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About Dave Stubbs
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Dave Stubbs
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Dave Stubbs has been a sportswriter since 1976, which was roughly a decade after he wore the first of many holes through the knees of his jeans playing nets in road hockey (using a modified butterfly popularized by Hall of Famer Glenn Hall). He still has the welts to show on his shins from that rotten, frozen orange ball.
Stubbs kept thick hockey scrapbooks filled with game summaries and Gazette and Montreal Star stories, collected dozens of Bee Hive Corn Syrup photos and put a fortune of hockey cards through the spokes of his bikes. First book ever owned: Scrubs On Skates, the classic by Scott Young (Neil's dad).
Stubbs's fantasy is to travel back in time to the 1950s and watch the great Canadiens dynasty that won five consecutive Stanley Cups. Or a decade earlier, to watch Elmer Lach centre Rocket Richard and Toe Blake on the fearsome Punch Line. Or at least to get Rogie Vachon into the Hockey Hall of Fame – where he belongs.
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Laraque is a nice guy but he wasn't doing the job. Simple as that. It was a good move by Gainey.
Go here to read more:
http://www.habsaddict.com/2010/01/anatomy-of-breakup-georges-laraque.html
eh-oh...GO HABS GO
Was it a good move by Gainey to sidn him for 1.5 mil. That guy is ruining this nteam
So what exactly is George's status with the team, if he is still employed by the team, he isn't free to sign with other teams right now? If a team was interested in his services, they would have to call Bob first?
Apparently, Carcillo and Avery haven't read a copy of VGL's code.
Carcillo fought Gaborik, then Avery run around like mad and fought a couple of guys.
More to come on Saturday against our soft Habs. Avery, Brian Boyle and Voros shall show JM a thing or two about the CODE. NYR's might even dress Donald Brasher for backup? LMAO
All this whining and complaining... The fire/trade _____ talk is getting old.
Bottom line is that Laraque came here to finish his career and be a star. His work on the ice is secondary and that is why he was a distraction. I think that he should focus on his true talent which is his work in the community. In the meantime, we need a new tough guy. How about that Eric Neilson cat?
Michel Rainville Ssgt USAF,
BYE Laraque, You will not be missed, really. Price is a better fighter than you ever were in a habs Jersey!!
what?
Please.
Alcohol is far too cheap in Minnesota. Gui got 2nd star of the game for no points, even differential and 5 shots on net in a 3-3 loss to the Detroit Red Wings. You would think they might give a star to a player who tied the game or had something on the scoresheet.
- I shall always remember Captain Koivu. http://habsandhockey.blogspot.com/
SF,I have to agree with you yhere on getting Neilson,he has more heart for the team than GL.
Ladies and Gentlemen 466 posts on this thread less than 50 on Le Gros Bill jean Beliveau. Show your support send your best wishes.
Once you have paid the proper (and well deserved) respects on that thread (as I did), what more is there to say?
__________________
"All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else." Buddha
I think it's because nobody wants to pollute a post about Jean Beliveau's health with the trash that usually goes on here, so we're sticking here to talk about how bad such and such a player is or who should be fired.
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http://berkshireonthehabs.blogspot.com/
People generally only send their best wishes once, they can talk about how the Canadiens are a mess all day is the issue at hand there.
Do agree it's kinda nuts that added up, we've got like 1500 comments across the site about letting go one of the most readily forgettable signings in recent Canadiens history.
- I shall always remember Captain Koivu. http://habsandhockey.blogspot.com/
Anyone see Ovechkin's goal tonight? Absolute PERFECT wrister from the blueline. About an inch above the pads of the goalie and just off the post and in.
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http://berkshireonthehabs.blogspot.com/
Saw the whole game, it's possibly my favourite match-up among NHL squads right now to see Penguins/Capitals.
Ovie's the most entertaining player on the ice and the best offensive force I've ever seen since I started watching NHL action regularly. Trying to stop him all night long is like being in nets and not looking like an idiot when Datsyuk makes his moves on you for SO attempts.
- I shall always remember Captain Koivu. http://habsandhockey.blogspot.com/
So true, it's always a great game between them. As for Datsyuk, if I'm the goalie against him, I just challenge really far out and hope he misses the net haha. Not much else you can do.
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http://berkshireonthehabs.blogspot.com/
Laraque will probably become another regular on L'Antichambre... Him and Morissette will be quite a pair.
gainey has to take the blame for having the 25th best team in the nhl and the overall young talent in the organiztion is not much better than 25th either...
every night nhl highlights show young 20-23 olds scoring on a variety of teams ,many have goals in the teens, they show great speed...the forwards that we have drafted in the organization between the ages 21-23 are some of the worst in the nhl in scoring talent...
