Dennis Kane’s Excellent Montreal Canadiens Blog

I was a door-to-door milkman in Calgary for a short while, and I’d like to dispel a myth about milkmen.

Not once did a beautiful woman in suburbia meet me at the door in a silk negligee. Not once was I ever invited in for coffee by some buxomy seductress.

The closest I came was when a lady answered the door in her bathrobe and a mouth full of toothpaste.

And because this is a Habs site, I have no problem connecting this story to the Habs. Because one of my milk customers was Doug Risebrough, ex-feisty seventies and early-eighties Hab, and during the time he and his wife and kids were drinking my milk, was GM for the Calgary Flames.

Risebrough was never there when I delivered his milk, but his wife was. And they left me a tip at Christmas.

They lived in a nice house in suburbia in northwest Calgary, with a view of downtown and the Olympic ski jump, in case you’re interested.

I have to admit it. I miss der Habinator.  We hit the wall not long ago, and an era ended. Not a long era, but a colourful one.

Der Habinator was a regular reader and commentor to this site, and I’m hoping that soon, I’ll look and there will be his name, and under his name a rambling, abstract commentary that veers off into different spheres, from hard-core Habs talk to pretty well every subject in the history of the world, from Mongolia to Montreal.

He reminded me, and I told him this, of some of the 1950’s beat writers, with long essays, often one- sentence paragraphs, that went from here to there and made you wonder what he was on about. But also, if you read, sometimes more than once, what he was saying, he made unusual and strong sense. He forced you to read carefully.

He was aggressive, funny, maddening, smart, outrageous, strange, controversial, confrontational, and complicated, sometimes all in one sentence. But I always knew he was someone who deserved his dues. He wasn’t just whistling Dixie, he had valid opinions, but you had to sort it out from his sometimes head-scratching meanderings.

I’m really hoping he comes back. I was only mad at him. I didn’t want him to leave home.

The Habs’ big  year is coming up, and der Habinator knows his Habs. I’m gonna want his thoughts as the season unfolds.

It took me all of a couple of days to figure out that I need to say this. I hope the difficult and frustrating son of a bitch comes back.

This is, of course, a Habs site but the following is a football thing. But there is a Habs connection at the end of the story.

Several days ago I posed three questions, one of which was, “could a good US college team beat a Canadian Football League team?”

I got some mixed answers, and so I phoned a friend of mine, Al Ruckaber, who’s now retired and living in Powell River, but was a long time sports editor for the Calgary Sun. Al covered the CFL for years, and is now a member of the media section of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. He also lived in the US for many years, and football, whether it’s Canadian or American, is his passion. 

His answer of who would win is this:

Forget about the hundreds of US colleges with football programs down there, just think about the big ones, like Ohio State, Southern California, Miami, etc.

If one of these top US college teams came up here and played on a Canadian field, which is much wider and even slightly longer, and played Canadian rules, which is three downs instead of four, then a CFL team would win.

The American players would spend the whole game doing a lot of chasing. The Canadian game is more open, the American game more defensive.

If a CFL team went down there and played on the US field, with four downs and the smaller field, with much more of a running game, plus the tight defensive game, the CFL team would lose.

But, Al added, it would never happen. The NCAA would never allow their players to play professionals.

And because this is a Habs site, I thought I’d throw in that Al spoke to Red Fisher many times over the years.

 From 1934 to 1967, if you mailed in a  Beehive Corn Syrup coupon, they would send you a free photo of most any player you requested. They were divided into three groups over the years, and this photo of Hal Laycoe comes from Group 2, which covered the years between 1944 to 1964.  Beehive photos were fun to collect and because everyone asked for the Rocket or Beliveau or Horton  or Armstrong etc, the lesser players like the Habs’ Tod Campeau and Vern Kaiser and others are extremely rare and valuable. 

Hal Laycoe had been a friend of Rocket Richard’s when both played for Montreal, but after Laycoe was traded to Boston, he and the Rocket took centre stage one night in what led to a big-time piece of hockey history. 

It happened like this. Laycoe had highsticked Richard one night in Boston, but play continued with no penalty called. This upset the Rocket very much. He skated up to Laycoe, smashed him in the face and upper body with his stick, and was soon subdued by the officials. But this didn’t stop Richard. He kept breaking away from the linesmen to get at this former friend, Laycoe, and he even broke his stick over the Bruin player’s back.

Linesman Cliff Thompson got hold of Richard again, but the Rocket broke loose and punched Thompson twice, which wasn’t the greatest idea. It simply wasn’t a good situation all round.

All of this led to Richard’s suspension of the remaining games in the season, plus the entire playoffs, and you know the rest of the story.

Of course it was the 1955 Richard Riot on St. Patrick’s Night In Montreal.

This has been a brief Beehive moment!

