Dennis Kane’s Excellent Montreal Canadiens Blog

Talk about doing it the hard way. Sleepwalk through most of the game, fall behind 4-1, then storm back in the third period and shock everyone in the building by coming alive and winning the darn thing 5-4 by scoring four goals in seven plus minutes at the end of the game.

I was hoping for Alex Kovalev and Tomas Plekanec to have break-out games, and both guys produced two goals and two assists and basically pulled it out for the good guys.

The Habs won………even though they played lousy. This game must really piss off the Islanders.

Must have been a good Halloween party the boys were at the night before. Hangovers can really suck.

Moving on:

David Robinson of the Chilliwack Bruins of the Western Hockey league took a puck in the teeth Oct. 18th while playing against the Kootenay Ice.

A dentist in Cranbrook yanked his teeth back into position, then Robinson rode the team bus home for seven hours with his mouthguard in his mouth to hold everything together.

Is that impressive or what?

Rick DiPietro is in some people’s bad books, including the New York media. The Islanders goalie signed a 15 year, 67.5 million dollar contract in 2006, and since then, keeps getting hurt. Now he’s on the shelf again and he’s only got 13 years left on his contract.

Apparently, Rick DiPietro is no David Robinson. Geez, the media is hard on their players in New York. I’m sure glad the Montreal media isn’t like that.

Important thing to know about Habs defenceman Andrei Markov. “Markov” translated into english means “stamp”, as in stamp on an envelope.

So you can now call him Andy Stamp if you feel so inclined.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are doing so well I’m kind of embarrassed I called them dog excretement a while back.

My old hometown, Orillia, is famous for many things. Gordon Lightfoot and Rick Ley come from Orillia. Stephen Leacock spent most of his life there and wrote a book about it, titled ‘Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.’

A Toronto TV show in the 1960’s, Perry’s Probe, did some research and decided Orillia had more drug users per capita than any other place in Canada.

But most of all, Orillia has the following, documented in this video. I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am.

This is an ad from a 1940’s newspaper I found years ago. As you can see, prices were somewhat less than they are today. 

Imagine, the Rocket, Elmer Lach, Toe Blake, Teeder Kennedy, Howie Meeker, Turk Broda - all the boys, for 75 cents.

I’m not going to go into great detail about tonight’s 3-2 shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes, other than it was a bit of a sloppy affair, with the Habs being outshot 33-25 by the quick-skating Canes. The boys also took several bad penalties, including a puck over the boards by Carey Price with two minutes left, that almost cost them the game. 

But Saku Koivu pulled it out in the shootout.

My feeling is, the homestand was too long, and a little road trip, beginning Thursday in Minnesota, then back east for stops on Long Island, Columbus, and Toronto, can’t come soon enough.

There’s things to be worked on, that’s for sure. Yes, I know, it’s only October. I’m an impatient man.

But they got their two points, and that’s what we see on paper when all’s said and done.

What I really want to talk about is something that happened before the game began. The Canadiens honoured their three most successful coaches - Dick Irvin, Toe Blake, and Scotty Bowman, and when I saw Toe’s son Bruce, my heart did a little dance.

Bruce Blake came out for the ceremonial faceoff wearing what probably was his dad’s old team cardigan sweater. And if that wasn’t good enough, he put on a fedora which also probably belonged to his dad. So there he was, dressed like his dad dressed in the good old days of the 1950’s and ’60s.

It was a tremendous moment, and I hope the younger generation picked up on this.

Last year I had a nice long talk, for about an hour, with Doug Harvey’s son, Doug Jr., and he told me that when he was growing up in Montreal, his best friend was Bruce Blake. Imagine being young kids with dads who were members of the famed Montreal Canadiens of the late 1950’s?

Bruce and Doug Jr. were. (Although Doug said it was like growing up the same as any other family, which is hard to imagine.)

And Doug Jr. told me that Bruce still has all those huge players’ murals that hung in the old Toe Blake Tavern, which sat just down Ste. Catherines Street from the old Forum.

