Dennis Kane’s Excellent Montreal Canadiens Blog

I’ve been thinking about something a lot lately. A little reflecting, I suppose.

Instead of working in different blue collar jobs all my life, from factories to bars to driving semi’s, and every other lousy job in between, why didn’t I, when I had the chance, try to get as close to my passion as possible?

Why didn’t I at least try? Oh, not as a hockey player, of course. As a Forum maintenance man.

I remember being at a game at the Forum when I was about twenty, and just a block away was a small apartment building. And I’ve thought about this apartment building, because it would’ve been the key.

I should have saved enough for a year’s rent, went to Montreal as a teenager, and rented an apartment in this building. Then every day, early in the morning, for months, I would’ve walked the short block to the Forum and applied for a job.

Originally I’d be turned down on a daily basis, but then I would’ve swung into step two. And that would be helping Forum workers carry things from trucks and going to get their coffee. I would’ve done this for free, of course, but it would be all part of the master plan.

The workers would soon enough get to know me because I would’ve shown up a the same time every day, and was more than willing to help them. Slowly they’d learn my story about how much I wanted to work at the Forum, and slowly, their boss would learn this too.

Then one day, the Forum needed a new labourer because someone had quit, and because the boss and all the workers liked me and knew I was a good worker, I was hired. Probably part-time to start.

I would’ve worked myself into a permanent position, and stayed there for more than thirty years.  I would’ve cleaned up hats on the ice after hat tricks were scored. I would’ve fixed the glass, painted lines, laid the red carpet for dignitaries, been working the night of the first 1972 Canada-Russia tilt, scraped blood from the ice after John Ferguson had pummelled someone, and became friendly with all the players. I would’ve been at every game and every Stanley Cup in Montreal at the old Forum for more than three decades, helped work out some kinks at the Bell Centre after moving over, and then retired. 

It probably would’ve been a dream job for me.

But I didn’t do any of this. Shit.  

 On this day, August 17th, in 1966, the Beatles played an afternoon show in Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens.

I was there.

I was 15 years old and had a summer job on a highway, but the boss let me go early and I went down to Toronto from Orillia with a disc jockey my sister worked with at a radio station. She had got word to me just that morning that he was going and would I like to go with him. I didn’t have a ticket, but believe it or not, the show wasn’t sold out and I got a $5.50 ticket in the the very last row of the floor.

That fall, hockey season began of course, and the next spring, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Habs in six games to win their last Stanley Cup.

The Leafs were an old team with guys like Terry Sawchuk, Johnny Bower, Red Kelly, and Allan Stanley, but Montreal wasn’t that young either. Henri Richard was 30, John Ferguson 27, Claude Provost was 32, Dick Duff 30, Ted Harris 30, Jean-Guy Talbot was 34, Jean Beliveau was 35, and the goalies, Gump Worsley and Charlie Hodge, were 37 and 33 respectively.

Of course, Montreal also had the kiddies. Yvon Cournoyer was all of 22. Claude Larose was 23. Jacques Laperriere 24. And Serge Savard and Carol Vadnais were just 20.

The Beatles were fairly young. John and Ringo were 26, Paul 24, and George 23.

The Habs have continued on over the years in glorious fashion. The Beatles remain in the hearts of millions.

And the Leafs have continued to suck.

Canadiens goaltender Charlie Hodge and lovely wife Sheila. Charlie had the unfortunate luck of being on the same team as Jacques Plante, so he basically was a career backup goalie with the Habs. But he was a great backup. He eventually went to Oakland when expansion came into being in 1967, as each team had to surrender a goalie for the new upstarts. (the original six teams were allowed to protect only 11 skaters and one goalie.)

Charlie now lives just east of Vancouver. 

John Ferguson with wife Jean and daughter in this really nice family photo. As much as Fergie was a bruiser on the ice, he was known as a gentle pushover at home.

Fergie would go back to Nanaimo BC in the off-season to play professional lacrosse and he also had a long-time love affair with harness racing. (athletes’ wives put up with a lot, don’t they?)

Fergie’s son, John Ferguson Jr., who would grow up to become GM for the Toronto Maple Leafs until he was fired last year, wasn’t born when this picture was taken. This is from the early 1960’s, and John Jr. wasn’t born until 1967.

Montreal lost 2-0 to Pittsburgh last night. It’s no wonder I drink. 

At least I didn’t have to hear that Olay song being sung.

But anyway:

You know when you’ve been with a couple of your really tough buddies, and some guy, who could normally kick your ass, gives you a hard time and you get really brave because you’re with your buddies. You’ve got this grin on your face that you wouldn’t have if you weren’t with your friends. It’s like you’re saying, “I’d kick your ass so easily, but I’ll let my friends do it this time.”

It’s all bullshit. The guy would kill you. But you’ve got this smug grin anyway because you’re protected. It’s called false bravado.

Certain hockey players are like this too.

Sean Avery is this way. So is Mike Rebeiro. And so is this player-actor Jarkko Ruutu, who plays for Pittsburgh and used to play for Vancouver. I’m not crazy about players of this sort. Shit disturbers. Cry babies. Moderately talented hockey players. Divers. Big smiles on their faces. Tough only because they rarely have to answer the bell.

John Ferguson would have destroyed these fellows.

John Ferguson was a lot of things.

He was one of the most popular players to ever wear the Montreal sweater, according to one who would know, Dick Irvin. He was a serious lacrosse player, mostly in Nanaimo, BC. He was assistant coach on Team Canada during the 1972 Summit Series. He was deeply involved in horse racing. He was coach and GM of the New York Rangers, and GM of the Winnipeg Jets. But most of all, he was a great fighter for the Habs in the 1960’s, who could also score goals. Twelve seconds into his very first NHL game with the Habs, Fergie got into a fight with Boston tough guy Ted Green, and won. He was a coach’s dream.

Fergie was one those guys who would cross the street if members of the opposing team were walking his way. He avoided playing in golf tournaments if players from other teams were participating.  And he would only be involved in hockey schools if all the other instructors were Montreal players.

“We played for the sweater,” John Ferguson once said, and because he said that, he’s one of my all-time favourite Montreal Canadiens. I even saw him and Eddie Shack go at it once when I was at a game at Maple Leaf Gardens, and it brought down the house. It was one of those great, delicious bench-clearing brawls, and Shack and Fergie were the headliners, two rival gladiators with a glorious dislike for each other. They went punch for punch, Leaf fans screamed for his blood, and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, right up there with Brigitte Bardot standing by the fence in “And God Created Women.”

John Ferguson Sr. was one of the best. He died on July 14, 2007, at only 68. His son is the GM now for the Toronto Maple Leafs.