In 1972 in St. Louis, the hotel the Canadiens were staying in caught fire. Coach Scotty Bowman found himself trapped and in real trouble until a bunch of players grabbed a ladder and saved his life. ”He was in bad shape,” recalled goaltender Denis DeJordy, “and when he finally breathed fresh air, the first thing he did was count all the players for curfew.”

And in this game, some very good things came to pass. The Habs took out the Bruins in a 4-1 workmanlike, no-frills-type fashion. The big guns remained quiet except for Benoit Pouliot, who found the middle of an empty net, but the derringers did the big damage. Glen Metropolit, Maxim Lapierre, and Mathieu Darche contributed while Tomas Plekanec and the offensive boys made very little noise.

And Carey Price allowed one stingy little goal and kept the team in it until they found a bit of a scoring touch. In fact, it took Montreal until the third period before the puck started going in, and without Price holding the fort, it may have been too late.

This game, although not quite as interesting as a few games we’ve seen in the past week, one in particular comes to mind, can be certainly looked at as a big-time night for the Canadiens. Day one of the rest of their lives, coming off the Olympic break, with Andrei Kostitsyn and Benoit Pouliot back in the lineup, and the team sitting on a playoff spot bubble.

It’s a win carried out in blue-collar fashion, with guys contributing who are a breath of fresh air when they contribute. The team took only four minor penalties throughout, and we know how penalties have killed them so many times this year. And they outshot the Bruins 32-24, which in my book are perfect shots-on-goal numbers.

It wasn’t a gold medal performance, but we’ll take it, that’s for sure.

Random Notes:

Habs head to sunny California for a game Thursday against San Jose, Saturday against the Kings, and Sunday in Anaheim. These nice weather cities worry me. The team soaks up the sun and has been known to play poorly over the years when there’s sun and sand nearby. They have way too much fun and end up breaking curfew. In fact, Scotty Bowman asked the hotel doorman in Los Angeles in the 1970′s if he’d ask the Canadiens coming in late if they’d sign a stick. The next morning, Scotty had the names of everyone who had staggered in past the witching hour.

It began with heart-warming moments. Onto the ice in full uniform came Guy Lafleur, Ken Dryden, Pete Mahovlich, Larry Robinson, Bob Gainey, Steve Shutt, and a host of others. It was like seeing a 1976 pre-game warmup.

And the best was yet to come. Others were introduced, and for me personally, seeing Ralph Backstrom, Bobby Rousseau and Terry Harper come out were special moments. I wanted to play like Backstrom and couldn’t, so instead I got a brush-cut like him. I wanted to shoot like Bobby Rousseau but few could, and anyway, I had a nice brush-cut like Backstrom. And I recently had a friendly and interesting chat on the phone with Terry Harper, who also had a brush-cut when he played.

But it was great seeing all the players. A whole cross-section of those from different decades, like the 1940′s Bob Fillion, Elmer Lach and Emile Bouchard, right up to modern times with guys such as Vincent Damphousse, Pierre Turgeon and Mike Keane. Coaches were there – Scotty Bowman, Claude Ruel, Jean Perron, Jacques Demers. And crusty old trainer Eddie Palchak came out in his trainers jacket and threw a couple of pails of pucks on the ice, like he did so many times in the past.

Next in line was seeing Lach and Bouchard finally have their numbers 16 and 3 sent up to the rafters. And as a capper, Ryan O’Byrne gave up his number three forever when he took it off and presented it to Bouchard, and O”Byrne is now number 20.

And then, to top everything off, the Habs trounced Boston 5-1, with Mike Cammelleri scoring three times. The team was solid, although a few less penalties would’ve been nice. And Carey Price was terrific, turning back 37 shots fired at him and looking like Ken Dryden and Patrick Roy, who surely were pulling in a big way for the youngster from their private box.

Such a turnaround after the zombie-like performances against Toronto and Buffalo. But I suppose when you’re playing in front of all those legendary figures up above watching, you need to bring your ‘A’ game. And they did and it was the best birthday present the team could give themselves. And us.

