Hockey: Montreal's return to prominence

The Montreal Canadiens are in tough against the Philadelphia Flyers in the first-ever NHL conference final between a #7 seed (Philly) and an #8 seed (Montreal). They're down 2-0 in the series, they've given up nine goals and they haven't yet been able to beat Flyers' goaltender Michael Leighton. As Bruce Arthur wrote in his column in today's National Post, Philadelphia's rounding into form nicely and Montreal hasn't been impressive. If that continues, it seems likely the Canadiens' Cinderella run will end here.

Yet, there are several factors that have me thinking this one isn't over yet. For one, Philadelphia's lineup doesn't overly impress me, especially without the injured Jeff Carter. They have talented players like Mike Richards, Danny Briere, Simon Gagne and, as much as it pains me to say it, Chris Pronger, but much of their roster is filled with guys who are most known for their thuggery. Montreal wasn't any better during the regular season (both teams finished with 88 points and the Canadiens had a worse goal differential), but they have plenty of weapons up front with the likes of Scott Gomez, Mike Cammalleri, Tomas Plekanec and Brian Gionta, and I've got more faith in Jaroslav Halak as a playoff saviour [Dan Steinberg, D.C. Sports Bog] than I do in Michael Leighton, who looks more like a very naughty boy than a messiah. Moreover, Montreal's already come back to knock off Washington and Pittsburgh, much better teams than Philadelphia in my mind.

For me, the biggest thing still in Montreal's favour is that they're returning to home ice tonight, though. Yes, home ice doesn't always mean that much these days, but there's something special about the atmosphere in Montreal, driven by the unique history of the Canadiens and their relationship to their city and province. To try and explain it, here's an excerpt from D’Arcy Jenish's book, The Montreal Canadiens: 100 Years of Glory, sent my way by the good people at Random House. You can find more information on the book and buy it through their site. Without further ado, here's what makes Montreal unique and how the Canadiens got to where they are today:

This is Hockeytown

Other cities may lay claim to the title, says Pierre Boivin during an animated discussion in his corner office on the seventh floor of the Bell Centre, home of the Montreal Canadiens. Then, with a sweep of his arm, he gestures at the city beyond his windows. “Make no mistake about it, this is Hockeytown.”

Montreal is Hockeytown by dint of history and the citizenry’s enduring passion for the sport. It is where a raw and ragged game – shinny played on the icebound creeks and rivers and lakes of a wintry nation – came indoors and became hockey, the world’s first arena sport. It is where the first rules were written, where the first team was formed – the McGill University Redmen in 1877 – and where the sport’s most hallowed prize, the Stanley Cup, has come to rest thirty-nine times since it was first awarded in 1893, a prize captured by the Canadiens, Maroons, Wanderers, Shamrocks, Victorias and the Winged Wheelers of the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association.

In the 1890s, when the sport was young and the Stanley Cup brand new, the Winged Wheelers, Victorias and Shamrocks and their rabid followers were hockey’s hottest rivals. A few decades later, in the Roaring Twenties and Dirty Thirties, English Montreal had its team, the Maroons, and French Montreal had its standard-bearer, the Canadiens, and games between them produced war both on the ice and in the stands.

For seven decades now, ever since the demise of the Maroons, Montreal’s sporting public has worshipped at one altar, that of the Canadiens, and the passage of time has done nothing to diminish the ardour of the citizenry. “When we win on Saturday night, you get on the subway Monday morning and three-quarters of the people are smiling,” says Boivin, president and CEO of the Canadiens. “If we lose a couple and Toronto’s ahead by a point, Montrealers are very unhappy. If we don’t make the playoffs, spring is hell. To some degree, the city’s productivity is influenced by the team’s performance. Hockey is part of what makes this city tick.”

