're good on obstruction. It's going to be tough to generate any type of offense, if the rules remain the same. So it's the first time we're facing a team that the obstruction is there, and we're having a hard time skating to take away ice.
We took two penalties tonight (against) the goalie. We never take penalties (against) the goalie in the playoffs. I'll tell you something, I reviewed those plays. He's a good actor. He goes to players, and he's diving. Took away our power play. Got to get focused. I know our players are frustrated right now. It's tough to play the game. But Osgood did the same thing against Dallas under (Mike) Ribeiro.
Our team never goes to goalie. We never did it. And we don't target the goalie. But this is, want to talk about experience, he goes to players, and he knows what to do, I guess.

A family situation will keep Inside/Out blogging colleague Mike Boone from being at his laptop and TV for the start of Game 2 in the Stanley Cup Final tonight.

He invites his crew to post early and often here, and he'll get caught up with his live game blog as soon as he can make it.

Thanks for your understanding.

Better late than never. 

While I was stomping out family forest fires, the Wings seem to  have skated off to a 2-0 lead.

Will Pittsburgh score in this series?

Anyway, I'm back. No point live-blogging the third period, so I'll just throw in a few Comments like the rest of you plebes. 

Canadiens captain Saku Koivu and star forward Alex Kovalev are both headed into the final year of their contracts, both unrestricted free agents on July 1, 2009.

In his weekly Journal de Montréal column today, Canadiens icon Guy Lafleur suggests the club focus on re-signing Kovalev and let Koivu go, saying: "I have the conviction that Kovalev is more useful to the Canadiens than the captain, especially if (Kovalev) continues to play as he did this year."

Mud Bruneteau
Scored the longest game's only goal

Detroit Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood was impressive in his 4-0 blanking of the Pittsburgh Penguins in Saturday's Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.

But Osgood wasn't forced into overtime, obviously, quite unlike his late Detroit goaltending colleague Normie Smith on March 24/25, 1936.

Smith would make 90 saves to shut out the Montreal Maroons in the sixth overtime period at the Montreal Forum, outlasting Maroons goalie Lorne Chabot (66 saves) in what remains the longest game in NHL history.

We reconstructed that game in a June 1999 Gazette feature, through the eyes of Montreal fan Phil Caddell, presented here. And below it, in Part II, is a follow-up story that came about a few weeks later when the owner of the game puck, Lois Biley, came forward to dispute a key "fact" presented in the original. And Lois would know, being the niece of Chabot and, like Caddell, a spectator at the historic game.

The puck used by Detroit's Modère (Mud) Bruneteau on March 25, 1936, to beat Montreal Maroons goalie Lorne Chabot, thus ending the longest game in NHL history. The puck is on display at the Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Published July 3, 1999

DAVE STUBBS
The Gazette

The feature was 50 paragraphs long, and it had sailed smoothly through the first 40 when it took a torpedo broadside, launched from the kitchen table of Lois Biley.

Two Saturdays ago we profiled Phil Caddell and the National Hockey League's longest game, a semi-final playoff match at the Forum between the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Maroons on March 24-25, 1936. The game ended at 16:30 of the sixth overtime period when Red Wings rookie Modere (Mud) Bruneteau gave his club a 1-0 victory, slicing Detroit's 67th shot past Maroons goaltender Lorne Chabot.

So the Spokane Chiefs not only won the Memorial Cup tonight with a 4-1 victory over the Kitchener Rangers, they also broke a replica of the historic trophy during post-game celebrations. See the photo below:

But who's counting, right, just one game into the 2007-08 Stanley Cup Final?

The 2008 NHL Entry Draft takes place June 20-21 at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa. And for those – there are many of you – interested in eyeballing the names and credentials of the players eligible to be plucked by the Canadiens and 29 other NHL clubs, here are a couple of terrific sites to begin, or continue, your homework:

• The NHL’s brilliant one-stop-shopping, multimedia website;
• Another excellent NHL-produced site;
• Hockey-reference.com's fabulous historical look at drafts past;
• A mock draft conducted by mynhldraft.com;
• TSN's special draft section.