Coming Up:

Thursday’s game in Minnesota should be an interesting affair. Montreal’s record after eight games is 6-1-1 for 13 points. The Wild’s, after seven games, is 6-0-1, also for 13 points.

At least Ottawa lost, so that’s good.  But then again, Toronto won. So that cancels out the good part.

Oh, and there was a game at the Bell Centre.

Chalk that one up to one of those nights, forget about it, and move on. Because nights like this, a lousy 6-4 loss to the Ducks, are gonna happen. It’s a long season.

We just don’t want it to happen too often. Almost never, as a matter of fact.

We could say the five-day layoff made the team rusty, and that might be true.

Or we could say that Jaroslav Halak stunk, and that might be true too.

And we could say the Habs just didn’t have it on this night, although they fired 51 shots at J.S. Giguere.

The fact is, the Canadiens played their poorest of their seven games so far this season (although opening night in Buffalo was pretty bad too), and the Ducks, just like I was worried about, have used this little eastern road trip to snap out of their doldrums, having also beaten Toronto and Ottawa on previous nights.

Watching Halak reminded me of so many nights from recent years, when you never knew what kind of goaltending you were going to see, and far too often, weak goals were scored on the good guys. It was discouraging for the skaters, and nerve wracking for fans whenever the puck made its way inside the blueline. But that changed, for the most part, with the arrival of Carey Price.

Halak didn’t have it, allowing four goals in a period and a half, and was replaced by Price, who’s been fighting the flu all week. Price wasn’t tested a whole lot and gave up two goals, which is a whole lot better than giving up four goals.

You have to wonder what the outcome would have been if Price had started. 

On the positive side, Alex Tanguay notched a couple more to make it five in seven games, and Saku Koivu and Tom Kostopoulos also bulged the twine.

That’s it for positives.

Next Up:

The Carolina Hurricanes are in town on Tuesday. The game may be televised back in Raleigh as long as there’s no car racing and high school basketball going on.

Hockey items you could discuss with your friends after five or six beer:

The Philadelphia Flyers have sent Steve Downey down to their AHL affiliate, the Philadelphia Phantoms.

Players around the NHL now stand a much better chance of not having their skulls cracked. AHL players, however, are putting extra padding in their helmets and have told their wives to remarry if anything happens to them.

Steve Downey is Sean Avery on crystal meth.

Gary Bettman says everything’s rosy in the the league and so talk of a team in Canada is silly, especially the part about having two franchises in the Toronto area. Bettman may or may not have said this as he overlooked the three franchises around New York from his office window.

This is a guy who probably even makes French-Canadian oldtimers long for Clarence Campbell.

And why are teams like Atlanta, Florida, Nashville, Phoenix etc. so important to the little man, and placing a team in Canada isn’t?

There has to be a reason. I just don’t know what the reason is. Is he getting fat little Christmas bonuses from people?

Was the bully who picked on Bettman in school a transplanted Canadian?

Rumours contimue about Wild star Marian Gaborik being traded to Montreal. I’m assuming Gary Bettman is against this because if it makes the Habs even stronger and even more of a Cup contender, the Stanley Cup could end up in the dreaded backwaters of Canada, one of the commissioner’s worst nightmares.

And one of my worst nightmares is a major trade involving the Canadiens which disrupts the harmony and chemistry they’ve got going now.  If they landed Gaborik for future draft picks only, then great. But they’d need to clear out some salaries to make room for him, which means moving some existing players.

Is this a good idea?

Did the Boomer-Pocket commercial make you smile?

Bobby Clarke says Sean Avery is an idiot and someone should punch him out. Of course, when Clarke played, he was an angelic, gentlemanly fellow whom the whole hockey world loved. But aside from that, I completely agree with him.

This five-game break in the schedule for the Canadiens may or may not suck. Players can nurse their wounds and certain things can be worked out in practices, but geez, they’ve been on such a roll. And don’t forget about the poor wives who have to put up with them for this long. This isn’t normal for the little ladies.

Hope all this doesn’t affect the big game against Anaheim Saturday night.