Okay, so it’s the only one I’ve heard. But I like it. And it’s from a former Powell Riverite, Tobin Stokes, now living in Victoria. Don’t forget, we get to decide on the new ‘Hockey Night In Canada’ theme for CBC. The old one went away because business is business, and that’s fine. We’ll just find a nice, happy, new song, like this one.

Just click on the link, enjoy the song, and vote by logging in, then clicking on the fifth circle of five circles. But only if you like it.

Hey, it’s better than any of the others I’ve heard! Hope you like it. I don’t know the guy, but I’m sure he’s a fine fellow.

Oh, and let me know in the comments what you think about it.

And, here’s what Tobin Stokes has to say…

Hey Canada! Here’s my demo - try to imagine it with all real instruments and professionally produced. CBC could keep the soloist at the beginning or surprise us each week with the intro sung (yelled?) by a minor hockey team , a mob of fans, a choir, the Governor General, etc. If you like it, please vote. It just takes a minute to invent your own user name and password if you haven’t already, then click on button number FIVE and then (of course) copy and email the link to everyone you’ve ever met! I’d like to thank Ildiko for singing a great solo and then inviting me to her 10th birthday party! And I’d like to thank my son Vaughn for his great guitar work, as always. Darn fine for 16, sonny boy. OK CBC and fellow hocky fans, here you go - it is catchy, easy to arrange, shorten or lengthen, great for visuals, versatile, fun, and IT ROCKS!

www.tobinstokes.com
250 598 7664

If you’re getting set to go to the Olympic Summer Games in China, you might want to consider taxi’s or maybe a rickshaw in Beijing, instead of the subway.

Have a click and you’ll see why. trainsinchina

Business people in Vancouver have decided to sweeten the pot for Mats Sundin, as if twenty million just might not be enough for this aging star.

People who make in a year what Sundin tips at his favourite restaurant are offering, among other things, free luxury cars from two different dealers, and a lifetime of free dental work, including all the fancy stuff like bridgework and dental surgery. Another has offered a lifetime of cosmetic work for His Worship’s girlfriend, like facials, nails, and whatever else it is that women get done. Then there’s the usual free meals, free drinks, free clothes, free this, free that.

In fact, it looks like an absolute free ride for Sundin if he chooses the Canucks.

Montreal, on the other hand, has offered seven million dollars a year, but their extra enticements seem a little more tempting. There’s that chance for Sundin to finally win a Stanley Cup. There’s the opportunity to wear the fabled Montreal Canadiens sweater. He can hang around with Jean Beliveau and Dickie Moore. If he did excel, he’d join the list of great Habs like Richard, Beliveau, Harvey, Moore, Lafleur, and Mahovlich, instead of a list that includes Smyl, Linden, Rota, and Kurtenbach. He’d play in the most exciting rink in the best hockey city in the world. And he’s three thousand miles closer to Sweden than Vancouver is.

Surely that should be more than enough.

But if he decides to play, wherever he goes, he’d better be good. It’s getting a little silly.   

Bill Bryson wrote a great book about growing up in the 1950’s, called The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. I read it and realized he and I have a couple of things in common.

We both lived in towns with great main streets. We both wore Davy Crockett coonskin hats, we practiced our quick draw like Roy Rogers, delivered newspapers, and looked at our fathers’ dirty magazines which we found hidden in the back of closets.

Both our dads were creative, his being a sports writer, and mine a sign painter, but his dad got to go to baseball games in New York and Chicago, and my dad stayed home and painted letters on store windows.

Bill almost saw a naked girl once when he was about eight years old while playing doctor, but she backed out because she had a crush on him. I made sure I didn’t miss my chance because all I had to do was stand on my bike outside the window of the women’s change room at Couchiching beach and gaze in at the wonders of the world. I was doing great until one of my classmates, Carol Montgomery, saw me and screamed blue murder. Pretty sure I rode away with a smile on my face, though.

Bill’s big job back then was his paper route, and it was mine too. I won a red transistor radio once for getting the most new customers, and would tie it to my bike and listen to rock and roll as I made my rounds. It was the beginning of the end of my world as I knew it, because as soon as my ears made contact with Chuck Berry and the rest of those boys down south, everything changed. Music was sure better than school, and it gave me excellent ideas about girls. It couldn’t have been good for me. I blame my red radio for all the mistakes I’ve ever made.

Like Bill, we used to go to movie matinees and whip popcorn boxes like deadly Frisbees at the the screen and around the room. It was one of life’s great pleasures. If you’ve ever fired off a popcorn box missile and clunked some guy in the head who was making out with his girlfriend, you know what I mean.

Life then seemed to have only a few problems, like hoping the honourable defender of women in change rooms, Carol Montgomery, didn’t squeal on me. Or trying to decide between spending money on pinball or at the new Dairy Queen which had just opened up around the corner. Or straining to listen in school on my new transistor radio, without the teacher hearing, to World Series games which were played during the day while we were stuck struggling with remembering the route Columbus took when he left Spain.

