The Other Wing

The Habs are playing like the Habs again. The boys are scoring goals, skating hard, playing defensively sound and maybe most importantly – smiling.
And who can we thank for this last minute resurgence? Look no further than behind the bench. Coach Gainey has implemented a system that uses players to their strengths and creates a team chemistry that helps overcome individual weaknesses.
This is the team that GM Gainey had envisioned at the beginning of the season. This is the team that, on paper, looked like it could compete deep into the playoffs. Continue reading "Making a Statement" »

Thank you, Montreal.
Thank you to all the wives and girlfriends who haven’t seen their husbands and boyfriends in weeks.
Thank you to Guy Carbonneau for his outstanding service to our great city and being such a great supporter of this campaign.
Three weeks ago, we saw the people of Montreal proclaim that our time for change has come. But there were those who doubted this city’s desire for something new, who said our accomplishments last year and at the beginning of this season were a fluke, not to be repeated again.
Well, this week, the cynics were told something different.
After 3 contests – 3 great contests we have more points – more hope – than we’ve seen in a long time.
Continue reading "Yes We Can" »

You have to thank St-Patrick's festivities for giving Montreal the only real downtown celebration this city will see this spring. Hours after one of the emptiest performances the Habs displayed this season, fans eagerly traded the bleu-blanc-rouge gear for vert-vert-vert cheer. No mournful tears at McKibbins Irish Pub yesterday, one of the best places to take in the city's beat on this particular Sunday. My nod to "Alex" the gigantic doorman for allowing this 30-something guy the pleasure to bypass the lines he used to stand in when he was 16,er...18.

Anyone guilty of believing that the Canadiens' tilt against the Maple Leafs could afford them an opportunity to serve notice on the rest of the Conference that a surge was on the horizon can now sit back and ponder.

Any Habs' hopeful caught thinking that a Saturday night matchup in Montreal, viewed nation-wide, in the hyper-charged setting that always accompanies the Leafs to Montreal, would send the team's pulse throbbing with excitement and motivation, is left to believe that reality refuses to acquiesce to the pull of this dramatic script.

You have to wonder. Not that the Habs-Leafs games today need to mean as much as they once did in view of the fact Toronto's struggles have left them out of the playoff equation for a few years now. But this is a rivalry that means something and on most nights serves as a compelling enough reminder, at least to Toronto, that it should bring the best out of the players.

Habs-Leafs on Saturday night with 11 games remaining in the regular season and Montreal a single point out of a playoff spot in this Centennial year?

The Habs weren't in the mood.

To steal a page from Thomas Friedman, if I had to write a book about the team's Centennial, I'd call it The Habs Are Flat. It's impossibly confusing to understand why.

I have tremendous difficulty in giving any credence to the argument that says the huge pressure to win leaves Montreal off the destination list for today's players. That assessment, in my view, is easily dispelled by Ken Dryden's intuitive insight on what it means to play in Montreal. Dryden says that Montreal actually provided one of the easiest platforms to play professional hockey because of the enormous natural advantage it has to offer; knowledge of the sport, love for the athletes, a deep understanding of the cultural significance the Canadiens have on this city. Win here and you may come as high as it may emotionally get to feel what it's like to be on top of the world.

But it does require winning. Wanting to win. Loving to win. Commitment to winning. It's about making winning a lifestyle. There was nothing of the sort on display at the Bell Centre on Saturday night, save of course for Maxim Lapierre, Guillaume Latendresse and Tom Kostopoulos.

What is disheartening is the candid interview Georges Laraque gave to the media yesterday in which he confided that he spoke to the players about the importance of winning. It sounds like the right angle for a pep-talk, but the direction Laraque chose is startling. Ten games, he said, ten games, you unrestricted free-agents to play out your contracts and vie for negotiating power on your next one. You can even assume he said "Look, if you want to get out of here and make some good money elsewhere, you have 10 games to show what you're made of."

Not the speech you would expect with 10 crucial games remaining in the Centennial season, not the one you would center your Habs documentary around. Do it for the money guys, do it for your contracts. Don't quit now, because what you're doing is quitting on your own pockets.

It's actually quite disgusting to hear, this, while the entire city has been holding a collective breath for a year, waiting for its local heroes to give it the cathartic release only this type of fan base can enjoy.

Laraque couldn't appeal to them on a passionate level, on a cultural level. He couldn't say "hey guys, that's the CH on your sweaters and you need to tap into what that means to you".

Because it's now obvious that to many of these players it means absolutely nothing. At this point of the season, team chemistry should be at its highest. You know your teammates, you care for them, and you play for one another. You don't want to let anyone down and you'll do whatever is physically possible to succeed. It's not even supposed to be a concerted effort. At this point you're in automatic mode, with the desire burning so feverishly that it's really about containing the emotion and channeling it with the proper methods.

There was nothing to channel on Saturday. There's been nothing to contain in several weeks. Most players seem to have quietly responded to their internal mantras, "let's get this over with as soon as possible."

The fans are left with this unfortunate reality. It took 100 years to make the last ten games of the season feel like a bloody eternity.  