Here's your answer:
2006-2007
26. CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS
27. WASHINGTON CAPITALS
28. LOS ANGELES KINGS
29. PHOENIX COYOTES
30. PHILADELPHIA FLYERS
1. Chicago Patrick Kane
2. Philadelphia James Van Riemsdyk
3. Phoenix Kyle Turris
4. Los Angeles Thomas Hickey
5. Washington Karl Alzner
2005-2006
26. BOSTON BRUINS
27. WASHINGTON CAPITALS
28. CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS
29. PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
30. ST LOUIS BLUES
1. St. Louis Erik Johnson
2. Pittsburgh Jordan Staal
3. Chicago Jonathan Toews
4. Washington Nicklas Backstrom
5. Boston Phil Kessel
2003-2004
26. PHOENIX COYOTES
27. COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS
28. WASHINGTON CAPITALS
29. CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS
30. PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
1. Washington Alexander Ovechkin
2. Pittsburgh Evgeni Malkin
3. Chicago Cam Barker
4. Carolina Andrew Ladd
5. Phoenix Blake Wheeler
2002-2003
26. BUFFALO SABRES
27. FLORIDA PANTHERS
28. COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS
29. PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
30. CAROLINA HURRICANES
1. Pittsburgh Marc-Andre Fleury
2. Carolina Eric Staal
3. Florida Nathan Horton
4. Columbus Nikolai Zherdev
5. Buffalo Thomas Vanek
2001-2002
26. PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
27. TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
28. FLORIDA PANTHERS
29. COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS
30. ATLANTA THRASHERS
1. Columbus Rick Nash
2. Atlanta Kari Lehtonen
3. Florida Jay Bouwmeester
4. Philadelphia Joni Pitkanen
5. Pittsburgh Ryan Whitney
2004-2005
1. sidney crosby
2. bobby ryan
3. jack johnson
4. benoit pouliot
5. carey price
LOL Good one. ;-) I didn't put that one in because of the lock-out the previous year but point well taken. I like Pouliot and hope that Carey starts competing again and starts standing up when facing shooters like he did in the WJC shoot-out against the Americans. In close go down, facing a shot stand up. I miss those kick saves.
amen i hope carey becomes the goalie we all hope he becomes he worries me sometimes he has alot of positional flaws but he should be fine hes not playing as bad as it seems he goes through many stretches wher he works extremly hard and stops everything only too seemingly throw all the hard work he had just put in out the window with a questionable goal. pouliot i am very excited him hes playing extremly well and scoring at a 40 goal rate and the scariest part about him is that with his potential he will only get better. hes the 6'3 gem we've been looking for since forever.
i agree...my concern is even if we get a high draft how good is our scouts in judging talent...we seem to like the "gritty,chararcter" player over the offensive type...
Ha... I am not seeing all that much grit either.
Young players that are often drafted in the Top 5 that is.
- I shall always remember Captain Koivu. http://habsandhockey.blogspot.com/
Please consider signing my petition on Facebook
GOODBYE BOB GAINEY
Bob Gainey should resign following his decision to let George Laraque go in the midst of a human disaster in Haiti that effects many Montrealers.
If you believe like I do that Laraques poor performance as a Hab is secondary comapared to the bigger issue of 200 000 people dying in 10 seconds then you should sign this petition.
Ask yourself this; Can George be as effective at raising money now that he has been fired.
Shame on you Bob!!
Good one! People need to wake up and see what this looser is doing to our team!
Get a life,should give Ganiey a metle for getting rid of GL.
This is just as ridiculous as it gets.
Points already made below me.
Man, get a grip on reality. Don't bring racial politics into this forum. You need to take a step back and rethink your position on this. There are 100 reasons BG should be fired - Haiti/Laraque are not on the list. Signing BGL in the first place for 1.5 mil/per season, that's on the list...
__________________
"All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else." Buddha
It had to be done for the good of the Habs.. Unfortunate it had to happen at a timing as bad as this but the Habs are focusing on making the playoffs and saving the season, Laraque was slowing us down for the past 2 seasons, Gainey had to pull the trigger if we are to make a playoff push..
What does Haiti have to do with hockey? It's classless to even associate those two things.
A natural disaster doesn't change the fact that Laraque hasn't performed his job since he signed here.