Is it possible Gary Bettman told the schedule planners to give good Canadian teams big long days off to disrupt their play?

It was one of those long nights Toronto Maple Leaf coach Ron Wilson and GM Cliff Fletcher predicted would happen this year as the Leafs are in the early stages of struggling and rebuilding. Not to mention they’re a team made up of unknowns.

And the best thing is, this long night was against the Montreal Canadiens, who rolled over the hapless Leafs 6-1 in front of a less-than- happy Leaf crowd. (with dozens of Habs jerseys sprinkled about).

Montreal dominated in every aspect, from Jaroslav Halak playing solid in goal, to a deadly power play (3 for 8), to Alex Tanguay having a goal and three assist night, to Sergei Kostitsyn chipping in with two goals and an assist, and Guillaume Latendresse helping out with a goal and two assists. 

What a far cry from Fridays spotty effort in Buffalo when the Habs dropped a 2-1 shootout loss. And the big question is - how did the Detroit Red Wings lose to the Leafs a couple of nights ago?

Montreal showed all the signs Habs fans have been looking for, especially the potent power play, firewagon hockey, a cavalcade of chances, and the way newcomers Alex Tanguay and Robert Lang have come through so far.

The Leafs, to their credit, hit three or four goalposts, but Montreal also hit a few, and they had enough chances to make this a 10-1 game, which wouldn’t have sit well with Don Cherry.

Don didn’t like the idea that the Canadiens kept pouring it on late in the game with the score 6-1. I say pour it on. Help Kostitsyn get his hattrick. Pad the stats of the power play with a couple more. Let Kovalev pop another because for the Habs to be successful Kovalev has to be as good or better than last year, and that’s a big order.

Hell, let everyone pad their stats. It’s a long year, with dry spells along the way. Get em while the gettins good. The hell with the Leafs and Don Cherry. This is a business, not a San Francisco love-in.

Cherry had another rant on Coach’s Corner when he went on with another classic but somewhat tired bit about European kids taking Canadian kids’ jobs. Basically, I agree with a lot of what Don says. Not all, but a lot. But I think it’s all starting to get a bit old now. Maybe him and Bob Cole should join a lawn bowling league.

On Monday the Canadiens are in Philadelphia, and this will be a huge test. For those with short memories, it was the Flyers who knocked Montreal out of the playoffs last year. And TSN hippie Pierre McGuire predicts Philadelphia, not Montreal, to win the Eastern Conference and challenge Detroit for the Stanley Cup.

So there’s big motivation for the Canadiens to win on Monday. And it’s always good when McGuire is proved wrong.

GAME NOTE: Montreal starts the season off with three points out of four.

SURPRISING TEAM OUT OF THE GATE:  Vancouver Canucks

Through the din in the bar in downtown Courtenay, I saw the game. The sound was turned off, AC DC and Carrie Underwood warbled in the background, the guy beside me and his girlfriend talked for almost two hours on their cellphone to someone about good deals on cars, then I heard him say goodbye mom, and a guy playing pool almost broke his back falling over when he won 25 bucks on pull tabs.

But I saw the game and I take back everything nice I said about Buffalo and the Buffalo Sabres. From here on in, it’s war with the Buffalo Sabres. 

Montreal played sloppy. They took stupid penalties (hello Steve Begin), couldn’t finish quality scoring plays, and the Sabres bumped them around more than the Canadiens bumped the Sabres around.

And they may as well not even shown up for the shootout.

So now it’s up the road to Toronto to play the team that just beat the Detroit Red Wings.

It’s gonna be no problem. As long as there’s no stupid penalties, better passing, more quality scoring chances, and more toughness from big guys like Ryan O’Byrne. And as long as Toronto stinks like they’re supposed to stink.

And I know Saku Koivu played because I saw him. I’m pretty sure it was him, at least someone wearing number 11. Whoever it was, he looked like me when I played after dropping some purple microdot acid. 

I saw flashes of nice play from the Canadiens, a touch of firewagon hockey here and there, but the Habs just looked out of sorts. Buts it’s only game one. Although, how come the Sabres didn’t look as out of sorts as they did? Must have been the home crowd.

