Training Camp

Seventeen players have been cut from the Canadiens camp and assigned to the Hamilton Bulldogs. They'll have a long transatlantic flight to consider things, given the fact the 'Dogs camp begins tomorrow in Edinburgh, Scotland:

• Jacques Martin  • Andrei Markov  • Mike Cammalleri 
• Philippe Lefebvre  • Andrew Conboy 
• Tomas Plekanec  • Plekanec again  • Max Pacioretty

The scrimmages are done. Tomorrow, the 50 players left in the Canadiens' camp will assemble for two practice sessions and get ready for five exhibition games in five nights, beginning Thursday at the Bell Centre vs. the Florida Panthers.

Today's news:

• Andrei Markov says he hasn't been approached about the captaincy;
• Head coach Jacques Martin says that he and GM Bob Gainey will select the captain at the end of training camp. It won't be a player vote;
• Undrafted forward tryout Philippe Lefebvre signs a three-year contract and returns to Drummondville, his junior team;
• Others headed out: goalie Jason Missiaen, back to Peterborough in the OHL; D Joe Stejskal to Dartmouth College; and D Mac Bennett, to Cedar Rapids RoughRiders of the USHL.

Mike Cammalleri seems to be having a good time during a break in testing Saturday.
Marie-France Coallier, Gazette

• Habs hope chemistry will jell: Hickey
• Latendresse, Lapierre – joined at the hip?: Hickey
• Gorges would welcome spot alongside Markov: Stubbs
• Sizzling summer for Gorges in Kelowna: Stubbs

The Canadiens underwent a battery of tests at the Bell Sports Complex Saturday morning and afternoon, the first step in getting their 22-day training camp in gear.

Players assembled in the team's state of the art gym and in various cubbyholes outside their dressing room to subject themselves to any number of tortures prepared by the club's medical and fitness staff and others brought in to measure everything from lung capacity to body-fat percentage.

When they weren't testing themselves physically, they were smiling for the cameras and a few were trotted upstairs to meet the usual mob of Montreal media. In the posts below you'll hear from every Hab who was avaliable to us today; others will be heard from in the days to come.

All 54 campers will be on the ice today for a practice and an intrasquad game, the team broken up into three groups.

Last season's Canadiens training camp media guide featured photos of Mike Komisarek and Serge Savard across the top, with Jean Béliveau and Saku Koivu along the bottom. Immediately, the speculation began that, with three captains featured, Komisarek would be the next man to wear the C for the Habs. We all know how that worked out.

This season, from top to bottom: Brian Gionta, Scott Gomez and Andrei Markov. What? No Mike Cammalleri?!

For those coming to Brossard the next few days, or those in training-camp pools, here are the teams for the Canadiens'  camp. Players are listed in alphabetical order, just so no one thinks that Jason Missiaen is ahead of Carey Price on the goaltending depth chart.

Team A: Goal: Missiaen, Price; Defence: Henry, Mara, Markov, Stejskal, St. Denis, Subban; Forwards: D'Agostini, Johansson, Laraque, Lapierre, Latendresse, Lefebvre, Metroopolit, Russell, Stewart, Trotter.

Team B: Goal: Halak, Mayer; Defence: Anderson, Bennett, Carle, Hamrlik, Spacek, Weber; Forwards: Cammalleri, Chipchura, Conboy, Desharnais, Fortier, Glumac, Gomez, A. Kostitsyn, Pacioretty, White.

Team C: Goal: Desjardins, Sanford; Defence: Belle, Benoit, Busto, Gill, Gorges, O'Byrne; Forwards: Darche, Gionta, S. Kostitsyn, Maxwell, Moen, Neilson, Plekanec, Pyatt, Wyman.

Pat Hickey reports today on the decidedly un-Mont Tremblant destination that awaits the Canadiens at the end of training camp this month. Here's the place.

Red Fisher weighs in on the best changes he sees behind the benches in NHL coaching switches for the coming season. He likes Brent Sutter and a little of Jacques Lemaire; no opinion expressed on Jacques Martin.