After this weekend’s devastating loss to those damn, dirty Maple Leafs, Bob Gainey did exactly what I telepathically told him to do. Instead of making the boys skate, skate, skate, the Habs’ coach/GM allowed the team to work out in the gym and then sat down to chat with individual players.
Here’s what he should have told them: Continue reading "Fireside Chat" »

Tomorrow, the Habs will attempt something they haven't done since 1995.

They're going to protect Patrick Roy's lead.

In a quasi futile effort, Patrice Brisebois, playing in his 1000th game, and Mathieu Schneider will put their best skate forward to give the man who gave them a Stanley Cup ring a few more days at the top.

Quasi because Montreal would relish denying Martin Brodeur his record trying 551st victory at the Bell Centre. A small victory of sorts. Futile nonetheless because Brodeur is on his way to the top and will remain there for a while. None of the active goalies in the top 20 stand a chance, all relegated to backup status. Considering that at that 20th spot stands Billy Smith with 305 wins, you can pretty much sow the thread into that "winningest goalie" jersey because it's not slated to change for a long time.

Does it really mean anything, to deny a hometown hero a much deserved accolade? It does. It does simply because the Canadiens absolutely need the 2 points to keep both feet firmly planted in the playoff door. It does because a win over stifling New Jersey in these hyped circumstances can only boost team morale. And we can all guess that team morale has been, at best, wavering.

It does mean all that much because, there's nothing wrong with the best hockey city in the world witnessing the making of history, as hockey bestows upon a native son a crown fit for the sport's royalty. The saint will bow to the king. If it doesn't happen in New Jersey, it should happen here. Nowhere else will people appreciate it more. 

Habs fans' overarching loyalty will want to see the team prevail tomorrow but not out of disquieting bitterness, more out of necessity. Any loss can be crippling at this point in time. But had the team been resting easy atop the standings, maybe some Montrealers would have been pulling for the makings of history on ice here, in hockey's most natural museum. 

On average, in the 2008-09 season:
It takes Alex Kovalev 78:56 to score a goal. Andrei Kostitsyn? He can find net in about 40:05 of ice-time.
AK-27 gets 3:42 more ice-time per game than AK-46.
Alex Tanguay earns a point for every 20:02 he plays. Chris Higgins needs 41:10.
Andrei Markov, the Habs leading point scorer (with 51) averages 0.76 points/game.
Georges “I deserve more ice-time” Laraques, is averaging a cool 0.07 points/game.
Oh, and it takes him 106:10 to get a point, of which he has two. In 2461 minutes, Carey Price has stopped the puck 1076 times.
That’s a puck every 2.29 minutes. He hasn’t stopped the puck 113 times. That’s a goal every 21.78 minutes.
Continue reading "Fun With Numbers!" »

When the Montreal Canadiens released their festive agenda for the upcoming 100th Season, they left a few surprises off the list.

For once, we were told that a player's number would be retired on November 22, but we only found out later that that player would be goaltender Patrick Roy.

We were told the team would don some retro jerseys during the course of the next two seasons, but those sweaters were only unveiled later. 

Well, in that spirit, if there is anything that forms an integral part of Canadiens' history, it's firing coaches. So in order to fully celebrate the complete spectrum of what this team has accomplished over the last century, one could not fathom a complete list of festivities without paying homage to fired coaches and actually firing coach Carbonneau to make it authentic.    

It makes perfect sense.

I can imagine Dick Irvin in a tuxedo at centre ice.

"Bob Berry was one of the worst coaches in Canadiens history. While he did take over a team that had aged into the twilight portion of its career, Berry did nothing to design a system to provide the players with a spasm of success. Berry will forever be known as the worst coach to ever take the helm of the Montreal Canadiens. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the man who was fired in the summer of 1983, BOB BERRY!!!"

The festivities would then move on:

 "Adolphe Lecours was the most insignificant coach in Canadiens' history. He guided the team for one season, in 1910-1911 and took the players to a stellar 8-8 record. Lecours was fired in 1911. His great-grandchildren are here today and we don't even know their names. Give them a warm applause! The Lecours great-grandchildren!"

"Mario Tremblay single-handedly ruined the Montreal Canadiens. The team suffered long after his long-awaited departure. This stubborn once-plumber forward let his ego drive the GREATEST GOALTENDER IN HISTORY out of Montreal for Jocelyn Thibault, Martin Rucincsky and Andrei Kovalenko.  A notorious drunk, Tremblay would often be seen downing gin and tonics behing the bench during playoff games. His firing was seen as one of the proudest achievements in Canadiens' history. Ladies and gentlemen, Mario Tremblay!!!"

"My father Dick Irvin Sr. was the meanest son of a bitch I'd ever known. He once tied me up to a tree in the dead of summer and left me there for days without food or water. I'll never forget his word as he walked away from the tree: "Don't you dare call me Dad! It's Sir Sr.! You got that?!" He made my mother cry regularly and rarely came home. When I was 7, he tried to sell me. He also coached the team for 15 years. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know if he was fired or not, but let's pay tribute to my Dad, Dick Irvin Sr."