Ken Dryden said it perfectly, as he always does. When he speaks, it’s like he’s writing a book, his words flow with grace and smarts. Dryden said the 2009-10 team can never be the team of the 1950′s or 1970′s or any other year. For the players, it’s now their team, their century, and it’s up to them to create their own history.

The team of today must have heard Dryden, and they came out with a huge win on a huge night. The birthday party is ending, and a new team is born.

Random Notes;

Along with Cammalleri’s three goals, Glen Metropolit and Jaroslav Spacek also lit the lamp.

Gordie Howe came out carrying a Maurice Richard jersey. This is very poignant because they were never friends and Howe said many times he wasn’t crazy about the Rocket, even long after both had retired.

Philadelphia’s in town Monday. This is a team in slight disarray and it would be an excellent time to take advantage of their fragility.

Nice to see wooden sticks the old players carried, and Dryden’s mask.

I’m thinking about getting a brush-cut.

It was certainly important to find a French-Canadian coach, or at least one who is perfectly bilingual. The Montreal French media in particular wouldn’t have accepted anything less, and a non-French-speaking anglophone probably would have been run out of town. And I’m a big supporter of Bob Gainey, and I feel he knows what he’s doing. It’s a new team, after all. This could take some time to come together.

But it’s been disastrous so far with Martin behind the bench. Giving hell to Sergei Kostitsyn in a closed practice is one thing. Giving hell to Kostitsyn with the media there, which in turn was shown for all to see, is another. Some players need to be treated with kid gloves. Maybe Kostitsyn’s one of them, and maybe Martin was wrong to go about it this way.

Playing with Carey Price’s headspace by starting Jaroslav Halak in only game three in Calgary, after Price had played well against Toronto and Buffalo. Price then proceeded to implode the next night in Vancouver.

I’m under the impression Martin’s not there to make friends, just to coach, and that’s great. I don’t mind that. You can’t be pals with the players when you’re the boss. Scotty Bowman wasn’t exactly Mr. Popularity either.

I also know what you’re thinking. It’s only game seven. It’s a new team and will take time. We’ve been hit by injuries, including our best player, Andrei Markov. There’s many reasons why it’s not time yet to look at the coach. But I am because I’m an impatient man. When the team’s near the bottom, down in Leafs’ territory, it’s a bad thing.

I have a friend who knew Martin on and off the ice in Ottawa, and he questions the hiring of Martin in Montreal. Without going into further details, he simply thinks the track record isn’t great, especially come playoff time.

This is Martin’s playoff record and you be the judge. And no, it’s not that flattering. But even that may not mean a thing because we have to make the playoffs first.

1986-87  – lost in first round
1987-88 – lost in 2nd round
1995-96 – missed playoffs
1996-97 – lost in first round
1997-98 – lost in 2nd round
1998-99 – lost in first round
1999-2000 lost in first round
2000-2001 lost in first round
2001-2002 lost in first round
2002-2003 lost in Conference final
2003-2004 lost in first round
2005-2006 missed playoffs
2006-2007 missed playoffs
2007-2008 missed playoffs

Bob Gainey may or may not be a great general manager, it remains to be seen. I wonder sometimes why Guy Carbonneau was let go as coach, although to be fair to Gainey, the team was going nowhere with Carbo behind the bench. I’d also like to know the true story of what happened with Alex Kovalev. But even in these cases I cut Gainey some slack because who knows what really went on behind closed doors? Who knows if Carbonneau had lost the room, so to speak, or if Kovalev’s agent screwed the deal up. And was there something we’re missing regarding Saku Koivu and his departure to sunny California? 

If the team that you’ll need a program to recognize this year falls flat on its face, then maybe Gainey’s not so good and he’ll be replaced and we’re back to square one. But if they play like gangbusters, then Gainey would be allowed to say I told you so. Of course he wouldn’t, it’s not his style, but he’d be allowed to.