And yet, in the first years of the current century, hockey in Montreal was in jeopardy. Le Club de Hockey Canadien was grievously ill and in danger of folding. The team was mediocre and missing the playoffs more often than not. Attendance was declining. Financial losses were mounting. Furthermore, there appeared to be no way out. The Canadiens were damned by circumstances beyond their control. Player salaries had risen to untenable levels, owing to the free-spending ways of wealthier rivals, most of them in the United States. The Canadiens, like the five other NHL teams based in this country, were paying their athletes in U.S. dollars but earning their revenues in a domestic dollar worth about twenty-five percent less. On top of all this, the Canadiens were saddled with over eight million dollars per year in municipal taxes, whereas the league average was less than a million per team.

“We were losing a ton of money year in, year out,” Boivin recalls. “There was no way we could make money because of structural economic and competitive disadvantages. We had no hope of surviving.”

The Canadiens and their Colorado-based owner, George N. Gillett Jr., solidly supported the lockout of the players that cost the NHL its entire 2004—05 season. The NHL Players’ Association eventually capitulated and accepted a new collective bargaining agreement with a yearly salary cap, initially set at $39 million (U.S.) per team. This drastic measure trimmed the Canadiens’ payroll by about $12 million annually and helped save the franchise.

“Toronto was the only Canadian club that could have survived long-term and been competitive under the old regime,” Boivin adds. “We would have seen the relocation or the demise of the other five teams, and Montreal was no exception.”

Hockey returned to the city in the fall of 2005. The Canadiens played their first home game against the Ottawa Senators on the evening of October 10, a Tuesday. About ninety minutes before the puck dropped, the main doors of the Bell Centre opened and a crowd several hundred strong surged into the lobby. Boivin was there to welcome them. So were Gillett and general manager Bob Gainey and former players Henri Richard, Yvan Cournoyer and Réjean Houle. By game time, they had greeted several thousand people, a slice of the sellout crowd of 21,273.

The return of the NHL was cause for jubilation in the city that gave birth to the game. The league’s financial foundation had been restored and the future of its oldest and greatest franchise seemed assured. And the Canadiens had something else to celebrate: the one-hundredth anniversary of Le Club de Hockey Canadien – formed on December 4, 1909.

That fall, the Canadiens launched their centennial celebrations. The first significant public event occurred prior to a Saturday night game on November 12, when the Canadiens retired jersey number twelve. Left winger Dickie Moore, a two-time scoring champion, wore that sweater from 1951 to 1963, and right winger Yvan Cournoyer from 1964 to 1979. In the run-up to 2009, the team also retired numbers worn by Bernard Geoffrion (five), Serge Savard (eighteen), Ken Dryden (twenty-nine), Larry Robinson (nineteen) and Gainey (twenty-three). These joined numbers already taken out of circulation to honour Jacques Plante (one), Doug Harvey (two), Jean Béliveau (four), Howie Morenz (seven), Maurice Richard (nine), Guy Lafleur (ten) and Henri Richard (sixteen).

Two major events were planned for the centennial year. The league awarded Montreal the 2009 All-Star Game and scheduled the contest for January 25, the one-hundredth anniversary of the first match to go into the books as part of the Canadiens’ official record. The league also named Montreal as host of the 2009 Entry Draft.

Amid this prolonged centenary, a remarkable transformation was taking place. Gillett, who was seen as an interloper when he acquired the club and its building in January 2001, was proving to be a good owner, and he was winning the respect of Montrealers. Boivin and his executive group were overhauling the Canadiens’ business organization, while Gainey and his staff in the hockey department were rebuilding the team through trades, free-agent signings and, above all, the draft.

As the Canadiens completed their ninty-ninth season, these efforts were beginning to yield results. Le Club de Hockey Canadien had reclaimed its status as one of the best in the sport. The Canadiens were contenders again, and another Stanley Cup – a twenty-fifth for the team and a fortieth for the city – seemed a distinct possibility.

Excerpted from The Montreal Canadiens by D'Arcy Jenish. Copyright © 2008 by D'Arcy Jenish. Excerpted by permission of Anchor Canada. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

We'll see if Montreal can live up to that tonight. I wouldn't bet against them, though. History is on their side.