"And now, for this special season, let's celebrate these dismissals by honoring the firing of Guy Carbonneau. A man of few words, Guy coached the team with more line changes than a Woody Allen script. He managed to alienate every single player on this team by either benching them without notice or explanation, converting them to positions they had never played before, introducing them to bowling, forcing them to sit through entire episodes of Growing Pains, and putting the worst goal scoring combinations on the ice when down a goal with a minute left to play. Ladies and Gentlemen, let's hear it for another fired coach, Guy Carbonneau!"

What a wonderful tribute to this indisputably essential component of Canadiens' history. 

When I heard the news that Guy Carbonneau had been fired, I was – I’m a little ashamed to admit – ecstatic. I’ve always been a fan of Carbonneau the Player, but skeptical of Carbonneau the Coach. I was willing to be extra patient with bench boss Carbonneau – because as a player, as a captain, and as a Jack Adams nominated coach – he’d earned the leeway.
As a fan, it was hard for me to realize that Carbonneau had to go.
I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it must have been for GM Bob Gainey to tell his good friend to go home.
But it was a decision that needed to be made – not just for the success of the team now, but next year and for years to come. Continue reading "Good Decision, Sad Day" »

When the fourth line takes to the ice tonight, they’ll be missing a huge presence on the right wing. Big ol’ Georges Laraque, who has only played in 28 games this season, will once again be sidelined because of an ailing back. Apparently, the Rock’s back was re-injured, or aggravated, or tweaked, during Wednesday night’s disappointing loss to Buffalo.
The severity of the injury is not yet known, but there’s a good chance that BGL will miss the remainder of the season.
The timing of Laraque’s injury couldn’t have come at a worse time. If this had happened a game earlier – or even earlier that same day – Bob Gainey might have been able to free up enough cap space to make a deadline day move.
It makes you wonder… Continue reading "Laraques' Back" »

Okay, goodbye everyone.  Well, alright, it's only sort of goodbye. I've been a fan of Habs Inside/Out since its inception in the 2006-07 season, and it's usually the first site I check in the morning to see what's happening with my beloved Habs. I've had a lot of fun writing The Other Wing this year. But things have changed for me over the course of the season. I write here as an unpaid volunteer, and I've been having some serious second thoughts about what that means for others. I've noticed the increase in ads supported by the site, and earlier this week Mike Boone posted stats on the number of site visits, which are up more than a hundred percent over last year. In short, the Gazette makes money from HI/O. So, in an age when my professional colleagues in the newspaper business are struggling to keep their jobs and keep their papers viable, a site like Inside/Out could be an important source of work for them. Therefore, I believe it's wrong for me to undermine the work they depend upon for their livelihoods by providing content for nothing.

Mainly for that reason, I am withdrawing from The Other Wing. So, thanks to all who've read my stuff, and who provided interesting argument, insight and commentary of your own in response. Those of you who chose instead to make rude personal comments while hiding behind your handles...and you know who you are...can go to H-E-double hockey sticks.

I still love the Habs of course, and I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I didn't write to vent and to celebrate the team's exploits.  So I'll continue to write about hockey on my own blog. And I'll still be coming here first thing every morning to get the latest Canadiens news. So, thanks again for reading and...Go, Habs, Go!

The Habs are said to be feeling a huge amount of anxiety over the looming deadline. With families waiting nervously in the wings and future salaries in consideration, this is not a time these guys enjoy very much. And we all know that this stress is symptomatic of THE deadline.

The RRSP deadline. That's right, March 2nd, the last day to contribute to an RRSP account. 

You can tell by their tepid play and the way they steer gingerly through interviews. You can tell by their avoidance of newspapers or questions that may bring about feelings of doubt as to their status. It's hard to concentrate on the game with this deadline hanging over your head. Players can't focus on the task at hand and have the potential to emotionally collapse at the mere mention of the deadline.

Take Saturday for example. The Habs skated off the ice at the end of the first period having thoroughly dominated the Sharks. In the dressing room, Tomas Plekanec turned towards Andrei Kostitsyn and innocently asked: "Did you make your RRSP contributions yet? Only 2 days to go." And with those words, the entire team sank into a fearful frenzy. "Why the hell did you have to bring that up now! Now? Now is when you want to bring this up? How are we gonna go out there now with these RRSPs in our minds!" "Yeah", shot out Alex Kovalev, "why don't you tell us someone put ANTHRAX in our Gatorade while you're at it".

But the damage was done. The second period wasn't 3 minutes old and the Sharks had stormed back with 2 quick goals. The fact the team held on for the win is nothing short of miraculous, divine intervention really. The game will instantly go down as a classic and will soon be added to the collection of top ten games in Habs' history as The RRSP Game. 

This deadline is bad news for hockey in Montreal. Coach Carbonneau knows his players are rattled. "Players hear rumors buzzing and don't know what to grab on to for hard news. Is it better to lock my savings up in mutual funds? Are GICs any use to me know? Is prime going up or are we back in the days of cheap money? All the usual questions that haunt hockey players. And with it enough controversy and confusion to throw an athlete off his game. You just want to take their minds off it. Let them bowl, bowling is excellent for RRSP anxiety".