If we’re not sure about Gainey as a GM, we can be sure about something else. He was a great hockey player. One of the most valuable on a team loaded with stars. Gainey as a player can never be questioned or second-guessed.

He was picked eight over-all in the 1973 draft, and Montreal chose him because he was big - 6’2, 190 lbs, fast, and specialized as a checker. And that’s just what he became as a proven NHL’er -  fast and a defensive specialist. He was also dangerous around the opposing team’s net, but mostly, the big goals were left to Guy Lafleur, Steve Shutt and Jacques Lemaire. They were the glamour guys.

Scotty Bowman, coach extraordinaire, said of him: “He just drives himself…past what you expect from any player. And he plays every game of the season like that, but people only notice in the playoffs. He has been given all the tough assignments…always. And still he has really improved his offence.” Bowman also added, “He’s just in great shape…great shape.”

At a luncheon in New York, bombastic Leafs’ owner Harold Ballard remarked, “That fellow can skate. He’s some hockey player. A big bastard too, isn’t he?” And of course, eyebrows were raised when legendary Russian coach and hockey innovator Anatoli Tarosov called Gainey “the best all-around player in the world.”

After the Habs had won their fourth cup in a row in 1979, Gainey was named the Conn Smythe winner as most valuable player to his team in the playoffs. He was given $1,500, and a new sports car from Sport magazine. Afterward, the shy forward said, “It’s hard to believe that my name will be on that trophy with some of the names on there…like Bobby Orr, and Guy Lafleur…Jean Beliveau. I just don’t know what to say.”

When the Habs won that 1979 cup, Gainey was one of the quiet ones, along with Lafleur, Ken Dryden, Lemaire, Larry Robinson and Serge Savard, who didn’t yell and pour champagne over people’s heads, including Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s. It was never Gainey’s style to be boisterous like that, as you can see today as a GM. He’s a thoughtful man who chooses his words carefully. When you listen to him speak now about changes and trades and the problems of the team, he’s not shellshocked when he’s choosing his words. It’s just his style.

And it was that last of four cups in 1979 when just the slightest hint of cracks in the Habs’ dynasty began to show. When the team lost the final game of the season to Detroit, Larry Robinson felt the loss indicated they failed to to do it under pressure; failed to win a game they needed to finish first in the league, and he was apprehensive. Robinson also felt that the team played only mediocre hockey against Boston, and admitted that the Bruins could have won that series.

Serge Savard was getting older in 1979, so was Lemaire, and Ken Dryden’s future was up in the air. And Yvan Cournoyer, out with a back ailment most of the season, wanted to try again the next year but the Canadiens thought differently, thinking that maybe Yvon’s time had come. In the end, both Dryden and Cournoyer called it quits after this 1979 season

Looking back now, it was the end of an era, four cups in a row, and the team would never be the same again. And now we have what we have with the Habs of the 21st century.  Bob Gainey was through those wars in the 1970′s, played on those great teams, and he knows better than most what it takes to be a great team. So one can question and find fault with all he’s done in this off-season, tearing it down and building from almost scratch again. But he’s a winner, knows what a winner looks like, and he’s trying to fix the many problems on the Habs that were out there for all the hockey world to see.

Gainey wants a great team as much as the rest of us.

For me, and for so many others, there was no better announcer than Danny Gallivan, the voice of the Habs for 32 years from 1952 until 1984. He created incredible magic for Habs fans, and when I think of the old Montreal Forum and all the great games there, I think of Danny. Even today, especially today, I get goosebumps when I hear his voice.

I dug an old newspaper out of my trunk, a newspaper I’d kept from 1993 because it was about the greatest hockey broadcaster of them all. It’s a Calgary Herald, and the article is written by a terrific Herald staff writer named Gyle Konotopetz. In the story, he talks to Calgary Flames play-by-play man, Peter Maher, a legend in his own right, and Maher shares his own affection for Gallivan.