We'll add more links as the big event in Ottawa approaches.

Les Binkley
This Penguin had Canadiens connections

Les Binkley was the Pittsburgh Penguins' first No. 1 goaltender, recording a remarkable six shutouts in 54 games in his 1967-68 rookie season. Through five NHL seasons in front of less than stellar defence, he earned 11 shutouts, including a 4-0 whitewash of the Canadiens on March 3, 1971, making 23 of his 33 saves that night off the sticks of future Hall of Famers.

The native of Owen Sound, Ont., had more than a few Canadiens connections. Among them: one of Binkley's best friends in the game was future Habs enforcer John Ferguson, with whom he hung out and played on the 1960s AHL Cleveland Barons (loosely a Canadiens farm team) and later worked for in New York and Winnipeg as a goaltending coach and amateur scout with the Rangers and Jets.

Binkley fondly remembers long practices in Cleveland with the late Fergy, who paid special attention both to deking and working on getting his gloves off as quickly as he could. Now, at 73, Binkley is settling in to watch his Penguins take on the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Final, eager to see whether Marc-André Fleury can backstop his alma mater to their third NHL title, Binkley having scouted for back-to-back champions in 1991 and '92.

Dave Stubbs profiles a charismatic netminder in today's Montreal Gazette. And surf below for an action photo from the 1970s – and the story of Binkley, then with the World Hockey Association's Toronto Toros, facing four penalty shots (two saves, two goals) from future daredevil Evel Knievel in a memorable, if twisted, intermission gimmick.

Mike Babcock
Will he wear his McGill tie?
Jeff Vinnick, NHLI via Getty Images

From our good friend, Earl (The Pearl) Zukerman, of McGill University, the hardest-working collegiate sports information officer in this country:

Mike Babcock, head coach of the Detroit Red Wings, is bidding to become the second McGill University graduate and the third coach in hockey history to win both the NHL’s Stanley Cup and the University Cup – the championship trophy of Canadian Interuniversity Sport; the Canadian equivalent of the NCAA.

The Red Wings are scheduled to open the best-of-seven final against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, on Saturday.

Babcock can follow in the footsteps of the legendary Lester Patrick, a former McGill hockey player, who later coached the New York Rangers to a Stanley Cup championship in both 1928 and 1933.

Currently a nominee for the Jack Adams trophy as NHL coach of the year, Babcock coached the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns to the 1994 CIS national championship at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

Then-Habs coach Michel Therrien at the Molson Centre in the fall of 2002. Therrien has led the Pittsburgh Penguins to this season's Stanley Cup Final.
Richard Arless Jr., Gazette

Former Canadiens head coach Michel Therrien is headed to the Stanley Cup Final behind the bench of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

"Mike," as he's now commonly known in the U.S., spent six seasons in the Canadiens organization before heading south, posting a 77-91-22 record in portions of three NHL seasons.

In 2001-02, Therrien led the Habs to their first playoff appearance in four seasons, going as far as the Eastern Conference semifinals where Montreal was bounced in six games by the Carolina Hurricanes.

He spent four seasons as a head coach in the American Hockey League with the Canadiens' AHL affiliates, the Fredericton Canadiens and Quebec Citadelles, compiling a 115-122-22 record, including a division championship with the Citadelles in 1999-00.

Now, Therrien and his Penguins begin preparations to face the Detroit Red Wings in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final, beginning Saturday.

In September 2001, a month after Sidney Crosby had turned 14, The Gazette's Dave Stubbs put 20 questions to Therrien in his Molson Centre office:

XM Radio reporter and hockey blogger Eric Engels offers this look at the work of Canadiens GM Bob Gainey. Surely Inside/Out readers have a comment or two of their own...