Just ask forward Guillaume Latendresse: "For sure, for me, it's tough. You know the financial crisis hits hard and the deadline drives me crazy. We all think about the deadline. Do I take out an RRSP loan or pay off debt? What would my RSSP contribution yield combined with the tax savings as opposed to lowering the debt load and interest payments. Do I shoulder on more debt, and you know my shoulder was not so healthy this year, so yeah, it's tough."

Alex Kovalev is shaken at the idea of getting hit with another large tax bill: "It's crazy, you know. I have to pay for the gas for my plane, which costs like maybe 9 million dollars every time I fly to Brossard for practice. Then I have to pay for the paint on the plane, you know the big blue KOVY on both sides and the RULES on both wings, yeah, I paint those every day, fresh coat, so my name is always shining in the sky."

Kovalev fought back tears.

"If I pay these monster taxes in Quebec, what's left for the plane, the paint? Nothing! And if I pay for RRSP, then I can't buy the good paint, the oil based paint for flashy letters. It's so hard to talk about and to get up and go to the rink when I have to make this decision."

When asked about the March 4 trade deadline, Chris Higgins asked: "Oh!...Is that really this week? Oops! Forgot about that!" 

Let's all hope this deadline this week passes gently and quietly so that our players can go back to focusing on not replicating the month of February. 

I'm so glad Februray is almost over. I'm just about to retire from winter due to illness and fatigue: I'm sick and tired of it. I'm sick of the grey sky and dark mornings. I'm sick of the big dirty piles of snow. I'm tired of northeasterly winds that, in the immortal words of Robert Service, "...through the parka's fold, stab like a driven nail." I'm sick of boots, I'm sick of turning up the heat and I'm tired of cramming small people into snowsuits every time they go through the door. Most of all, though, I'm sick of the whinging and whining of Habs' fans.

Listen, I know it's been a long, rough season. I know the team isn't perfect and there's lots to complain and worry about. But listening to the same bloody complaints and worries every single day is getting very, very wearisome. So, as February turns the corner into March and the Canadiens claw and bite for a playoff spot, here are the top ten things I wish people would shut the hell up about:

Continue reading "Top Ten Things I Wish Habs Fans Would Shut the Hell Up About" »

Boy, I like Jaro Halak. You have to admire a guy who was drafted in the ninth round and who was never supposed to be an NHL player standing on his head in junior, becoming an All-Star in the AHL and stepping in for the injured Cristobal Huet, nearly dragging the sliding Habs into the playoffs in 2007. (In some quarters, the debate about whether the Canadiens would have made it if Halak had started that last game against the leafs instead of Huet is still raging.) You have to respect someone who was fully, and rightfully, expecting to have a spot on the big team as Huet's backup last year after a strong showing the season before and performing as the best goalie in training camp...only to be sent to the minors in favour of Carey Price without a complaint. He went to Hamilton and did his thing, got called up to replace a struggling Price and never started a game before getting sent down again. And still no complaining. That's a team player. So, when he has a fantastic game in a time when the team really needs him to pull one off, it's no more than he's proven he can do in the last two seasons.

I also really like Carey Price. I watched him win the World Junior Championships. I followed just about every game of his 2007 Calder Cup run. In both cases, he was fantastic and proved he has a lot of talent and knows how to win. He was doing really well after Huet was traded last year, before fatigue and poor conditioning caught up with him in the playoffs. Again this year, he was playing well until felled by injury. As is the case with other good goalies, he's having some trouble finding his game again since his return. Off-ice controversy isn't helping him either, but his recent game in Washington showed he's not that far from returning to form if he keeps working at it.

The Habs have two really good, really young goalies who have both had their ups and downs and can expect to have more of each in the coming years. So, I don't understand why fans and media and casual observers say it has to be one or the other.

Continue reading "Controversy, Schmontroversy" »

I've always thought it must be really tough to work for the Montreal Canadiens' PR department. Even in the worst of times, you don't have the freedom to write a headline like, "Habs Lay Another Egg In Horrendous Headless-Chicken-On-Ice Routine." (Which, incidentally, would likely inspire philosophers to ponder which came first, the headless chicken or the egg?) Instead, if you're working in public relations, you have to write clinical, anesthetized things like, "Habs Fight Back Against Pens; Fall Short." But as difficult as it is to work at flogging the CH brand in ordinary times, this Centennial year must be hell.

