Habs For Breakfast - 2008-03-20

Ah, a double shot of the Bruins, my favorite respected / hated rival. I remember the Bruins glory days and how the Habs used to pick them apart in the most unlikeliest of ways. Not much has changed, except for the calandar date. Speaking of which, the legendary best player of all time, Bobby Orr, turns 60 today. Makes me feel old...

Stephen Brunt of the Globe's article on Orr is essential reading. Why else would I link to a non Habs piece!

Interesting statistic on RDS last night about Alex Kovalev. When he gets at least a point in games, the Habs are 31-7-9 for 71 points. When he's shut out, they are a miserable 9-17-1 for 19 points. Give that the puck...often!

Good Health, Kovalev Rebound Prime Reasons For Canadiens Surge - CP

"Of all the teams battling for the top seeding in the NHL playoffs, the one that sticks out is the Montreal Canadiens. When hockey pundits were making predictions for the 2007-8 season, few had Montreal even in the playoffs, let alone contending for first place in the Eastern Conference."

Huge Home And Home - Can The Bruins Beat The Habs This Season? - CP

"They've obviously had a lot of success against us," said Lucic. "You can't take that away from them. But looking at those games, we weren't really smart with our physical play. We took too many penalties. So going into the final two meetings against them, I think we still have to be physical but we have to do it in a smart way."

Habs In Their Heads - New England Hockey Journal

"In head-to-head games, Montreal has been on the power play 28 times to Boston’s 22. And whether it’s been Francis Bouillon leveling Aaron Ward with an elbow, Mark Stuart dropping the gloves twice against two different Habs pugilists or head coach Claude Julien shouting bloody murder from one bench to the next, it’s seemed that the Canadiens have gotten the last laugh in more ways than goal-scoring."

Howie Morenz - "The Babe Ruth Of Hockey" - Bleacher Report

"Perhaps the awe of Morenz in action was best summed up by another hockey great, Eddie Shore: "(Morenz) had a heart that was unsurpassed in athletic history and no one ever came close to him in the colour department. After you watched Howie you wanted to see him often, and as much as I liked to play hockey, I often thought I would have counted it a full evening had I been able to sit in the stands and watch the Morenz maneuvers. Such an inclination never occurred to me about other stars." - Jennifer Conway

Price For Prime Minister - Or Rookie Of The Year At Least - Bleacher Report

"With all the talk about how calm and poise this young goaltender is, it's hard to believe he is competing for the Calder Trophy. At just 20 years of age, he has gained the confidence of the entire province of Quebec. Price's ability to stop pucks, prevent rebounds and read plays even convinced general manager Bob Gainey to trade away Cristobal Huet to make Price the consensus number one down the stretch." - Chris Bouthillier

Coach Carbonneau's Connundrum - Bleacher Report

"So what is the coach to do? After the game against the Isles, Carbonneau told the crowd of reporters he enjoys the internal competition. "At first, because we were playing Carey more we could see Halak was frustrated. We could see he wanted to play, that he wanted to show what he could do and he's done that." - Tim Parent

Can't take Bruins Lightly, Carbo Says - Faceoff / Gazette

"When we start the season, we go with the idea that we want to win every game," said Carbonneau, whose team has a 6-0 record against the Bruins this season. "If we play a team eight times, our goal is to beat them eight times."

Home Ice No Advantage For Habs - Faceoff / Gazette

"At first glance, the Canadiens' home record looks respectable at 18-13-6. They have earned 42 of a possible 74 points, which means they are above .500 with a .567 winning percentage at home." - Pat Hickey

Theodore Enjoying Net Gains In Colorado - Globe Sports

"Theodore, the NHL's most valuable player in the 2002 season, had lost the Colorado Avalanche's starting job to rookie Peter Budaj. In a short span, he had gone from all-star candidate to organizational after-thought, a forgotten man in the Avalanche's playoff push a year ago. The fact that he was earning $5.33-million (U.S.) as a back-up goaltender didn't escape anyone's attention either." - Eric Duhatschek

Bobby Orr Turns 60 - Globe Sports

""I think in many ways it was a tragedy, a tragedy for Bobby first, and for the Bruins, and more importantly for hockey fans everywhere. If his injuries happened today, he might have had another 10 years. The sad thing is that more people didn't have a chance to see him play. When you talk about Bobby Orr today, some people realize he is one of the greatest players of all time, but they can't visualize how he played the game." - Harry Sinden






