“It’s a snowy night in Boston…”
   Nothing is forever, thought Peter Maher, as he plugged in the majestic voice of hockey Friday afternoon and turned up the volume. Still, he wanted the cassette tape to roll forever.
“Big Robinson dashing up the ice…”
   Vintage Danny Gallivan, the same Danny Gallivan who Maher grew up listening to at Campbellton, NB, the buoyant voice crackling on a transistor radio, rising and falling with the play like a symphony.
“A cannonading drive by Cournoyer…”
   Maher wanted to listen and listen and listen. An eerie feeling came over the longtime radio voice of the Calgary Flames as he wheeled his car to the Saddledome on game day.
   The voice on the cassette seemed more alive, more vibrant than ever, yet the reality was that he would soon be dedicating this game, his 1,304th in the NHL, Rangers vs. Flames, to the memory of Gallivan, a haunting prospect.
The voice was that of his boyhood idol, and his pal, his life’s inspiration. The image is everlasting, like the Mona Lisa.
   “A shiver went up through me when I turned on the tape,” said an emotional Maher. “Foster Hewitt was the first good play-by-play man but Danny refined it. He was the master.”
   Danny Gallivan, the game’s artful crooner, died overnight Wednesday in his sleep. He was 75.
“Lemaire is on the prowl…”
   In the past, whenever Maher felt his own game slipping, he would plug in Gallivan. Friday, he replayed the most famous voice of Hockey Night In Canada in a glorious call of the deciding game of the 1978 Montreal-Boston Stanley Cup series to celebrate the legend. And he remembered the last words spoken by Gallivan in their last meeting, at the June draft in Montreal.
   “He said, ‘fed up with the grind yet, kid?” relates Maher, the Iron Man of broadcasters who has never missed an assignment. “Unfortunately, I was busy and didn’t get to spend much time with Danny. After I got my work done, I looked for him but he’d left. I feel kind of bad about that now. We should make time for those kind of things.”
   During Friday’s broadcast, Maher, 46, paid tribute to the fellow Maritimer whom he describes as “the god of the Maritimes.”
   Ed Whalen, the TV voice of the Flames, spoke in hushed tones about the man, then about the consumate pro behind the mike. “My, he was a god. A genuine class act, an exquisite man. Even though he was a god to me, when I met him for the first time in 1979 he treated me like a brother. He revolutionized broadcasting.”
“Oh, a Savardian spinnerama…”
   Maher was 18 when he first met his idol, the summer of ’65 in Montreal.  He was introduced by Denzil Murray, a Montreal police officer who also hailed from Campbellton. Murray died a week before Gallivan.
   “I was awe-stricken, almost speechless when I met him,” said Maher, the popular voice of the Flames the past 12 seasons. “Danny put me at ease.”
   Eventually Maher sent a tape of an amateur game to Gallivan. The native of Sydney, NS was so impressed he forecast Maher’s rise to the NHL at a banquet in Campbellton in the summer of ’77. “He said, ‘this kid’s a talent, you’re going to lose him soon.’ ”
   A few months later, on Nov. 11, Maher celebrated his 30th birthday as the rookie voice of Toronto Maple Leafs at the Forum. The old pro was in the next booth.
“The fans campaign for a penalty…”
   “Being up there with Danny, that’s when I knew I’d arrived,” said Maher, who last spoke to Gallivan on the phone in December. “But I’d never compare myself with him. I’ve used some phrases, like cannonading drive, but, out of respect, I never wanted to overdo it.”
“An e-NORRR-mous save by Dryden…”
   Maher’s exuberant call of the dullest of games can be traced to the infectious enthusiasm of Gallivan. “He told me that it was so important to look at every game as an important game….The biggest piece of advice he gave me was to take care of myself. He said its a tough, tough grind out there.”
“A scintillating save…”
   “He created excitement that was non-existent,” said Whalen. Said Maher: “Danny did a fair broadcast. He never struck me as a homer. And his word mixture was incredible. He preferred radio because it gave him an opportunity to paint a picture for his audience.”
“Risebrough robustly slams Johnathan into the boards…”
   Even with the advent of headset microphones, Gallivan persisted in using the traditional hand-held mike.
   “The hand-held mike was like a saftey valve to him, even though the mike was dead,” said Maher. “One time, Danny had to cough so he held the mike away from hi and coughed. Of course, the cough went over the air.”
“Look at the consternation on the countenance of Scotty Bowman…”
   “Kids would listen to him at night and wake up in the morning, asking their father what that phrase meant,” said Maher. “He was educating people. I’d never compare myself with him. Danny was the master.”
“The puck is lodged in Lapointe’s paraphernalia…”
  

