Dennis Kane’s Excellent Montreal Canadiens Blog

Isn’t it funny how no matter what decade we’re in, many retired players and older fans always insist that the game isn’t as good as it used to be, when they played or watched.

It’s only natural that they feel this way. The present game, of any decade, just doesn’t have the romance it did for them. And hockey always changes, whether it’s the way players shoot, or pass, or even their size.

Ken Dryden, when asked when he thought the golden age of hockey was, answered that it’s whenever we were young.  It is for me. The 1950’s and 1960’s were my golden hockey years. They were magic years, with road hockey, collecting cards, digging pucks out of snowbanks, outdoor rinks and frozen toes,  and a six team NHL. And I had the Rocket, Beliveau, Howe, Hull, Plante, and Sawchuk to watch.

But for men who played in the 1930’s and ’40’s, those 1950’s and ’60’s sucked. And for the ones’s who played in the 1910’s and ’20’s, the next few decades after them simply didn’t cut it.

It’ll always be like this. Ken Dryden was right. It all depends on when you were born.

Here’s some examples.

Cyclone Taylor, one of hockey earliest stars, talking about the game in 1968:

“I don’t think I’d like to play the game now. I was used to going on at the start of the game and playing to the finish. I think any man between the ages of 18 and 35 who can’t play 60 minutes of hockey - well, he just doesn’t want to play, that’s all.”

Newsy Lalonde, who signed with the Montreal Canadiens in 1910, talking hockey in 1970.

“Never did I use the slapshot the way you see it used in the NHL now, with the curved sticks and all. With us there was no other shot to use but the wrist shot. When a man makes a slapshot today it’s more powerful than a wrist shot, but you can’t place it in the same way. The modern player just shoots the puck in the general direction of the net and that’s it. We knew where the puck was going and didn’t have to look twice.

And if you think hockey is a tough game nowadays, you have no idea what toughness is all about.”

Bill Durnan, star goalie for the Habs from 1943 to 1950, talking about the NHL in 1969.

“It’s a changed game, no doubt about it. Now it’s congested and half the time you don’t know how the puck went into the net. Thy just don’t have the plays we had; they simply shove the puck in the corner, then there’s a wild scramble, with three or four guys behind the bloody net. The puck comes out and somebody bangs it in. At that point, even the announcers who are supposed to know what happened start guessing.

And the players have changed, especially their attitudes, though at least until recently there were a few honest skaters left. John Ferguson, who played for the Canadiens, is an example. I was at a party with him a few years ago and somebody asked him why he was such a stinker on the ice and a nice guy off it. Ferguson replied. “When I’m on the ice, I’m at work!”

Now that’s the kind of answer we oldtimers would give.”

Cooper Smeaton, NHL referee before and after World War 1, interviewed in the 1970’s.

“Those were the golden days of hockey when you had fellows like Howie Morenz, Nels Stewart, and Georges Vezina. They talk about Bobby Hull’s speed, but Morenz would whip around his net like a flash and be up the ice before you could blink your eyes.

Take a goal scorer like Stewart. In today’s game he’d score 100 goals. And in the old days if a team was a man short it would stickhandle the puck until time expired. Now they just heave it down the ice. You don’t have to pay a guy $400,000 to do that.

We had a more appealing game game with lots of stickhandling and nice passing. Now it’s all speed.

But one thing remains the same though - the referees never seem to please the coaches or managers or owners. To this day, nobody is perfect.”

A fellow at work told me a very sad story the other day, and I was surprised yet not so surprised. It just reinforced my belief that the Rocket was better in many ways than Gordie Howe.

My friend’s father is a lifelong Detroit Red Wings fan. So much so that he went out and spent almost $500 on a Red Wings jacket with the felt and leather and all that.

A few years ago, the father, wearing his Red Wings jacket, was at the Vancouver airport for whatever reason, and he couldn’t believe his eyes. Because in the crowd, he spotted old number nine, Gordie Howe.

Wonderful occurrences like this don’t happen every day. Gordie Howe. His boyhood hero. Heck, even Wayne Gretzky’s hero.