Back then, Greenland wasn’t melting, the NHL only had six teams, and doctors recommended smoking for enjoyment and relaxation.

It was a good time to be young. Although I would’ve become a much better prson later in life if it wasn’t for that darn red transistor radio.

If you say you’ve never been embarrassed, I don’t believe you.

I have been. Many times. Like this.

I parked my car at the back of the bicycle shop and my son and I walked through the back door and up to the counter. “I want to see about getting my son’s bike fixed,” I said to the guy standing across from me, but the guy looked disinterested and said nothing.

“I want to get my son’s bike fixed,” I repeated, with my voice rising.

The guy looked at me again, then said maybe someone over there would help.

“Look,” I said. “What kind of an employee are you? This is ridiculous. What are you getting paid for, anyway?”

I was really pissed off, my son was looking uncomfortable, but there’s was no way I was going to take this incompetency from this no-good, lazy employee. Employees can’t treat customers like this.

“Where’s the manager?” I yelled. “This is bullshit. Where’s the manager?”

The fellow looked at me, as did everyone in the store.  “I’ve no idea,” said the guy. “I’m just a customer like you. You’re standing on the wrong side of the counter.”

My son didn’t talk to me for several days.

It’s similar to a story I heard years ago. A guy was sitting in a restaurant drinking a coffee, and got up and went to the bathroom. When he returned, there was a guy sitting at his table drinking his coffee.

The guy from the bathroom was obviously upset and said, “Hey buddy, you’re sitting in my seat and drinking my coffee.” The guy at the table just sat there and said nothing, but continued to drink the coffee. 

“Hey buddy, you heard me. You’re at my table, drinking my coffee. Beat it. Get lost. Get your own coffee.”

The guy at the table just looked at the other guy and sipped a little more coffee.

So the fellow standing up had had enough. He went over, tipped the table over, and the coffee, of course, went flying. He was just about to slug the guy when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw his own, empty table a few feet away with his coffee sitting there getting cold.

It’ll be interesting to see how things play out in the next few years regarding the new Russian Continental Hockey League. They’ve now wooed a trickle of players there, Alexander Radulov being the latest, before that, Jaromir Jagr and others, and they welcome with open arms those who’ve basically worn out their welcome in the NHL such as Chris Simon and Ray Emery.

This is a league about to begin play in September, and is the blossoming flower that has emerged from the wilted Russian Elite League. It’s a league with money, thanks to a Russia that went from a penniless nation to a filthy rich empire, all because businessmen learned how to become capitalists and how Russian oil barons clued in on how to make lots of money with a product the rest of the world already knew what to do with.

Players in the past, Alexander Mogilny, Pavel Bure, Sergei Federov, etc., said goodbye to friends and family a couple of decades ago because they saw players in North America, often with lesser talent, making hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, while they toiled under the tired mess in their homeland for maybe $200 a month if they were lucky.

Eventually, every great young Russian player made his way to the NHL, and we thought they most definitely are enjoying an upgrade in quality of life compared to the old country.

But players are starting to go back, because the money offered by the new league seems as silly as it is in the NHL. Which brings us to the real question: If this league is for real, how many Russian players will be left in the NHL in a few years from now?

Of course it’s natural that players will return to their roots, to what they know, to their families and their familiar foods and language.

But it goes beyond all of that. As I’ve said in older posts, I’ve been to Russia six or seven times, and I see, albeit maybe just scratching the surface, what life is like there. And in general, it’s not a pretty picture.

Rich hockey players will have nice apartments, but they still have to go outside. Russia’s not a clean country. It’s not an overly friendly place, especially in shops and subways. It’s not a safe place, it’s important to leave your wallet and passport hidden. Russian people there and here, including my wife, will attest to all of this.

And gypsies and low-life’s in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and other big cities where teams in the Continental Hocky League are based would love to meet rich, young hockey players in back alleys, or in bars after the player has had a few drinks.

Maybe most importanly, and dangerously, there’s the Russian mafia, who have their dirty hands in every kiosk and shop, and under-the-table payments to these criminals by struggling shopkeepers is the norm. If a storeowner says no to them, chances are their shop is burned to the ground, or worse. And the police are often in cahoots with these people, and turn the other way.

Rich hockey players will be like gold to these people.

What will the NHL look like in a few years because of this new league? And will the Continental Hockey League eventually square off against the NHL for a different kind of playoffs and Stanley Cup?  

Is a new hockey world in its infancy?

And one last note: Aside from the mafia, the gypsies, the low-life’s, the dirt, etc., you must know that everyday, regular Russian people are some of the warmest, kindest, gentle folk you will find. They’ll give you the shirt of their back. They’re loving, family-oriented people, and have all kinds of values North Americans can learn from.

And maybe that’s why Russian hockey players want to go home.