I wish I could Photoshop. I would have made the picture one of a toilet with the letters P-L-A-Y-O-F-F-S swirling down the drain. Or a picture of Guy Carbonneau's face on a monkey. Or perhaps a shot of Bob Gainey in dungeon chains being whipped by a big medieval prison guard with Alex Kovalev's head. But since I can't work photo magic on the computer to get my point across, I'll just ask: Can we stop with all the fabulous Centennial BS now? Seriously. This celebration of the hundred years of the Montreal Canadiens is becoming absurd in the face of all the crap that's the reality of this year, and that has been the reality of the last sixteen seasons of a once-glorious franchise. It would be one thing to honour the great players and managers of the past who worked so hard to be the best and who made the team's name revered around the world for its success. That part of the Centennial is appropriate and should be enjoyed. But the poor unfortunate public relations people are trying to prop up the corpse of a once-great institution, slap on some makeup and tell us it's still alive. "See? Looks as good as ever!"

 

Continue reading "Celebrate Good Times, Come On!" »

Much can happen in 24 hours.
Welcome back Mr. Schneider! Sayonara Sergei! Have a Kit Kat, Kovalev. We all knew that the Canadiens needed a shake-up.
Badly.
This week GM Bob Gainey has managed to put the Habs locker room through a spin cycle. Interestingly enough, this turnaround has been done without any permanent changes:
Kovy could be playing in Saturday’s matinee against the Senators; SK-74 can be re-called, as can Ryan O’Byrne; and Gregory Stewart should know his stay up in the big leagues is like a game of snakes and ladders. Schneider will see the season through, but Montreal didn’t give up any manpower that could have an immediate impact on the ice.
Gainey, a quiet and conservative man, made a bold statement to everyone in the Canadiens organization – both to the players on the ice and the personnel behind the bench. Continue reading "More To Come From Bold Bob" »

So, Mathieu Schneider is a Hab again. My first thought was, "Hey, Carbo and Muller will be happy to have another '93 alum on the roster. Maybe they should go after Mike Keane now...he's still playing." Then I thought, "Hey, Carbo will soon get his wish to coach an entire roster of defencemen!" Unfortunately they sent O'Byrne back to Hamilton, so I guess the dream died there. But, after all the lame old-guy jokes, at heart I was so disappointed in the Schneider trade.

Not because I don't like Schneider, or because I don't think his remaining skillset might help the Habs. Not even because of his hugely inflated salary (Yeah, Burke...keep signing guys for that kind of coin and the leafs will be basement dwellers forever...but I digress.) I was disappointed because of the reason for the aquisition, and the future cost of it.

Continue reading "No Cup For You! (Or, Welcome Back, Mathieu Schneider)" »

J.T. wrote my post on Friday. She did it impeccably. She said what needed to be said. In the words of the great Pierre McGuire, "it's an everything problem". The goalie's not doing great but he's not the one pitching a bottom-feeding power play.

The forwards are lacking in the Creativity Department and are as predictable as the cream of wheat I made this weekend. But they're not the ones providing as much protection as Miley Cyrus in hockey pads.

The D has gone more timid than a gerbil trying to spend the night with a crocodile.

And the coach has the sense of direction of a guy with two left eyes that belong to Peter Faulk. 

This is what a collapse looks like.

A young goalie, bewildered crying in front of the cameras. Twice. 

A mumbling coach in post-game press conferences.

30-minute long closed door player meetings.  

The word "Montreal" beginning a descent on the page of your newspaper. 

Some have pointed to the fact that Detroit went through a losing spell last season and ended up winning the Stanley Cup. Foolish ones, bless your hearts.

This group of players has never looked right. Never. Not when it was taking them 7 games to lose a first game in regulation. Not when they had lost 1 in 11 to begin the season. Not when they slumped throughout November, not when they started putting the pieces together in December with the injuries taking their toll. Certainly not in January and not now. Not at all.

Let's go back a bit more. A pretty strong 5-game series against Philadelphia but stumped by stellar goaltending, made to look even more brilliant by a stalled offense. An imploding young goaltender unable to carry his team forward.

A very surprising performance in a 7-game series, by the opposing team. The series that saw us witness the Boston Bruins coming to life, as we know them today. Montreal never looked good aside from the first and last game. They were outplayed in the 5 other.

A 30-game mad dash took them to the top of the Conference, and it was a sight to behold. The best hockey we had seen in Montreal in nearly 20 years. As J.T. pointed out, that comeback from 0-5 lit a spark that would endure.

But before those final 30 games, it was much of what we've seen so far. Win some, lose some, but never stamping their game with a real identity, with unrelenting resolve to play with a ferocious will to win. Of course, the other 50 last year were not all bad, and neither were the near 60 this year, but the Canadiens only appeared consistent and confident as a team once; during those 30 games. Not once before and after that stretch could this team ever have been mistaken for the Detroit Red Wings.

82 games last season. 12 more in the playoffs. 60 games so far this season. What the team has to show for is a solid 30-game stretch, playing in a stride of confidence, and demonstrating what could be accomplished when playing to its full potential. 30 games on about 155.

And this is what we have renewed the mystique around. Maybe it's time to admit that we may have been fooled. Misled by our wanting to see something materialize, something we miss and that has escaped this city for some time now. Maybe we all bought into the fact that we may have seen more than what actually stood before us.

It will take another miracle 30 and something ever more special thereafter to convince us that the renewal of hope we have bred throughout the past year wasn't in fact nothing more than a testimony to our own yearning.  