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http://berkshireonthehabs.blogspot.com/
Montreal Canadiens is a franchise hockey team, it is not a non-profit humanitarian organization. Georges Laraque`s signed as a Canadien as a hockey player and not a fundraiser. I wish him well in any efforts he does on behalf of the Haitian people..
Please. It's a hockey decision and bringing up the Haiti card is a cop out. It is terrible what has gone on there and it is a terrible tragedy, but that should have no bearing on decisions regarding the hockey club and an underacheiving player. George being removed from the team was long overdue...he hasn't been doing his job for almost 2 years now.
I like George and think he is a great guy...but he was not doing what he was paid to do.
George was offered a compasionate leave of absence and declined.
Haiti is not a Card or an event or evenement or a distraction
its 200 000 dead people in 10 seconds. thats 20 000 per second
Why not just tell GEORGE to go home in private and allow him to represent the fundraiser as a Hab.
So Gainey spat in all of Haitian's faces because he wanted to clear cap for another player who would play for his salary? Thats what your trying to say. You think Gainey doesn't care about what happened? Your a silly kid. This is the Hockey market we're talking about. Gainey made a Hockey descision, put yourself in Gainey's shoes. Firing him at a horrible timing like, this isn't easy to do. But for the sake of the habs he had to do it. Wish Georgie the best of luck in the future..
It's lousy timing, if Bob Gainey had waited until next week, then it would not have been such a big issue. Its like Bob Gainey giving Haitians the middle finger. But we all know that Bob Gainey as a person probably cares alot more than that.
Habs raised $150,000 for Haiti.
Life goes on.
$50,000 more than the NHL gave.
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http://berkshireonthehabs.blogspot.com/
Gainey offered BGL to take time off to focus his attention on Haiti, BGL refused the offer, so this whole Haiti outcry is bunk imho.
Losers Even After Forty two Seasons
Or maybe it's because they have serious cap issues and they can't afford for their 6th/7th Ds to be paid anything less than League-minimum wages?
- I shall always remember Captain Koivu. http://habsandhockey.blogspot.com/
They probably use him better than we did.
They probably use him better than we did.
Count another victory for our pro scouting division.
"I think that we have enough guys that will stand up for each other if push comes to shove that are willing to go to war for each other," Josh Gorges stated. "Guys that are willing to put their bodies on the line and stick up for each other. It doesn't have to be an enforcer like Georges but anybody that's willing to stick up for their teammates and that's all you really need."
What a load of crap, Josh. Who the F are you kidding? You think we are all blind? Your sticking for one another was so well demonstrated by Hammrlik when Price was ran over.
Yeah Hammer took sooooo much time to get to him. You could see it wasn't instinctual for him to do that.
One guy I can't wait to see now is Big mouth Lapierre. Réjean Tremblay said he should change is name to Max Stone, since there is almost no more french canadians on the team. Well I would say his name should be Max Pebbles......
forget tremblay
war ?!?!?!? hahaha
This team is going to get crushed by any other team smart enough to know that a steady forecheck will make us quiver so fast it won't be funny. Also score and play boring D at the Bell Centre and within 5 minutes, the "fans" will start booing.
Lovely, just lovely.....
I was going to write a big message about communication, but it's useless. To me the team is not a team but a collection of players.
This is not a team.
I would rather tank then to barely make it in the playoffs and get destroyed and then get mediocre draft picks.
This is a major catastrophy in the making.
The only reason we have no captain is very simple no player from this team will be here in the next 3 years. Don't believe me ?
Price? after getting booed and photographed all over town do you really think he would sign a long term deal here ?
Halak ? Play great lose 1, out you go.... You gotta love the respect he's getting
Dmen ???? Yeah right, I bet even Markov will leave after his contract, I would be very surprised if he resigned.
Omen ???? Keepers = Pouliot, Cammi, Gionta and ???? everyone else is expendable.
Minor leagues ???? PK you better not make 1 mistake or else you sit. Good luck, you'll need it.
And there you have it.
JE SUIS DEPRESSED.....
What exactly happened to Don Lever? Is it true he got fired over the phone? And where is he now?
Who knows but I wouldn't be surprised....
Like the Joker said " this team needs an enema"
datsyuk is just sick in the shootout and lats misses his shot.
wings/wild going to a shootout,should be some amazing moves coming up from the wings players. Perhaps a lats wraparound?
You know who I wish we'd have hired as the coach? Tortorella. Love how he just tore a reporter to shreds haha. Can't argue with his coaching abilities either.
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I'm with you all the way on this one, Andrew...I was pissed when we gave him a pass without ever an interview. Good coach who takes no sh*t, just what this bunch of marshmallows need.
