How I Became A Habs Fan

Robert L Note: A nod for hatching the inspiration for this piece must go out to Dennis Kane's Excellent Montreal Canadiens Blog, for telling of how the Canadiens were a gift to him in his youth from his father. It was a very familiar tale of fathers and sons. I'm posting my story of how I became a fan of the Montreal Canadiens, and it is probably not all that unique. If any readers have an interesting story about how they feel in love with the Canadiens, write it out and sent it to me at realitycheck-time@hotmail.com, and I'd be happy to post it here and share it with other fans.

I became a Canadiens fan at age 8 thanks to my father as well.

It happened oddly enough, because I was a hockey fan first before becoming a Canadiens fan. Team loyalty was a concept that had yet to grip me, even though I'd watched my father passionately cheer on the Canadiens during the 1969 Stanley Cup.

Back at that time, I was more a fan of players individually than any team. While I was growing aware of what the Canadiens represented, I was really just starting to learn what the NHL and hockey were all about.

I remember my Dad's tales from that time very clearly still. The Rocket's 50 goals. The Boomer's shot. Serge Savard's broken leg and Conn Smythe win. Some former Habs players then with the St.Louis Blues than angered my father. A particual game in the early spring of 1970, where the Canadiens needed to score about 10 goals with their goalie pulled to earn a playoff spot on the season's final day.

Lots of memories!

I played street ball hockey winter and summer, and shared the common story of how conspiring events, smallest kid stuff, made me a goalie against my own will.

It was about that time that my hockey imagination was swept up in the exploits of Bobby Orr.

There were always 10 "I''m Bobby Orr's" playing on the road with us. Everybody wanted to be like him. Everybody wanted to be him.

I became a Bobby Orr fan for a time and a Stanley Cup. I wanted the Bruins to win so Bobby would win. His "flying through the air goal" was the stuff of childhood dreams.

The following season, Dad was filling me with more stories of the Canadiens, and I listened intently to all he had to say. I watched the games but still felt no affinity to any one team. I was watching for players, and how they played, and what they team did on the ice.

I learned about Beliveau, the Pocket Rocket, Gordie Howe, Dave Keon, Jacques Plante, Rogie Vachon and Frank Mahovlich.

What I was really burning for, was to see a game live. Many of my father's friends had season tickets for the local junior team and I was always asking Dad to bring me.

Around the time I saw my first Cornwall Royals game, I became aware that the Habs that season weren't anything special. They had struggled along and there wasn't much hope for them to win the Stanley. Talk of the Canadiens then mostly centered around a player that the Habs would soon be drafting.

I was eating up hockey knowledge around this time. My father had given me some paperbacks on the NHL, some magazines, and I began not only watching all the hockey I could on television, but I also listened on radio.

The second or third game I heard on a little scratchy transistor featured Ken Dryden making his NHL debut.

In the same week, I went to my second Royals game, and it changed my life.



















I wasn't quite a fan of my local team. I knew of two names on their roster prior to seeing them for the first time - a little goalie named Richard Brodeur and an animal named John Wensink (think Oggie Ogglethorpe from Slapshot, and you'll sense my first impressions!).

Again, I pushed loyalty aside to focus on different players and what they were doing.

The Royals were playing the Quebec Remparts, the league powerhouse. They had an abundance of talent on the ice, and if you blinked you missed something special.

My father and his friends spoke the whole game about this wunderkind who scored over 100 goals that season. The notion of a hundred goal season just blew me away, and I hung onto everyword they said as I watched the game in front of me unfold.

Guy Lafleur was the player's name, and as I listened, I learned it was his destiny to become a Montreal Canadiens player by summer.

I didn't really understand that notion - how players were owned by NHL teams - but still it intrigued me greatly.

I set my focus on Lafleur for his next few shifts and he did nothing but skate around.

"He's a floater, the Habs don't need that!", said a man two seats from me.

I was waiting for Lafleur to show me something and it took awhile in coming. I was ready to think the man was right.

"You don't score a 100 goals floating", my Dad warned.

Just as the words were leaving his lips, Lafleur stripped a player of the puck at center ice, turned and three strides into the blueline, he unleashed a howitzer from the far right side that hit Brodeur in the shoulder and careened off the glass right in front of me, leaving a skid mark in it's wake.

I was sitting in the first row behind the net, and holy hell did the puck ever make a racket! I barely even saw it fired, it moved so quick.

I began to pay more attention to all the Lafleur did, with or without the puck. He was swooping and swirling, dipping in and out of plays, and generally doing more things more rapidly than any player out there. He seemed to have two players on him at all times, and in his facial expression lived a grin of anticipation that is hard to explain.

It was as if at any moment, he knew he could alter the game's tempo and outcome. And he did. Moments later Lafleur fired another blistering shot that bulged the netting under Brodeur's crossbar.

"Whoa", went my father.

Lafleur played the second period mostly at the far end of the rink. I watched him come behind his net to start end to end rushes, one of which pulled the fans from their seat - in this a visiting arena!

The rest of the game remains a blur, but I do know that he added 3 more goals at our end in the third period.

Quebec won that game by a high score, and apparently Lafleur had a sixth goal in there somewhere that I'd missed. In my rinkside seat, I waited for the visiting players to exit towards their dressing room, so that I could catch a closer glimpse of Lafleur.



















In moments, the Rempart's number 4 walked by. I remember noticing his large sideburns and how they resembled an upside down Remparts logo. I walked out of the Water Street Arena knowing I had just seen the most incredible hockey player ever.