You know who the Habs are like? They're Forrest Gump. Remember that movie? The slow guy leads a charmed life. He wins a college football scholarship, survives Vietnam with citations, lucks into a hugely successful business, meets several presidents and becomes a ping-pong world champion. Everything the guy touches somehow turns out to be a brilliant stroke of good fortune. What a lot of people don't know, however, is that Winston Groom wrote a sequel to Forrest Gump. In that one, called "Gump and Co.," Forrest's luck changes. He loses his business, ends up broke and everything he touches turns into an unmitigated disaster. Obviously, after the feel-good fun of the first movie, nobody was rushing out to make a film of the sequel.

Continue reading "Stupid Is As Stupid Does" »

I hate to say this. I really do. But it needs saying.
Guy Carbonneau needs to go. Continue reading "There Will Be Blood" »

(pictured: Tomas Plekanec, version 2008-09) 

Dear Montreal Canadiens,  

I was watching you last night, but the game was late, so I went to bed after the first period. Things were looking brighter than they had in a while. You were leading 2-1, after some hard work from Chris Higgins led to Matt D'Agostini's tenth goal and Kovalev and Plekanec scored a beauty reminiscent of last year on a two-on-one. The Flames were trying, but Jaro Halak was playing a great game, providing the solid goaltending you guys haven't had for a couple of weeks. The only goal they had was off a goalmouth scrum, and Halak nearly had that one.

So, Habs, I ask you: What the hell happened? No, wait, don't answer that. Because you'll only mouth platitudes and cliches that will make most of us want to solder your lips closed. But I'll tell you a few things I've noticed about your game, and you can tell us if they're true, and if so, what you plan to do about them.

Continue reading "An Epistle" »

Going… going…
I don’t know if I’ve ever been more depressed as a Habs fan. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more depressed. Back in the dark ages a decade ago the team was worse, much worse, but at least then there was no hope, no expectation.
This year I had great hope and I had lofty expectations.
A few weeks ago I was trying to convince everyone that the Habs could catch Boston. Now I’m trying to convince myself that the Canadiens will still make the playoffs. Normally, I stick "with the team through the good times and the bad", but this time... something's different. Continue reading "Going Down in Flames" »

The NHL's trade deadline, as TSN insists on excitedly reminding us every five minutes, is just under a month away. The much-anticipated bartering between "buyers" and "sellers" as teams line up on one side of the playoffs or the other promises to be...well...pretty darn uninspiring. And, logic would tell us, Hab fans who are salivating at the idea of "The Big One," the trade that will turn the team into an instant contender, finally happening should probably save their spit for digesting a Bell Centre hot dog.

There are three main hindrances to The Big One.

Continue reading "Trade Winds: Diminishing to Light Breezes" »

A journalist enquired last night during Guy Carbonneau's post-game conference whether he asked Alex Kovalev to play more of a north-south game as opposed to an east-west one.  

Carbonneau smiled, looked up, and was immediately swept away by the recurring memories that flooded his conscience. 

(Blurry image)

Guy Carbonneau: Alex, can I have a word with you now?

Kovy: Coach, what's up, maybe this conversation will last 1:47 ok? That's really all the time you have patience for me anyway.

Carbo: Well, Alex, I don't know that I appreciate the sarcasm but I nevertheless want to talk to you.

Kovy: Like I said coach, we can talk. It makes me laugh if you think we can't talk. Let me just finish talking about you to this Russian reporter who promised she wouldn't print my comments about you being a moron....So Marieva, like i said, Carbo is a moron...

 Carbo: Listen Alex, cut the crap and get your ass in my office.

(in office)

Kovy: What's going on El Communicator?

Carbo: I've been watching your play of late. I noticed that you're playing more east-west as opposed to north-south.

Kovy: I play much more south-east to north-west. don't insult me by saying I'm strictly a east-west guy.

Carbo: But you are! I ask for north-south, you give me east-west.

Kovy: Watch your mouth Carbo. The only time I went West was when I left Russia, and that was the only exception I've ever made, but like I said, I don't go east-west.

Carbo: Alex, your hips don't lie. Look at the tape. Look at where you are on the ice. You're here; that's Windsor Court, right by Peel street; that's east. Fast forward the tape. You see! You ended up at the other end, and that's Rue de la Montagne, and we all know that's west.

Kovy: Like I said coach, what's your point?

Carbo: I want you to go north-south. I want you to start on de la gauchetière and take it to St-Antoine. Take it to St-Antoine good man!

Kovy: Like I said.

Carbo: You can't go east-west. There's no meaning to the east-west. You gotta take it north-south! That's what we're all about. Go into that locker room, look at those faces on the wall. You think those guys ever went east-west. They're made of North-South, Kovy! Only north-south! They made north-south! And those players, today, they want a leader, they want a guy who'll take them north-south.

Kovy: Coach, it's ok to start north, but then to go east, when the other team wants you go try west, but in your head you know you're going to fool him and go back north to turn into east and finish it all with a move to the south-west.

Carbo: I'm not sure I follow.