So the guy went up to Howe and politely asked him if he would sign his beautiful $500 Detroit Red Wings jacket. How great would that be?

Gordie Howe refused to sign it. He told the guy he would probably just turn around and sell it.

The lifelong Red Wings and Gordie Howe fan went away disappointed. And he now looks at Gordie Howe in a different way.

What do you think about this?

All I know is that when I met Rocket Richard about 16 years ago, (which I’ll write about in the fall), he was charming and accommodating and pleasant, and I got the feeling that he wouldn’t have minded signing anything I asked.

And when I told my wife this Howe story, her one question was: Even if the guy would’ve turned around and sold the jacket, so what? When people sell these things, maybe some of them actually need the money.

And aren’t the fans what it’s all about?

It would have been almost no effort whatsoever for Howe to sign the jacket. He would have made the guy’s day.

In my book, he blew it.

I was reading a year-old Maclean’s magazine yesterday while waiting for my car, and there was an article about the NHL’s greatest fighters, with matchups of serious bruisers over the years and then the ultimate winner. They had Gordie Howe, Stu Grimson, Bob Probert, Stan Jonathan and about ten others, did an elimination thing, and in the end, Montreal’s Georges Laraque beat Bob Probert to win Best Fighter Ever in the NHL.

Isn’t that good? Bring ‘em on, tough guys around the league. Big Georges is gonna kick you to kingdom come. And Saku and Tomas and the rest can now sleep just a little more soundly.

In other news:

I don’t know if you ever read these hockey forums where guys give their two cents worth and most are only worth one cent. It doesn’t matter what team site it is, they’re all the same. One guy on the Habs site, for example, will go on about how Bob Gainey has lost his mind, another will show how smart he is by listing a bunch of minor leaguers Bob should either bring up or deal; another will say he’s heard through a legitimate rumour that Mats Sundin is on his way to Vancouver. Etc, etc.

These guys are the absolute definitive armchair quarterbacks. And they get nasty if someone decides the other is full of it.

I’ve offered my two cents from time to time, but I think I come across as boring because I don’t make the outlandish predictions or use players’ nicknames like I know them personally.

I think I’ll stay away from these forums. They upset me.

Or I could just say that Mats Sundin has bought the Montreal Canadiens and will become player-coach, owner, and announcer, but can’t right now because he’s dating Madonna and it’s complicated because Madonna is a Rangers fan that stems from her old relationship with Mark Messier. (Was there a love-child?) And now A-Rod is on the warpath because he’s lost both his wife and Madonna, is now looking for Mats, and apparently Bob Cole and Britney Spears were seen dancing the tango at Spago’s in Hollywood, and the whole thing’s just a big mess.  

If the NHL Awards show wants to become more of a flashy and polished affair, they might want to think about replacing host Ron McLean. For as much as he’s a quick-witted and able sidekick to Don Cherry on Coach’s Corner, he comes across on these glittering nights as a bit of a hick. Really hokey. With lame jokes like the Brian Burke bobbing head doll and the cell phone thing. He’s not too funny at all. Maybe he’s overrated?
Gary Bettman looked embarrassed and I felt embarrassed.

Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the only one in the world who feels like this.

On the brighter side, there sure were a lot of good looking wives there. It seems that hot women like millionaire athletes! Go figure.

Washington’s Bruce Boudreau beat out Guy Carbonneau and Mike Babcock to win the Adams trophy for coach of the year. For me it could’ve gone either way between him and Carbonneau so this is okay.

Alex Ovechkin won both the Hart for league MVP and the Lester B. Pearson for top player as voted by his peers. This is fine, but my question is, who dresses this guy? He looked so out of sorts with his silly red tie and weird collared shirt that I wondered if he just got off the Red Eye from Moscow.

Niklas Lidstrom took home his sixth Norris for best defenseman. His wife is also right up there for Best Wife.

Gordie Howe was honoured with the very first Lifetime Achievement Award. This is good, but I’m wondering if you have to be alive to win this. Because the Rocket deserves one too. But the Rocket has the Rocket Richard Trophy named for him for most goals in a season, and that’s better than a Lifetime Achievement award in my book.