For an example of Gallivan’s magic, here’s a clip of an April 16th, 1979 game at the Forum between Montreal and Toronto. Dick Irvin and Gerry Pinder are the colour guys, and the legendary Roget Doucet kicks it off with the national anthem.
 

Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion is well-remembered for many things – His slaphot he worked on when he was nine years old at a time when slapshots weren’t invented yet; His nickname “Boom Boom”, which came about when a Montreal Star sportswriter named Charlie Boire asked Geoffrion if he could call him that after hearing the puck leave his stick and then boom against the boards; His boisterous and good-natured singing on trains and in dressing rooms which led to a few television appearances; His marriage to Marlene, daughter of Howie Morenz; His terrific Hall of Fame career playing right wing on the Canadiens, and teaming up with Doug Harvey at the point to create terror on the power play. With these two firing cannons, no wonder goalies like Chicago’s Glenn Hall would vomit before games;

And of course, the heart-wrenching retiring of his sweater, number five, on March 11, 2006, only hours after he had passed away from stomach cancer. His family stood on the ice, watching the sweater being raised to the rafters, and their tears weren’t the only tears. The Bell Centre was swept away with emotion, and so was I 3000 miles away in my living room.

Geoffrion was one of the greatest Habs ever. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t a great Habs coach.

Geoffrion had been promised the Canadiens coaching job after he retired by owner David Molson. Molson asked him to consider coaching Montreal’s farm team in Quebec for two seasons, then move up to the the Habs. It was all untrue. Molson simply wanted Geoffrion to move aside to make room for a youngster named Yvon Cournoyer. Geoffrion said later the coaching offer sounded good, but if he had known what was really going on, he would’ve stayed and made Cournoyer beat him out of a job fair and square.

Geoffrion went up to Quebec and led the Aces to two first-place finishes, and was promptly fired. And Molson told him there was no room with the big club because Toe Blake wasn’t going anywhere. So he unretired himself and found himself playing for the New York Rangers and eventually coached there for half a season before calling it quits because of an ulcer acting up. Later on, he joined the Atlanta Flames and coached there for slightly more than two years.

And this is where the story of Geoffrion coaching the Habs begins.

When Scotty Bowman left Montreal to begin a new life in Buffalo, Montreal’s GM Irving Grundman picked up the phone and called Geoffrion. It was the offer Geoffrion had been waiting for for 15 years. But after only 30 games behind the bench, he called it quits. “I had three guys telling me what moves to make,” he explained. “Toe Blake, Claude Ruel and Irving Grundman. How can you coach like that?”

Geoffrion had other things to say too: “I’m sick and tired of them. Guys coming in at two or three in the morning, laughing and joking around. They’re not acting like professional athletes. I’m not going to stick around and let everyone in Montreal blame me for what’s happening.”

“(Pierre) Larouche walking through the airport, smoking a cigar, acting like we won the Stanley Cup when we’d lost a game. And I thought Savard would help me. But he’s more interested in his horses.”

But the players had their own thoughts: “He flunked out in New York,” replied Steve Shutt. “he flunked out in Atlanta. Why would he come here, where the fans are so demanding?” Another player said, “You’ve got 17,000 assistant coaches, and the fans are right behind you, win or tie.”

Larry Robinson admitted they came to came to camp out of condition and they knew, with Bowman gone, they wouldn’t be reprimanded for it because Geoffrion, as the new guy, was just trying to fit in. “Geoffrion didn’t want to push us,” said Bob Gainey, “but we needed it.”