Kovy: Coach, it's not that hard. You take it south-west, they think it's going to be a move east, but no! It's north! Then north-west!

Carbo: Go on.

Kovy: From that south west, your make a sharp turn south and then op! east, no! west and then straight into a north-east line to south-west. And there you have it.

Carbo: So the north-south become useless. 

Kovy: Totally useless, like Sergei Kostitsyn on the power play.

Carbo: Go on!

Kovalev: They know you want to go south, but we have to take it to another direction, coach. The future is south-west while passing through east. That's where we go. Right there. We start north and take them east, to the south-west, and back to the east, where you turn west and head towards the north.  

Carbo: Yes. Yes i see it.

Kovy: And There you have it.

Carbo: There you have it. 

Carbo/Kovy: THE PERFECT DIPSY-DOODLE! 

Carbo: Get outta here ya big lug!

Kovy: Watch out! Somebody may end up in a headlock! 

Carbo: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 

I think the hockey gods are trying to tell me something. I went into work this morning, in the cold and the dark, down in the dumps about the events of yesterday; although more so the loss of yet more players with extended injuries than about the actual loss of the game itself. So, at the office, I noticed the Habs' wall calendar I got for Christmas was still showing the January page: a lovely shot of Andrei Kostitsyn celebrating a goal. I flipped the page to February, mildly curious about who I'd be looking at all month. And there, in all his outlet-passing glory, is the Breezer. Yup. Patrice Brisebois is our Mr.Februrary. It's a fitting representation for the fact that our Centennial dreams are crumbling around us.

Not that I've got anything against the Breeze in himself. He is what he is; an aging defenceman with a huge heart and a little bit of decent offensive ability left in the tank. If he was performing the role for which he was signed; as a veteran leader who could fill in as a top-six guy in case of injuries, everything would be just fine. But since he's become, once again, an every-night defenceman, people are critical of him and of Bob Gainey for signing him. That's become the message of the season: "We're not winning every game, so what are you going to do, Bob?"

Continue reading "In Defence of Bob" »

With Robert Lang out for the rest of the season, it's all on Plekanec and Koivu to provide the way they did last season for a Canadiens team that finished with the best record in the Eastern Conference. Continue reading "Expectations Play Biggest Role in Canadiens Impending Success or Failure" »

To beat, or not to beat: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The left hooks and uppercuts of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to suffer seizure;
To be concussed no more.

 

Four hundred years ago, Bill Shakespeare's younger, hockey-mad brother, Wayne, was wrestling with the same internal debate that we're still facing today: does fighting have a place in the NHL?

Continue reading "Rule 47" »

I was thinking the other day about the old cliche that a hockey team is like a family. That's actually true, in more ways than just the trite. Like a family, a hockey team has a geneology. One player starts his career with a team, then is traded for another, and a line of inheritance is established.  And like any family, those members living in the modern generation like to think their ancestors did great things, and that, perhaps, they carry some of that greatness in their own veins. As I was thinking about that, I came across a bit on the Canadiens' website detailing how one current Hab's hockey bloodlines go back to the seventies Cup teams. It made me wonder, what's left of the last great dynasty the Habs experienced? Is there any vestige of the great '70s teams left on the ice in the organization today? I couldn't resist digging into the records to find out.

There wasn't much variation on the roster between 1976 and 1979. You don't mess with success, after all. So, looking at the 1979 roster, it's obvious many of the greatest players' hockey bloodlines stop right there. Ken Dryden, Yvan Cournoyer and Jacques Lemaire retired after that fourth straight Cup, and none of them were ever traded or waived. From that roster, Pierre Mondou, Rejean Houle, Bob Gainey and Mario Tremblay also retired as Habs, never having played for another team. Guy Lafleur retired, then signed as a free agent a couple of years later.  Two others, Serge Savard and Yvon Lambert were claimed by other teams on waivers in the '80s, with no return to the Habs. Another, Larry Robinson, left the team as a free agent, again, with no compensation for the Habs. Cam Connor, who played on the '79 team, was released following that season. It's when you get into the players who were traded that things get interesting.

Continue reading "A Dynastic Family Tree" »

The great Green Bay Packers' coach, Vince Lombardi said, "Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing."

I don't like the habits we're seeing develop with the Canadiens. I hate the discouraging pattern of losing to teams that won't make the playoffs.  And I despise the hubris that makes the Habs think they've already got a playoff spot locked up themselves. Because they don't. It's not a very long drop from middle of the pack to the bottom, and teams that don't care about winning half the time tend to fall quicker than the global economy.

Even if the Canadiens make the playoffs, I think it's safe to say they will not be advancing very far with the kind of effort they've displayed in the last ten games. Their defensive coverage is deplorable, their work on the boards non-existent and their offence all on the perimeter. They look soft, lazy and unmotivated. The special teams aren't nearly good enough to carry the team through the post-season grind when every goal counts. No, the only cups these guys will be touching will be the ones they're wearing under their equipment. And half of them don't really seem to need those in the first place.