Last but not least, Patrick Kane beat out Jonathan Toews and Nicklas Backstrom for Rookie of the Year (Calder trophy). I’m happy about this because my name is Dennis Patrick Kane.

Enough’s enough. Rick Ley still hasn’t returned my hockey gloves. Doesn’t he understand the impact here?

I’ve decided to write him a letter.  Dear Rick: I’m still waiting for my gloves. Remember? You borrowed them when you were going away to the Niagara Falls Flyers training camp. They fit you like a, uh, glove. If you would have borrowed big Gerry Gibson’s gloves from up around the corner, you might have done poorly, because they were too big and would have been hard to handle the puck with. But no, you borrowed mine, made the team, and the rest, as they say, is history.

You showed the coach you could play well, probably because my gloves were fitting well and feeling good. So he kept you, and within a couple of years, you were playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs. You even had a small part in a movie. You made way more money than me, and it all started with my gloves. Is that ironic or what?

If you had decided to go with big Gerry Gibson’s gloves, which of course would have been too loose, you might still be a rink rat back home and would have never jumped over to the New England Whalers, where you were great. And when they raised your jersey to the rafters in Hartford, next to Gordie Howe’s jersey, did you and your wife even think of me and silently thank me during the emotional ceremony?

In 1974, when the World Hockey Association all-stars played the Russians and you were on the team, did you ever think you’d be playing for your country, all because you borrowed my gloves, which helped you make the Niagara Falls Flyers and you eventually ended up with the Leafs and then the Whalers and then Team Canada?

And when you mugged Russian star Valeri Kharlamov on the ice, did you know that Russian President Leonid Brezhnev, a big hockey fan, was following the series, and when Kharlamov was never the same again after your mugging and it affected the team, it led to a tremendously dispirited Brezhnev, who, maybe because he felt bad, eventually passed away, which led to a succession of leaders, and eventually Mikhail Gorbachev came in, and to make a long story short, was the beginning of the fall of communism? So when you look at it closely, I guess you could say me and my hockey gloves were responsible for the end of the Cold War.

Then you became the long-serving assistant coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, did pretty good, and I feel it’s time you should return my gloves. You owe me, and it’s not even the end of it. You prepared the team, worked with them in practices and games, and made them better players. They wouldn’t have learned as much if you weren’t there, and you wouldn’t have been there if you hadn’t made the Niagara Falls Flyers shortly after you borrowed my gloves those many decades ago. So I guess that means that all those Leafs you coached should thank me. I hope they didn’t learn bad habits from you about not returning things, though.

I know you’re a busy man, and it was a long time ago, and have just forgotten completely about the borrowing. I’m just reminding you, that’s all, and I know that you will find the time to put the gloves in a box and send them to me.

Thanks a lot.

Your pal from the neighbourhood,

Dennis

Game four of the Stanley Cup finals is played, of course, at Pittsburgh’s Mellon Arena. This place, once known as the Civic Arena and nicknamed the Igloo, is the oldest in the league, having opened its’ doors in 1961. It holds about 17,000 people, is old, it leaks in places, and some people can’t see because an overhead structure obstructs their view. So televisions have been placed so they can watch the game they’re at on the screen.

The Civic Arena became the home of the Penguins when the team entered the league in the 1967 expansion.  The name was changed to Mellon in 1999, and was, like several other arenas around the league, named for a bank. 

When game five goes in Detroit, it will be, as always, played at the Joe Louis Arena, named after Detroit native and world champion boxer Joe Louis. It’s nice that this arena isn’t named after a bank or some other conglomerate.

The Joe has been around since 1979, and before that, the Wings played at the old Olympia, home of Gordie Howe, Alex Delvecchio, Terry Sawchuk, and several hundred dead octopi.

It holds just over 20,000. 

The good news for the Pittsburgh Penguins is their three big guys, Crosby, Malkin, and Hossa, played well. The even better news for the Penguins is that they won game three, and are now pretty well back in the series. But not quite.

