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.  

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 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.

I work for BC Ferries, and the weather’s been blistering hot. So therefore, it’s been busy. Really busy. And the days at work are long. Did I mention the days at work are long? And busy?

And my wife wants me to look at some paintings on the beach put up by local artists, before I go back to work, which is soon.

And then I go back to work and do it all again. It seems that every human being on the face of the earth is travelling this weekend on the Sunshine Coast by way of BC Ferries. Except you, of course. You’re stuck in a room reading this right now.

NHL training camps are still a month away. A lovely woman named Carol Huynh from Hazelton, BC, which is way up in the northwest of the province, won gold in wrestling. The Habs signed third round draft pick Yannick Weber. I saw a bear a couple of weeks ago. Last year my wife saw a bear on our street, two doors down. Schools sit quiet. There’s lots of plus-sixty year olds who drive Harleys. And my cat loves me.

So I have to go and look at paintings on the beach now, and then I have to go to work and help travellers travel.

It’s really hot.

Sorry about this.

But I’ve decided to change gears and concentrate on the London Olympics four years from now. This will give me time to train, and find a new sport because my wife and friends finally convinced me that overweight people over fifty aren’t usually gymnasts.

But Archery, now that’s sport! And I noticed in the paper a little story about Canadian archer Jay Lyon, who says, “I’m not much of an athlete. I eat a lot of McDonald’s, and I’m probably overweight.”

But I’m an athlete. I was a smallish yet shifty right winger for Byer’s Bulldozers Bantam hockey team, for goodness sakes. And I don’t care much for McDonald’s.

However, I like beer and sitting in a chair.

Watch for me in London four years from now. I’ll be the one with the bow and arrow and several beer in the quiver.

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.

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.

One of my sisters lives in Ottawa and works at Chapters book store downtown. In her letter the other day, she wrote, “I had a customer one day…his name is Jacques Plante. I asked him if he’s related to THE Jacques Plante. He smiled and said, “We’re ALL related to him.”

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!

Fascinating Fact #2……I recently saw a documentary on Russian Czar Peter the Great. Peter would often go incognito to Europe, with a shaved mustache and old hat, and the documentary showed a painting of him in this mode. And lo and behold, he looks a dead ringer for deceased Russian hockey star Valeri Kharlamov.

Fascinating Fact #3….Maurice Richard wore number 15 before he changed to number 9, which was the weight of his daughter Hugette when she was born. (9 pounds). (I think you already know this, though.)

Fascinating Fact #4……When the Rocket was playing for the Verdun juniors in 1939, he took boxing lessons in the off-season. He became so good at it that he was entered into a Golden Gloves competition, but a damaging punch in the nose by his coach prevented him from participating.

Fascinating Fact #5…..New York Astrologer and psychic Monte Farber, bragging about the accuracy of his predictions, claims to have predicted that the New York Giants would beat the Green Bay Packers and win the Super Bowl. I’ve saved the clipping about his other prediction, which I’ve kept on my fridge since the spring, because I’m curious if he’s going to be right or not. He predicts the New York Yankees will face the San Francisco Giants in the 2008 World Series. Right now the Yankees are about five games back, and the Giants ten.

Fascinating Fact #6…..Leaf star Darryl Sittler and his wife Wendy were staying at Paul Henderson’s house and looking after their three daughters when Henderson scored those big goals during the 1972 Canada-Russia Summit Series.