Continue reading "Ranting and Raving" »

Now we're down to business. Crunch time. Stretch drive. Time to get serious about hockey and tune up for the meaningful season. Thankfully, because in the afterglow of the all-star break, in the lull before the games get real again this week, I've had way too much time to think.  Among the swirl of hockey-related musings are questions ike:

Who's going to stand up at the special occasions in the Canadiens' future and represent the team's past? I thought it was a beautiful gesture of acknowledgement when greats like Henri Richard and Serge Savard were introduced and given the chance to take a bow during the All-Star game. But Savard retired more than twenty-five years ago. Richard hung 'em up seven years before that. These are guys who were born in the thirties and forties, and they're not going to be around forever. Even the youngest players of the '70s dynasty...the last round of great Hall of Famers the Canadiens could boast...are getting up there. Larry Robinson is fifty-seven and Ken Dryden is sixty-one. I'm delighted the team takes every opportunity it can to say thank you and to keep these great players' legacies alive for the modern fan. Yet I can't help but wonder who's following in their shoes? Patrick Roy? Guy Carbonneau? Saku Koivu? Who'll be the honorees, the touchstone to Canadiens' history, on the team's 125th birthday?

 

Continue reading "The Time For Thinking Is Past" »

I want to clarify something in case, on a fateful day, there is stifling confusion amongst the people.

Should I ever fall gravely ill and, as a grim consequence, be maintained on life support, I want my loved ones to discuss certain options:

 - has the science of freezing a body evolved enough to throw me, the loved one, into a huge steaming vat of freeze, or will this serve simply to deplete my estate, and rob it of funds that could be spent on more meaningful pleasures;

- if there is a logical debate to be had on cryonics that would lead to an impasse amongst the administrators of my estate, then I would ask for my head to be preserved in a frozen state while the rest of my body be donated to science, the science of bringing the rest of my body back to life. Also, if at all possible, I would ask that my head be placed next to Walt Disney's so I could pick his frozen brain about animation in the 1920s.

- should the freezing option be null and void and I be maintained on life support because doctors think there is a 0.0023% chance the coma is reversible, then I want to be treated with dignity and entertained on a daily basis. Music, movies, jokes, the works. 

But I want to make one thing very clear, even while I rest in the full depths of my coma, I object with all my might to anyone who may entertain the notion of wheeling me out to the Bell Centre for a skills competition during another all-star weekend.

This is not a joke. Nobody takes me to a skills competition ever again. Ever. If the skills are on TV and they happen to be in another city, turn the monitor off. Even if the only thing on is a Saved By The Bell Reunion show, switch the channel over to that.

These words are necessary, but I have suffered enough. I was there on Saturday, I saw the pain on the people's faces, I heard the cries. We all emerged from the hollows of the Bell Centre with a new meaning to the word boredom.

I have never heard the place so silent. How silent? At one point, I text a friend who was also there that the place felt like a Helen Keller convention, and he texts back: "It's so quiet in here i heard you type that message".

The skills brought on one of the those dazes during which you organize your entire week while the action you are oblivious to is unfolding before you: Call that client, water the geraniums..., funny word, ge-ra-ni-um. Heh, draft that timetable, it's so quiet here. I can't believe Gandhi waged war without firing a single shot. Gan-dhi, Gan-dhi. Do I really want to switch over to striped socks? What if I'm wearing a striped suit? I'll look like a zebra. But zebras don't wear ties, hah, zebras don't wear ties. How come some women wear ties? What's that about? Is it sexy? Yeah it's a bit sexy, but it would be weird if we were both like taking each other's ties off in the heat of the moment.

IS THIS GAME STILL ON????

That was Saturday, and on Saturday I wanted to die.

Then came Sunday, and on Sunday the fog dissipated and the sun emerged in its splendid radiant fine self.

That game was actually...not an experience in cerebral apoplexy! 

But on Sunday I watched on TV and I'm told that before the game became interesting, it was quiet once again at the Bell Centre. 

Whatever the case, the all-stars did not shy away from the fancy stuff. They let loose and did what they could to celebrate the game, although I really don't understand why that phrase should have any relevance. Celebrate the game. Let's celebrate the game by NOT playing it. That's like celebrating someone's birthday and telling that person, "yeah, about your party, look I hope you understand, but there isn't a lot of room, and it's kinda this private thing, so you know...but next year for sure, for sure you have to come".

The skills on Saturday, especially the breakaway, and the Breakaway Extended Remix at the end of the competition felt like a wanna be NBA slam dunk fest. But it really wasn't. It was awkward and clumsy, and looked like the NHL was trying to stretch its image to one it can't fit. The Skills were a clear depiction of a league caught in all-star transition.

The game was rescued by the fact it was played in Montreal and that the MVP was our adopted son, as good an ending as you're going to get.

So I urge the powers that be to remember 3 important things.

1) You gotta get that freezing stuff going cause I want to live forever.

2) The all-star format needs work, and one awful breakaway event shall suffice.

3) Alex Kovalev has dethroned Maria Sharapova as my new Russian crush. We're gonna make this work, Alex.