Alex Kovalev: The One And Only - Lions In Winter

"If you ever wanted to know why so many NHL players can't hold a candle to Kovalev, and look like children on the ice when Kovalev applies himself, we should look to this quote. After all, practice makes perfect. And, there is no substitute. If you think about it, Kovalev has probably practiced the one-handed backhand shot more than most junior players practice over a four-year career." - Topham

Le Canadien ne veut pas réveiller l'ours qui dort - La Presse

"Une domination qu'on a peine à expliquer. Et un phénomène qu'on sait qu'il ne durera pas éternellement. Pas surprenant qu'on craigne le retour de l'ascenseur, avant les deux derniers affrontements de la saison, jeudi et samedi." - Robert Laflamme

Un problème avec le jeu de puissance? - RDS

"Le jeu de puissance du Canadien montre des signes de ralentissement. Les équipes décortiquent les bandes vidéos et font les ajustements nécessaires, comme on l'a vu mardi. Les Blues de St.Louis ont été efficaces en infériorité."

Carbonneau ne s'attend pas à une parti de plaisir - Le Journal

"Les Bruins ont perdu six matchs d’affilée contre nous et je suis convaincu qu’ils sont frustrés de cette fiche. Je suis aussi convaincu que Claude Julien cherche en ce moment des solutions pour nous battre." - Carbonneau

Ken Dryden - From The Mask of Mystery To A Briefcase Of Boredom

Today, the Canadiens will be raising Ken Dryden's # 29 high to the Bell Centre roof. This jersey retirement is a long time coming for a goalie whose stats easily rank him with the best ever in the game. During Dryden's 8 season career, he won 6 Stanley Cups, 5 Vezina Trophy's, the Calder Trophy, and the Conn Smythe. While appearing in 397 games, he won 258 of those, tying 61, and amazingly only losing 57 times in his entire career.

What I always think of first, when I hear his name mentioned, is his rapid rise to glory in 1971.

I was 9 years old at the time, and the two hockey players I knew of best were Bobby Orr, of course, and an up and coming superstar named Guy Lafleur, who I'd seen play against my hometown Royals.

I clearly recall that my small but widening hockey world was packed with Bruins fans at the time, as Orr, Esposito and company were tearing up the league offensively. The defending Cup champs looked as though they were unstoppable.

In those days, when the Canadiens weren't televised, I would listen on the radio. Certain games were harder to fall asleep on than others. The night Dryden made his debut, the radio bristled with adjectives defining the lanky netminders prowess. By the time I'd seen him play on TV, I understood what all the fuss had been about - this guy was huge!



























What wasn't well known about Dryden at the time, was that he was winning games by himself for the Canadiens farm team, the Nova Scotia Voyageurs. Dryden had just finished four years of studying law at Cornell University, where he led the Big Red to some amazing seasons. Cornell lost just 6 regular season games during Dryden's tenure, two of which he did not play in.

The Montreal club could not help but take notice.

The Canadiens had finished in fourth place that year, 29 points and a world and a half behind the Big Bad Bruins. The Habs appeared to have a snowball's chance in hell of beating them in the opening round.

Looking back on it now, a pair of late season changes, paved way for the Canadiens fate - Dryden and the aquisition of Frank Mahovlich.

Dryden quickly became the name on everyone's lips as he stoned the likes of Esposito and frustrated the Bruins shooters throughout the series. I can still see Espo shaking his head while looking down at a sprawled Dryden, wondering how he'd managed to cross the crease so quickly.

Seven games later, the Bruins went home stunned, and Dryden was on his way to becoming a hockey legend.


















While Dryden's seasons after '71 were consistantly great, the element of surprise was never again so innocent in the eyes of a 9 year old hockey fan.

As the hockey world learned more about the off ice Dryden, it tempered somewhat the initial vision of a wild man goalie, acrobatic and spectacular, contradicted by moments of calmness of cool.

Dryden had become the greatest goalie in the game at the time, but resembled nothing short of a lawyer off ice. We would soon all know the reason for that.

I remember many hockey discussions in my teens that involved the Dryden greatness. Was he making the Habs champions with his skill and agility, or were the Canadiens so deep in talent that any decent schmuck could have tended goal and fared almost as well.


On certain nights, that almost seemed like the truth. Admittedly, Dryden's worst enemy was his own complacency. It was almost as though the more he won, the more he became bored with it. The challenges for Dryden existed outside the world of hockey.

In 1979, Dryden hung up the pads, and it is said that he never doned goalie equipement again. When he appeared in charity efforts, Dryden oddly, was now a defenseman.

















Soon he was an author, on occasion a hockey commentator, a lawyer, a Maple Leafs general manager, and finally a politician. Some may joke that each endeavor was a downgrade into the uppity sphere of self indulgence.