Sidney Crosby did what all great stars throughout the years have done. Stepped forward and scored huge goals in big games. Like Orr did, And Richard, Howe, Messier, Lemieux, Gretzky, and all the great ones over the years did.

Tonight, he netted the first two of the game, which broke the team goal drought, and which got the Penguins going.

That’s why he’s a star. He acts like one.

The Penguins barely won game three, though, hanging on for dear life through the third period. And all they have to do is win the next three out of four games.

So I’m not going to predict anything. I’m not Kreskin. It’s sort of possible that Pittsburgh could come all the way back and win this series. I doubt it, but it’s possible.

And like Toe Blake said, “predictions are for gypsys.”

One thing I feel though. Penguins defenceman Hal Gill should be read the riot act. What guys like Gill are known for are silly physical penalties that happen because the skill level isn’t quite up there. He can cost his team the game, which almost happened tonight.

One other note regarding tonight’s game on CBC. Pittsburgh cameras are placed alnost as high up as they are in Tampa. These cameras should be down at least fifteen feet. Detroit’s are. Lots of teams are. Although lots aren’t. I don’t know why. 

In Montreal news.

Guy Lafleur has apparently said that when Saku Koivu and Alex Kovalev become free agents in 2009, the Habs should concentrate more on signing Kovalev. He said Koivu is too serious and business-like in the dressing room, too demanding of his teammates.

What the hell is wrong with that? That just tells me that Koivu is about winning, is about making sure he and his teammates give their all. This is the way Mark Messier was, and Ted Lindsay years ago, and so many other great leaders. These guys have all summer to relax, joke around, have a good time. During the season, they’d better perform, better take it seriously. They’re being paid enough money.

If Koivu’s teammates, and there’s probably only a couple if any, don’t like his hard-core expectations, they should take up ballet instead.

Of course, this could be just one more case of Lafleur saying things that maybe he shouldn’t be saying. He’s been doing this for more than thirty years.

I say the team should concentrate on signing both. They’re equally important in the scheme of things in Montreal.

But I honestly do like the tough approach from the captain.

Several things to talk about on this sunny west coast day. And don’t worry, It won’t take long. I know you have a lawn to cut.

(Please note - I’m on a new site now  dennis-kane.com, so please add this new address to your favourites. More about his down below. Thanks.)

Reports say that Andrei Kostitsyn has said his plans are to stay with the Montreal Canadiens and not accept any offers from certain Russian teams with fat wallets. He likes Montreal, he likes the team, and he likes playing with his brother Sergei. Andrei was a free agent and could’ve bolted on us, but isn’t going to now. He’s a star in the making, and we need him for the Quest for the Cup next year. So hip hip hooray to Andrei Kostitsyn!

We like Andrei. He’s a good Hab.

Now a shocker of a tidbit. Are you ready for this?

Sometime around 1950, the Habs were returning from Toronto by train when their car suddenly derailed while crossing a bridge over ice waters of the Ottawa River. Had the car been flung to the right instead of to the left, which threw several players from their berths, the entire team would have plunged into the river.

I didn’t know this before but have just read it in a Terry Sawchuck biography. Imagine. We could’ve lost the entire Montreal Canadiens in one fell swoop. This is all quite unnerving.

Now, the news I’ve been waiting to tell you. You might see a few changes in the look of this blog. With the help of computer whiz Robin Murray, my old site was transferred lock, stock, and barrel over to a new one (although it looks the same) and I have a new domain address. It’s dennis-kane.com.

You have been automatically switched over to the new one through the wonders of technology, and this will always happen but you might, at some point, want to remember the new address, dennis-kane.com.

I moved it to this new one so I can have more freedom. I’ve included tasteful ads, and a world map showing where people live who have gone on my site. There’s CBC daily sports news updates, a whole bunch of Habs videos you can watch, and other cool things.