DAVE STUBBS
The Gazette

Canadiens goaltender Carey Price escaped hockey this summer by shutting off his cellphone and heading out into the northern wilds of his native British Columbia.

"I went into the bush for two months, and nobody's going to bother you up there," said Price, an avid outdoorsman who spent his time "fishing, hunting, roping, just relaxing and swatting mosquitoes."

The 21-year-old enjoyed great success with a fishing rod, too, he and his father, Jerry, hauling in two sturgeon weighing 220 and 200 pounds.

The Canadiens will open a 52-player training camp Friday at the Bell Centre with medicals and fitness tests, then hold two public sessions at Montreal borough Pierrefonds Saturday and Sunday before setting off on a hectic exhibition schedule.

Read on below:

After a day of medicals and fitness tests at the Bell Centre on Friday, the Canadiens take their training camp for two days of workouts to the Montreal borough of Pierrefonds, west of the city. There will be practices Saturday beginning at 10 a.m., and practice and intrasquad games Sunday beginning at 11 a.m. Both are open to the public, free of charge, on a first-come, first-seated basis at the Sportplexe 4 Glaces. Click on the facility name for directions to it.

These will be the last public workouts until the club goes north to St. Jovite on Oct. 2-3.

Eighteen of the 23 skaters and goalies who have attended this week's Canadiens rookie camp will be staying on for the main camp, which begins tomorrow at the Bell Centre with medicals and fitness tests.

Last night, goalies Jason Missiaen and Nicola Riopel and forward Alexandre Monahan were returned to their junior teams, respectively in Peterborough, Moncton and Victoriaville.

Today, forward Danny Kristo is headed back to the Omaha Lancers of the United States Hockey League and defenceman Joe Stejskal will return to his college program in Dartmouth.

See here for the rosters of the camps as first advertised. Scratch the five names above, add the rest to the main roster and you should have 52 players at the main camp.

Max Pacioretty, a power forward for the future – perhaps very near future – was the centre of attention on the first day of the Habs rookie camp.

See the post below for audio of a lengthy interview with Patches. (Here's the Grammy-winning cover by Clarence Carter, since Boone has provided the lyrics. And because Pat Hickey has brought up the subject as he continues his rehab, here's the original recording of the Carter-famous tune, by Chairman of the Board. Here's the YouTube link to the original, even morbid Patches by Dickie Lee, which wasn't the same song at all. All of this to say that Pacioretty is getting a new nickname...)

Below you'll also find an interview with Trevor Timmins, the team's director of recruitment, and head coach Guy Carbonneau, as well as a chat with the newest Canadien, Robert Lang, acquired on Friday from Chicago.

Eight forty a.m., and you think you're going to be the only person in the bowels of the Bell Centre. And then, here comes Canadiens GM Bob Gainey, computer bag over one shoulder, umbrella in hand – reporting to work as the marathon that is the NHL season begins. A pleasant chat and Bob's on his way upstairs.

The Canadiens rookie camp is underway, and by 8:50 a.m. there were two goalies on the ice: human skyscraper Jason Missiaen, all 6-foot-8 of him (add a couple of inches in skates, and think of all that wasted body mass that's over the crossbar) and Switzerland's Robert Mayer, no shrimp himself at 6-foot-1.

They're taking shots off the sticks of Canadiens coaches Kirk Muller, sporting the season-starting very-short haircut, and Rollie Melanson.

More to come in the four days ahead. The rookies begin for real in another minute, all 23 now on the ice at 8:59. Head coach Guy Carbonneau is expected to speak to the media mob (assuming there is one, and I'm betting there will be) after the day's on-ice session ends at 10:45

We'll have audio from Carbo and the dressing room later this afternoon.

They're making ice at the Bell Centre as you read these lines, and on Monday it all begins. The Canadiens open their season, sort of, with a four-day rookie camp, followed by the club's regular camp, which gets underway on Friday with medicals and fitness tests. Full rosters and details follow below.