Playfair Heats Up

I live in Surrey, B.C., and I'm not exactly rich enough to afford Canucks tickets, so most of the hockey I see live is at Abbotsford Heat (AHL) games. It's a good brand of hockey, and there's always potential for some entertaining moments. Unfortunately, I wasn't there in person for what's quite possibly the highlight of the Heat's tenure in Abbotsford so far, head coach Jim Playfair (the former head coach of the Calgary Flames, Abbotsford's parent team) melting down after referee Jamie Koharski (son of former NHL ref Don Koharski, who's of course famous for being involved in another legendary meltdown) tossed Heat winger J.D. Watt. Here's the video; skip ahead to 2:30 for the start of the play, or 3:20 for the start of the fireworks.



This is pretty impressive. Playfair yells at the ref, breaks a stick, takes off his jacket and then breaks another stick before leaving, probably enough to get this up into the pantheon of the top coaching rants of all time. However, hockey alone offers some stiff competition. Here's some of the other all-time greats:

Jim Schoenfeld on Don Koharski: This is the incident mentioned above, from the 1988 playoffs. "You fell, you fat pig! Have another doughnut!"



John Tortorella ejected for hitting a fan with a water bottle: Funnily enough, this one led to a one-game suspension for Tortorella and resulted in Schoenfeld taking over the team.



Don Cherry's Bruins called for too many men in Game Seven: This is one of the great coaching blunders of all time, and still came to mind 30 years after the fact when a similar error (also against Montreal) lost this year's Grey Cup for Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, his reaction is rather muted. The famous arm-waving introduction to Coach's Corner is from earlier in this game, though.



So, what say you? Where does Playfair's meltdown rank? In pure significance, it's probably below these three, as it happened in the AHL regular season instead of the NHL playoffs. We also don't have any memorable quotes from it (yet). Still, for sheer physical spectacle, this one comes out on top in my mind. Overall, I'd probably slot it behind Schoenfeld and Tortorella, but ahead of Cherry thanks to his muted reaction to the call. Leave your thoughts in the comments or get at me on Twitter!

Update: Completely forgot about Robbie Ftorek's bench-tossing, which Sean Leahy included in his Puck Daddy post along with a couple of minor-league meltdowns I hadn't seen before. This is pretty good; maybe even good enough to take top spot.

David Beckham and the Montreal Impact?

Sean Gordon of The Globe and Mail reported this afternoon that David Beckham may be looking into joining forces with Joey Saputo in the Montreal Impact's bid for MLS. The story's apparently based off this report from Jack Bell of The New York Times over at the paper's Goal blog. Here's the money quote from Bell's piece:

"According to a person with knowledge of Beckham’s planning who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concern about jeopardizing a potential deal, Beckham, 34, and his management team at 19 Entertainment (led by Simon Fuller) and Creative Artists Agency (led by Jeff Frasco) are interested in being partners with Joey Saputo, the owner of the Montreal Impact. The Impact plays in the United Soccer Leagues First Division, one tier down from M.L.S."

Obviously, Montreal's push for MLS is no secret, and it's been gaining plenty of force lately. The financing struggles of George Gillett, owner of Liverpool, soon-to-be-former owner of the Montreal Canadiens, and Saputo's initial partner in his bid for MLS are no secret either, and that could leave an opportunity for Beckham. He does have that option in his contract to own an MLS franchise in future, and he's said publicly that he wants to stay involved with the league.

Regardless of the mixed feelings towards Beckham in MLS, my thinking is that he still could be a valuable asset as a franchise owner(and perhaps even an owner/player towards the end of his career in the Mario Lemieux mould). He'd provide a public profile boost for the Impact, as well as a substantial amount of financial backing, necessary for MLS entrance and stadium renovations. The other advantage is that Montreal wasn't in MLS during Beckham's initial stay in the league, so there might not be as much fan resentment towards him as has developed in say, Los Angeles. I can't say that for sure from the outside, though.

Montreal might be a great spot for Beckham, too; it's a very European city, for one thing, which might help him adjust. For another thing, the Impact are the third team in town at best at the moment, behind the Canadiens and the Alouettes. Beckham's involvement would certainly raise that profile, perhaps past the Alouettes, but even with him involved, the Canadiens will still be the big show in town. That might provide him with a good blend of celebrity and obscurity; he'll get plenty of attention, but he isn't as likely to get stalked daily.