The team seemed physically outmatched. Looks to me like we need Dangerous Goods Laraque to get back as soon as possible.

I’ll be back in my living room tomorrow night for the Leafs game. It’s only the beginning of the season and  I’m already running out of patience.

At least they got a point out it.

The thing about the Buffalo Sabres, who the Canadiens play Friday night in their season opener, is that for the most part, they’ve been fun to watch over the years, with the French Connection, Scotty Bowman, Punch Imlach, Tim Horton, and that little pipsqueak Daniel Briere, all doing their thing, many of them, or most of them, at the old Memorial Auditorium.

And did I mention the French Connection?

But then there’s the Sabre sweater, which looks like it came from George Jetson’s closet.

Certain teams must sometimes ask themselves the question - what was so wrong with the original sweater?

I’d probably like the Sabres slightly more if they were in the west instead of the east. But because they’re in the east, they’re going to be trying their best to be right up there in the Eastern Conference standings, which means they’re gonna try and beat the Habs.

And I have no time for such attitude.

The city of Buffalo itself might as well be in Canada. It’s close to the Canadian border, just down the road from Niagara Falls, and their snowstorms are as good or better than ours. I don’t know if folks there say “eh” but it wouldn’t surprise me. And they have a rich sporting history, with major and minor league baseball teams over the years, and of course the Buffalo Bills of the NFL.

And Buffalo had the Buffalo Bisons, a great American Hockey League team for years (1940-1970) but got bumped aside when the Sabres came into being. So Buffalo is a good, solid hockey town. How can it not be, with all those snowbanks, ice, and chicken (Buffalo) wings?

 Like I said, it might as well be Canadian.

Montreal needs this opening game. A nice jump out of the gate would be good, get the ball rolling, grab a quick two points, and then head up to Toronto to play the Leafs, a team which needs no introducton. They don’t deserve it.

So the Canadiens season begins on Friday, and it’s about time. Summers are nice and all that, but the road to the Stanley Cup trumps all the beaches, canoes, and frisbee-throwing out there.

And they have to start by beating those Sabres, eh?  

 For the longest time when I was a kid, I had no idea Billy Reay played for the Canadiens. I associated him with the enemy, and the enemy only.

The very first time I went to Maple Leaf Gardens, Billy Reay was the guy I could see from my seat in the greys, and he wore a fedora as he stood behind the Leafs bench, coaching his Leafs and trying to beat the Habs.

Of course, lots of men wore fedora’s back then. But he was the only one standing behind the Leafs’ bench.

And I was surprised when I learned when I got a bit older that he had once been a solid player for the Montreal Canadiens.

Reay played left wing in Montreal from 1945 to 1953, winning two Stanley Cups with Montreal in 1946 and  1953. After that, he coached the Leafs from 1957 to 1959, but the interesting thing is, some of the Habs brass wanted to hire him as coach in Montreal in 1955 but decided to go with Toe Blake instead.

So he didn’t get the job with the Habs and ended up with the Leafs a couple of years later in 1957, and two years later was replaced by the feisty Punch Imlach, another guy with a fedora. In 1963 he began coaching the Chicago Blackhawks and remained there until 1977.

Billy Reay holds the honour of inventing one of hockey’s more cherished traditions - raising the arms and stick in celebration after scoring a goal.

But in my mind, he was the guy in the fedora standing behind the Leafs bench who I could see as I looked way down from the greys in Maple Leaf Gardens.

(For all the Brief Beehive Moments, with more in the future, just go to Brief Beehive Moments in categories and click away.)

I have a Jean Beliveau game-used stick from the early to mid-1960’s. Originally it was in a Leland’s auction in New York but I didn’t buy it. I’m not rich like you. I simply traded a bunch of stuff with the guy who did.

I’d like to get Big Jean to sign this but strangely enough, I haven’t run into him on the streets of Powell River yet. I don’t know why. Maybe I’ve just missed him.

Anyway, this is my stick and I’m proud of it.