Tonight, when # 29 is yanked towards the ceiling of many immortals, I'll forget for a minute about the bespectacled chronic bore who became Dryden. I'll put aside visions of him with an attache case. That an icy stare into hypnotized faces while he speaks to us the politician who remains clueless about stay at home Moms. I'll try not to imagine that he was just recently a Prime minister wannabe.












This evening, I will focus on that goalie who came out of nowhere. The rebel with a wild bushy scraggly mop of hippy hair sticking out of the fringers of a white spider fingered mask, and the mystery behind it. I'll think of Esposito and Orr, inaudibly swearing at him in 1971. I'll think of that cool cat, who perched on his goalie stick while the play was in the other end of the rink.

Maybe I'll do it with the sound turned down.

There's tons of great stuff online about Dryden - check out some of these.

A book review for "The Game", a national best seller and still a must read.

A one on one interview with Dryden at Legends of Hockey -
http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198301.html

Great bio link with all of Dryden's stats.

HHOF Dryden profile.

CBC and Canada.com pieces related to tonight's ceremony.

Hockey Books For The Christmas Season

I went down to my local bookstore early this evening and finally got my hands on this years NHL "Official Guide And Record Book", about two months later than usual.

Once there, I couldn't believe my eyes! There were so many new hockey books recently released in time for Christmas on display, I'd have needed $500 just tobuy them all. I honestly saw a good two dozen treasure troves on hockey, it almost made me depressed.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I reference many books from time to time. The above picture is a small sampling of what I own. Several boxes are packed away in the basement, covered in dust.

I can afford to buy a hockey book a month if I'm lucky. Guess I'll have lots of catching up to do. Then there's the music books that consume me. I also picked up Philip Norman's "Shout", probably the most controversial book ever written on The Beatles. I'll be adding that to the 17 books I already own on the Fab Four. Want to know anything about John, Paul, George, and Ringo - I know the answer. And no, they didn't break up because of Yoko!

Back to the hockey books. I'm posting this piece for two purposes. The first is to share the release of these books with internet friends and bloggers alike. If you get your hands on any of them, I'd love to hear what you think of them. Secondly, it serves as my Christmas wish list - to send to family and friends - hint, hint!

I have linked to a pair of articles I found on the many books seen tonight. Check them out - the range of subject matter is simply awe inspiring.

It gets me thinking sometimes, if there's such a market for them, I ought to write one myself.

Until that doesn't happen, here's a listing of what I found most interesting.

The Rookie: A Season with Sidney Crosby and the new NHL - By Shawna Richer. Foreword by Roy MacGregor. McClelland and Stewart, 316 pages, $29.99

Searching for Bobby Orr - By Stephen Brunt. Knopf Canada, 295 pages, $34.95

Brodeur: Beyond the Crease - By Martin Brodeur and Damien Cox. Wiley, 290 pages, $29.99

Saving the Game: Pro Hockey's Quest to raise it's game from Crisis to New Heights - By Mark Moore. Foreword by Paul Henderson. McClelland and Stewart, 420 pages, $34.99

Our Game: The History of Hockey in Canada - Text by Dave Stubbs / Illustrated by Neal Portnoy. Lobster, 48 pages, $12.95

Hockey: A People's History - By Michael McKinley. McClelland and Stewart, 346 pages, $60

Celebrating the Game: Photographs from the Bereswill Collection at the Hockey Hall of Fame - By Andrew Podnieks. Foreword by Pat LaFontaine. Fenn, 137 pages, $50

A Canadian Saturday Night: Hockey and the Culture of a Country - By Andrew Podnieks. Greystone, 135 pages, $26.95

For a more detailed look inside these books, check out this link to Wayne Scanlan's article at the Ottawa Sun.

From another webpage, you can also add these interesting titles.


Money Players: The Amazing Rise and Fall of Bob Goodenow and the NHL Players Association (Key Porter, 310 pages, $24.95).

The Power of Two: Carl Brewer's Battle with Hockey's Power Brokers (Fenn, 341 pages, $34.95)

The Canadian Hockey Atlas - By Stephen Cole. Doubleday, 400 pages, $60

His Between the Lines: Not-So-Tall Tales from Ray (Scampy) Scapinello's Four Decades in the NHL (Wiley, 272 pages, $29.99)

When the Lights Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockey's Cold War and Changed the Game (Doubleday, 346 pages, $32.95).


For more information on these and other hockey books, follow this link.


Happy reading!


And don't forget me come Christmas!