In any case, there's nothing solid on this at the moment. It's just a rumour, and one that might take years to fully develop. It's certainly an intriguing idea, though, and one that could potentially benefit both sides.

[Cross-posted to The 24th Minute].

Update: Jason Davis has some good thoughts on the matter over at Match Fit USA.

Was Montreal pushed?

Ben Knight has dug up a really interesting press release from the Montreal Impact on Montreal dropping its MLS bid, which I covered over at Out of Left Field a couple of days ago. Here's the release:

"RECTIFICATION REGARDING MONTREAL'S BID FOR MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER

Following MLS Commissioner Don Garber's statements regarding Montreal's bid, the Montreal partnership group would like to bring one important rectification:

Montreal did not withdrew its bid from Major League Soccer but was informed that the league did not retain its bid. Out of respect for the Grey Cup festivities, the partnership group will not make any additional statements over the weekend. However, the President of the Montreal Impact [and] Saputo Stadium, Mr. Joey Saputo, who is spearheading Montreal's MLS bid, will meet the media: Monday, November 24, 2008, 10:30 am, Saputo Stadium, 4750 Sherbrooke Street, Montreal."

That's fascinating. According to this release, it wasn't that Montreal backed out; MLS decided not to consider their application. It's hard to imagine why at first, especially considering that most observers thought Montreal had the strongest bid of any city and was pretty much a lock. However, there could be concerns with the financial health of George Gillett's sporting empire, especially considering Liverpool's troubles [Ian Herbert and Andrew Warshaw, The Independent]. Joey Saputo, the owner of the Impact and Gillett's partner in the MLS bid, has also brought up the notion of staying in the USL, so perhaps Garber was concerned about Montreal's commitment to MLS.

We have conflicting statements, though. From the AP story with Garber's comments:

"Garber said that Montreal's delegation — led by Joey Saputo and George Gillett, who owns Liverpool FC in England's Premier League and the NHL's Montreal Canadiens — had informed him within the past week of possible trouble.

'Montreal has had to evaluate what kinds of private capital they needed to refinance their stadium to fund the expansion fee, and what kind of public support would be available,' Garber said. 'I'm not sure they were able to come to terms in this economic environment.'"

Garber doesn't directly say that Montreal withdrew their bid on their own, but that's certainly the logical inference, and it's the one the unnamed AP writer drew; his lede reads "Montreal withdrew its bid for a Major League Soccer expansion team, commissioner Don Garber said Friday in his state-of-the-league address."

Garber and Saputo (or whoever wrote the Impact's press release) could both telling the truth, though. Garber never said that Montreal abandoned their bid, even though he implied it. It's possible Saputo and Gillett wanted to keep the bid alive despite financial trouble, but Garber canned it after seeing the numbers.

Still, kicking Montreal of the bid process seems rather unusual, especially given the strength of their bid. Even if the league had already decided to go with a different franchises, retaining Montreal as an option would force the other markets to up the ante of their bids in an attempt to compete. If the press release is accurate, this decision doesn't seem to make business sense for MLS on the surface; less markets under consideration means less competition for the limited expansion slots, and more complaining about and reluctance to pay the sky-high expansion fees sure to be required. You have to wonder if there's more going on here. Monday's press conference will surely be fascinating.

(Cross-posted to Out of Left Field.)

Hockey: So long to the Big Bad Bruins

With everything on the line, the Montreal Canadiens recovered from their dismal play in the last couple of games to beat the Boston Bruins 5-0 in Game Seven of their first-round series and move on to the Eastern semifinals. After taking an early 3-1 series lead, Montreal looked terrible in a 5-1 thrashing in Game Five and not much better in a 5-4 loss in Game Six Saturday, where they gave up four third-period goals. Tonight, they played cool and composed and proved that they were clearly the better team. They also showed that they can play tough defensively, blocking 23 shots, dishing out 38 hits and killing off all six penalties they took.