“He was a lot more friendly than Scotty,” said Pierre Larouche, “and we took advantage. He just wasn’t made for the job.”

Geoffrion went back to Atlanta, a city he loved, to be with his kids and grandkids, make some funny Miller beer commercials, and to enjoy life. Claude Ruel replaced him behind the bench in Montreal, and the planet continued to spin on its axis as usual. 

 Bernie Geoffrion just wasn’t meant to coach. But he sure was meant to play. He was one of the greatest Habs ever. Number five with the big shot. The guy who loved to sing and laugh and keep his teammates loose. To coach in the NHL one probably has to be a bit of a rotten son of a bitch, and Geoffrion wasn’t that at all. He was simply just a great player. And fans said thank you for that when his sweater went up to the rafters.

I’ll be buying the team to fullfill a couple of dreams. I want to hire the right people to build a team and win the Stanley Cup next year. I want to be stick boy. And I want to be the guy who makes sure the players’ wives are comfortable while visiting the Kane Centre.

Until the sale is finalized, I won’t be announcing coaches and staff. But lets just say I’m pretty tight with Mike Babcock, Roberto Luongo, Scotty Bowman, Ken Dryden, Wayne Gretzky, Nik Lidstrom, and Vinny Lecavalier. And Alex Ovechkin owes me a couple of favours.

So just let me get all the neccessary paperwork done, and we’ll get on with it. But don’t tell anybody. I don’t want this to get out.

It can be said that it’s the Canadiens third straight loss, for example and this has turned into a horrendous slump.

It can be said they played fairly well and had their chances.

Guillaume Latendresse scored a much-needed goal on a penalty shot.

And Alex Kovalev finally notched one, and although his team lost, he’s got to feel good about this. I know I do, for what it’s worth.

That much can be said about this game.

But something else needs to be discussed.

Montreal took an extraordinary 11 of the 12 penalties called in the first two periods.

Certainly they deserved many of them, which means there’s a discipline problem to be addressed. It’s not the first time the Habs have been silly this way, and although it drives the coaching staff nuts, maybe much of it is the coaching staff’s fault. Guy Carbonneau and his crew haven’t instilled the necessary habits any real contender has. Many of these penalties came from laziness, from stopping skating and hooking and tripping instead when the opposing player starts to break away.

Of course these players are professionals and should know better, and they have to start using their heads. But the bottom line is, the coaches need to have control of their players and accept a lot of the blame here.

On the other hand, tonight’s referees, Fred L’Ecuyer and Brad Meier, blew their whistles on borderline calls which in turn not only disrupted any flow, but also in turn ripped off the paying public who didn’t come to see them, they came to see a hockey game.

And the hockey game really only happened in the third period.

There’s a reason why some referees are chosen for the sexy gigs - the Stanley Cup finals, the All-Star game, and prestigious international games. L’Ecuyer and Meier aren’t doing themselves any favours with this kind of work.

Is it possible league officials told these two after the second period to get a grip and let the teams play?

Game Notes:

Because I’m in an ugly mood, I’m gonna say that I hate cheerleaders at hockey games.

Carolina scored three power-play goals. No wonder. They had 15 chances.

Thursday night, Philadelphia is in Montreal. Will there be more stupid penalties? Will Kovalev score again? Will the Habs finally win?

Stay tuned.

Take it away, Jim.

“Pro sports are sexy for a variety of reasons, but perhaps their most attractive quality is that they are so readily apprehended. Things are pretty straightforward, excluding the usual geeky obsession with stats – God bless The Schwab, a brilliant trivia geek, but frankly I have to agree with Noam Chomsky here when he says in effect that the brains of such people could be put to much better use.

A simple concept that I’m interested in touching on here is that of the relationship between team and player and championships. In all team sports, WINNING CHAMPIONSHIPS is the ultimate goal, the ultimate measure not only of the team but of the individual player. Aguably, winning the Stanley Cup is the most demanding, most arduous, most difficult championship to capture, and being a member of a Stanley Cup championship team is the crown glory of any player. This simple fact is born out by the players themselves who to a man agree that they would trade any number of individual achievements, any amount of accolades just to win one cup – to my knowledge, no player has yet declared they preferred being a star to winning a cup.