__________________
"All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else." Buddha
No offence but he's an a-hole.
what's wrong with that?
100%
But, could he adapt to The System?
But does he parler francais?
I think he would tear the system apart, eat it alive and then trash talk it while it was in the toilet after digestion.
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http://berkshireonthehabs.blogspot.com/
I think the press might soil themselves during the first meeting.
We can only imagine...
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http://berkshireonthehabs.blogspot.com/
On an unrelated note, refs strike again! With less than 2 minutes to play, Lucic gets called for a 4 min. high stick when replay clearly shows it was Columbus player's stick that hit his teammate. Columbus goes on to score on the PP and B's lose game.
Still glad B's lost.
Is it just me or am I the only one who can't stand watching the Pens because of that Idiot Bob Errey. I efin hate Steggy, I hate how Errey calls him Steggy. I hate Steggy
HAH! Too many men. LMAO ROn Wilson
And they lose in OT HaHaHA
I like some of these ideas, like putting SK74 on the third line and sending Pacioretty down. That needs to be done when we're healthy. I also like your idea of putting D'ags on the third line when Sergei is ready to go. I'd like to see Neilsen play a couple games up on the 4th line to see what his irrational craziness can provide as well, but there are some problems.
-Stewart would face re-entry waivers on the way up, and would probably be claimed.
-Scratching MAB seriously hurts our powerplay. He may not have scored recently but he's still putting up points, and his shot on the point forces teams to guard him closely, opening up more time for the forwards down low, so we just can't do that.
-I like White, but we can't call all these guys up without sending more guys down, there's a max number of players you can carry on a roster.
-If we're going after Kovalchuk, I'm guessing nothing short of two first round picks (Toronto set this standard) , Subban and AK46 will get it done, and even then there might be better offers out there. I don't see it as worth it considering we can just pursue him in the offseason.
Great comment though, it's nice to talk about stuff like this instead of people just slagging our players/coach/GM/etc.
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http://berkshireonthehabs.blogspot.com/
No more Russian superstars, please!! They're too flaky... Kovalchuk is not worth what you are suggesting we should pay for him
Ovechkin has almost single handedly made the Capitals a contender, even with his flakiness, and everyone forgets L'Artiste and his brilliant flashes of hockey, that is when the L'Artiste feels compeled to show up, mind you, we could use L'Artiste, right now, to play the enforcer, as he did on occasion. Mind you, we need more than L'Artiste, Gomez is no Artiste, and Cammy is hot and cold, and Gionta, well, who is Gionta and why did we pay him a huge salary? And why do we have two back up goalies pretending to be hockey players? And why all the circus around the two backup goalies, the media should be asking why does Montreal have two backup goalies, no captain and most of all, a GM who doesn't trade players?
Previous 4 seasons, he's scored never less than 42 goals and has two 50-goal seasons, Kovalev topped 40 once in his career next to Jagr, Lemieux and Lang, Kovalchuk is a man alone in Atlanta. Perfectly capable superstar forward, but I don't think we should trade for him either.
- I shall always remember Captain Koivu. http://habsandhockey.blogspot.com/
I'm not suggesting we should trade for him honestly. But I don't think Kovalchuk is flakey. He's not Kovalev, he's one of the most consistent scorers in the NHL.
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Yeah there's where we differ. There's no way if we're trading Markov I'm giving up anything else. As rare as elite scorers are, elite defensemen are more rare. The only established defensemen with more value in the NHL right than Markov are likely Chara, Green and Doughty. If we were trading Markov, it would be straight up for Kovalchuk plus Ilya would need to sign a contract first.
Also from what everyone is saying in the hockey world we have no chance anyway, because Atlanta is looking for big name, marketable players in return. Markov is amazing but he isn't marketable in Georgia, neither is Pleks or AK46. So we really don't have a chance.
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http://berkshireonthehabs.blogspot.com/
Like I said, this is where we differ. I think Markov has more of an impact on this team than Kovalchuk would, and we already have him. Not to mention his cap hit is half what Kovalchuk wants.
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http://berkshireonthehabs.blogspot.com/
I;m going to differ with you on this one too. We already have a 40-goal scorer, add a 2nd one and the other team starts to have serious problems...and it's looking a little like Pouliot might develop into one also...this type of firepower harkens back to the late 70s... Add Pleks, Gomez, Gionta, 6 Moen/Neilsen type players and you have one heck of a strong team!
I think Markov is expendable, if not this year, then by the end of next, as PK is demonstrating that he can up his game to whatever level he is put against.