It was a particularly good performance from some of the Canadiens who had struggled lately. Rookie goalie Carey Price was back to his normal unflappable self, with the Globe's Tim Wharnsby describing his performance as the "best hockey" he'd played to date. Mark Streit, normally an offensive defenceman who has played up front in the last couple games, recorded his first career playoff goal, and the reunion of brothers Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn on the same forward line paid significant benefits: the two combined for three goals and five points. Alex Kovalev, who had been one of the Canadiens' few bright spots offensively so far but still hadn't produced at the expected level, also had a good game and set up the first two goals.

Credit should go to Boston for stretching this to seven though. As James Mirtle wrote before the game, "Despite the injuries, the lack of scoring depth and the fact they have a 34-year-old starting netminder who hadn't played a postseason game until this series, they've persevered, and it's far from a lock that the Habs will be able to regroup at home." The Bruins truly epitomized the hard-working, crashing and banging "lunchbucket" hockey team epithet one of the CBC commentators gave them early in the series, and no one symbolized their heart and desire more than former Vancouver Giant Milan Lucic, who had a far better series than his two goals give him credit for. He's already drawing comparisions to former Bruins star Cam Neely (who rightfully should have been a Canucks star if someone hadn't got the brilliant idea to trade him for Barry Pederson), including one from famed Boston Sports Guy Bill Simmons.

Speaking of Simmons, he managed to jinx his second Boston team of the year with today's column, the first he'd written on the NHL all year. It's a credit to this Bruins team and this great series that they can draw in someone jaded with the way the organization and league have been going. He also had some great thoughts on the current state of the NHL and how it could be fixed (apologies for the long quotation, but this is bloody good stuff):

"Look, sometimes a sport can just evolve in the wrong direction," he wrote. "It happened to tennis, it happened to pro wrestling and it definitely happened to hockey. This was a sport that thrived on rivalries and feuds -- Montreal and Boston, the Rangers and Islanders, Philly and Washington, Montreal and Toronto, Montreal and Quebec, Montreal and everybody -- so by moving key franchises and adding too many other ones, fundamentally, they were killing the one thing that made the sport so great. As a Boston fan, how am I supposed to get fired up during the regular season for a steady stream of Nashville, Columbus, Carolina and Anaheim? It's insane. It's illogical. Hockey should never have more than 22 teams, and half those teams should be playing in Canada, where it's the national sport and the citizens truly care about the game. It's the only way to bring the sport back -- rivalries, bad blood, back-to-back games and everything else -- and as soon as they jettison a few franchises and move a few others back to Canada, I could see caring about the league again. You know, as long as the Bruins are sold."

"You can't say the damage from the Bettman era was incalculable, because you can calculate it -- hockey barely has an American TV contract right now, and it drifted into the second tier of professional sports for good after the devastating lockout. I write about sports for a living and couldn't tell you who won every Stanley Cup this decade. Even worse, if I quizzed my friends -- all of whom care about sports except for one -- I don't have a single friend who could rattle off those Cup winners except for my buddy Dave Dameshek, a Penguins fan who didn't get pushed away because of "Sixty-six" (his nickname for Mario Lemeiux) and then Sid the Kid and "Geno" Malkin. So that's not good. The NHL has evolved into a sport with all die-hard fans and no casual ones. They need to get the casual ones back. They need to bring back people like me."

Right on. Forget the Bucks GM job, my vote's for making Simmons NHL president. He could hardly be any worse than Bettman, and I think he'd be a lot better: he seems to be one of those Americans who gets the game and why so many of us up here are nuts about it. Rivalries are key to the sport, and bringing them back would be great: also, who wouldn't love to see teams in Winnipeg and Quebec City?

Final thought from the Simmons column: he seemed to be somewhat aware of the fact it would probably jinx his team, as most of it was about the tremendous whippings the Canadiens have put on the Bruins over the years. The really eerie part was when he talked about hating the Montreal fans for singing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" whenever they were about to knock Boston out: wouldn't you know it, shortly after I read this, I watch the entire Bell Centre break into the song for a good five minutes of the third period. Poetic justice, and a proper send-off to a great series that briefly rekindled the great days of the NHL.