In this respect, Lanny McDonald and Dave Andreychuk spring immediately to mind.

Are individual stats relevant?

Of course they are. For example, Marcel Dionne and Mike Gartner were great players and derserved to be in the Hall of Fame even though they did not win any cups. Conversely, many players such as Mario Tremblay and Rejean Houle, who won several cups with the Habs, do not, in my mind, belong in the Hall.

In other words, membership in the Hall is very much a function of individual accomplishments in the game, although inductees who have won cups are, I believe, a cut above those who did not – the single most significant yardstick for measuring the greatness of a player is how many cups he has won. Period.

However, being inducted into the Hall is not the same as having one’s sweater retired by le Canadien. The Habs are not only the greatest team of all time, they are one of the greatest sports teams of all time. What this means is quite simply that the standards and expectations that apply to other teams and their players are not applicable to the Habs.

My point re Roy? Winning a mere two cups hardly qualifies Patrick Roy to be placed in the company of greats such as Beliveau, the Richards, Cournoyer, Plante, Lafleur, – who each has great stats as well as multiple cups. Note that they are all Hall Of Famers, unlike Houle and Tremblay. And the argument that Roy single-handedly won the two cups and therefore merits special treatment not only flies in the face of the win-as-a-team/lose-as-a-team maxim but it is insulting to the great players on those cup teams – look ‘em up!

It’s a cliche, which doesn’t mean it isn’t so, to say that teams only go as deep into the playoffs as their goalies take them. Of course goalies are crucial components on any cup-winning team, but this sure doesn’t lead to the conclusion that all cup-winning goalies should have their sweaters retired. But if we assume that Roy did literally win the cup by himself, then, applying the same logic, it’s reasonable to to assume that he therefore lost many more cups than he won. Hey, isn’t Price getting heat for ‘losing’ to the Flyers? Never mind the goalposts and poor shooting of the rest of the team. Hmmm, makes Roy a big choker rather than a big hero, n’est-ce pas?

Put him in the Hall, sure. Roy was a good goalie and he did have an impact on the game. But he definitely did NOT accomplish enough as a Canadien to warrant having his sweater retired. It’s a cynical marketing play that diverts attention from the fact that we have not won a cup in 15 years! And please, spare me the bs about the modern game and parity.  The Wings have won 3 in 11 years and could easily have won more and we’re supposed to be happy to make the playoffs. What a shameful betrayal of all the great Hab players and builders who triumphed regardless of the era in which they played. Hell, mug shots of Sammy Pollock and Scotty Bowman belong up there, not Roy’s sweater.

In Habland, cups first and persoanl stats a distant second – gotta luv Gainey and Harvey and Robinson and Savard, eh? And yes, the criteria that qualify a player of Hall of Fame induction do apply. As well, intangible considerations other than cup wins are also relevant.: leadership (suck it up, dig down, and play even better), charisma (Morenz, Richard, Beliveau, Lafleur), grit and determination (not a quitter among the sweaters up there now), loyalty (Roy? hmm..), et al.

Re Morenz, okay, I’ll be arbitrary here and say 3 cups is the minimum necessary to qualify to even be considered for having one’s sweater retired. I’ll also point out that Morenz, aka the Statford Streak, was called the Babe Ruth of hockey and as such he transcended the sport in much the same way Ruth did baseball, something that Patrick can not lay claim to. Morenz was a star whose brilliance far exceeded that of Roy. Also, unlike Roy, Morenz did not quit the Habs in the throes of a hissy fit over a chilish spat with a patently hostile and incompetent coach who would have clearly been turfed in favour of Roy. Morenz was a true Hab who died well before his time from an injury sustained while wearing the bleu, blanc, et rouge.

PS  No player will ever publicy say that other players do not deserve whatever honours team and league choose to bestow on them.