This blog is very important to me and I want it to grow, and it is. It was stressful doing these changes because I basically didn’t have a clue, but Robin took on the challenge, and with great patience and know how, came through for me. He never got angry at me with all my questions and obvious stress showing all over my face and voice, and he just carried on with a smile, tweaking and suggesting, and getting it done.

I grew up with typewriters, and so Robin became more important than you can imagine. If you have any questions for this great guru, he’s at greatoutdoorstoday@gmail.com. He’s a friendly sort.

Two real good teams are going to tangle for the Stanley Cup. I’ve got no complaints about this. It’s not like it’s the Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricane, or Tampa Bay Lightening. Or even, dare I say, the Anaheim Ducks.

No, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings are a solid matchup and two good hockey towns to boot. Pittsburgh had an NHL team in 1925, the Pirates, which lasted until 1930, and the city’s had the Penguins since league expansion in 1967.

Detroit’s been in the league since 1926 when they took over the Victoria BC franchise. The city and team like to call itself Hockeytown, which is a little off. If Detroit’s Hockeytown, then Montreal and Toronto must be Hockeycities.

And if the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit doesn’t start getting more fans in the seats, the nickname might have to be changed to ‘Used to Be Hockeytown.’

This leads me to my second complaint. It’s fine that Gordie Howe is called Mr. Hockey, but isn’t that for others to label the man? My personal opinion is, he shouldn’t be signing autographs as “Gordie Howe, Mr. Hockey.” Doesn’t that make him just a little bit full of himself?

Gordie Howe is considered by not all, but many, as the greatest ever. Greater than Gretzky, Orr, Richard, and Lemieux. It’s a judgement call. Hall of Fame goalie Glenn Hall told me Howe was the best there was.

He doesn’t need to blow his own horn. Let others do that for him. Let others call him Mr. Hockey.

And I say this with the utmost respect for Mr. Howe.

Am I wrong for thinking this? I’m pretty sure Mario never signed as Mario “The Magnificent One” Lemieux, or Orr as Bobby “The World’s Greatest Defenceman” Orr, or Maurice “Hero of a Province” Richard.

This year’s final is a sexy affair because of so many stars involved. Crosby, Malkin, Hossa, Staal, Malone, Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Franzen, Lidstrom, Draper. And the guy who played on the original 1926 Wings, Chris Chelios.

It’ll be good. I may even watch some of it.

The thing begins Saturday in Detroit.

It’s an interesting study, this Mike Ribeiro.

Let’s first start in the here and now, and work our way backwards.

In game two against Detroit, Ribeiro, the Dallas Stars offensive threat, while skating past the Wings’ net, received a butt-end from Detroit goalie Chris Osgood. Ribeiro then turned around and gave Osgood a two-hander across the chest of Osgood. It was, for lack of better words, selfish and stupid on Ribeiro’s part.

Now let’s back up a little. Ribeiro was an underacheiving forward for the Montreal Canadiens, and was sent packing to the Dallas Stars for defenceman Janne Niiniman and 5th round draft pick, and he blossomed into a big point-getter and an important piece of the puzzle in Dallas.

Habs critics had a field day with this. Gainey was an idiot, they cried. How could he make such a bad decision to practically give Ribeiro away and now the guy’s a star in Dallas? What a mistake Gainey had made, they decided.

But Gainey traded him for a reason. There was talk that he was a person who helped separate the dressing room into cliques. He was a yapper on the ice who never backed up his tough talk.

And the instance that showed me he was no Montreal Canadien came when they did a close up of him one night in a game against Pittsburgh, and the the Habs were losing by a goal late in the game. And was Ribeiro all business and focused on the task of tying the game up? No. Instead, he skated over to Sidney Crosby and asked him if he could have one of his sticks.

To me, this is no Montreal Canadien. The Rocket and Doug Harvey would be rolling over in their graves about this Crosby stick thing.  Jean Beliveau, I’m sure, never asked Gordie Howe for his stick in a closely-fought battle. Toe Blake would’ve benched him for a month if he did.

I was glad when Ribeiro was traded. And I could care less how many goals he went on to score with Dallas. He was never going to be a Montreal Canadien, plain and simple.