I recall those moments so vivdly years later, for in that red bench seat by the glass, I have often stood there tying my daughter's skates before she has gone out to play. Those memories sit in that seat. I still sit there and see nothing else. They will be tearing that run down arena in a matter of years, and it will a sad day for many memories of the like.

On the way home from the game that night, my Dad explained to me how Lafleur was going to be a Montreal Canadiens player, and knowing how badly I couldn't wait to see this show on ice again, I knew I'd just become a Montreal Canadiens fan that night.

That spring, I followed the Canadiens pursuit of the Cup intently. Frank Mahovlich arrived, and then Dryden came out of nowhere, and by May, a miracle had happened.

The 1971 triumph remains to this day my favorite Stanley Cup win. I might not have seen the likes of Beliveau and Ferguson in their last season, the Pocket Rocket's heroics, Lemaire's 50 foot slapshot through Tony O's legs in a dense Chicago fog, or his brother Phil shaking his head and cursing Dryden when robbed repeatedly, had I not been made into such a hockey fanatic by a junior star who captured my imagination.

I'd have missed all that were it not for Guy Lafleur.

And thanks, Dad!

These submissions were added at the Habs Inside Out Site:

Submitted by Scotty 90 on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 20:11.

Just grew up a Habs fan because everyone else in the household were Habs fans I guess. When I first started skating in about 58-59 I use to wear #9 on my jersey... switched to number 22 in the mid to late 60s' and to 19 in the 70's. My guess is by the numbers you will know what kind of player means a lot and is important to me. Funny thing, because my son turned out to be the type of player That I always coveted, but in one package.... score goals, play maker, a hitting machine, loves scrapping if anyone dared. Unfortunately he is a die hard Sens fan who tries very hard to get me to convert... oh well!

Sorry I don't have an exotic reason for becoming a Habs fan.... but thats it... I was born into and will die with a CH in my coffin... these instructions will be made clear.

Can't wait to read other posters inputs.

Enjoy the playoffs my dear fellow Habs fans... its been a while!

Submitted by Hammer on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 20:49.

1966, we would only get the second and third periods on TV, on a Saturday night growing up in the interior of BC. My father having grown up in Kirkland Lake Ontario used to tell me of some of the players he knew including Ralph Backstrom and Dick Duff. I guess I became interested and the rest is history. The first time I remember watching the Habs win the cup was in 1969, when Serge Savard won the Conn Smythe. The next won was when Ken Dryden stoned the Bruins in 71, the huge comeback on Holy Thursday ( unfortunately I was at mass!!), and defeating the Black Hawks with the Pocket Rocket leading the way. Then the 70's and the Road Runner in 1973, and the great four in a row, with my two favourites being the annihilation of the Broad Street Bullies (I too enjoyed the opening lineup) and The too many men on the ice. ( Cherry is still bitter). The unlikely wins in 1986 and 1993.

Submitted by Shiloh on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 20:34.

In the late 1950's I liked Toronto - we listened to Foster Hewitt on the radio and then watched Hockey Night In Canada at 9:00 p.m. - after we got TV in 1957. I really liked Dick Duff who was a great rookie in 1959 or 1960.

Then I saw Yvan Cournoyer in a game in the early 1960's- wow he was fast! My mother had always like Jean Beliveau (my Dad and older brother were Red Wing fans) and I started to like Big Jean as well. Then Duff was traded to the Habs and played on a line with Beliveau and Cournoyer. I was in high school at the time and now completely red, white and blue.

As I attended university, Sam Pollock traded Ernie Hickey to the Oakland seals for their first draft choice (I think Oakland's GM was a former Habs employee). That pick turned into Guy Lafleur. In 1976, the Filthydelphia Flyers were going for three Stanley Cups in a row. They had some talent but won largely through intimidation - they would commit 20 infractions and get called for two. For Game 1 of the final series between the Habs and Flyers, Scotty Bowman started five tough guys, including Pierre Bouchard, Gilles Lupien and Rick Chartraw - a shocking group to take the opening face-off. The puck dropped, ten gloves dropped and five Flyers dropped - Habs won 4-straight. That was one of my all-time favourite moments.
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"I Would Be Happy To Play For Montreal"

It is possible that Quebec Remparts center Angelo Esposito's wish comes true.

Esposito is the 11th ranked prosepect in the next weeks NHL entry draft, and the Canadiens hold picks number 12 and 22. Should they see fit, the Habs could package both choices in exchange for moving up a few notches in the draft. It is a very interesting scenario for all Canadiens fans to follow.

Montreal has not drafted a first rounder from the QMJHL since the bust that was Eric Chouinard in 1998. Chouinard, who also played for the Remparts, managed a short stint with the Habs before being dealt to Philadelphia Flyers. It in a classic case of second guessing, the Habs overlooked Chouinard's teammate, Simon Gagne, and the french media took a decade to let them off the hook for it.

















Second guessing also takes place before drafts, and their is some concern, that while Esposito has great talent, his intensity lacks focus at times. The skilled center looked to be a lock on going 1st overall one year ago, but has since seen his stock fall off. Going from a 98 point rookie season, down to 79 will do that to one's ranking.

Explanations for Esposito's slip are best understood in consequence with the Remparts play last season. After winning the Memorial Cup with a stacked lineup, Quebec lost several key elements this season, mainly Alexander Radulov, and were icing a much younger lineup. All things considered, Esposito still had a very good year for a seventeen year old.






















It will be very interesting to see what Montreal does in regards to him. Perhaps a team will snatch him up before the Canadiens even step to the podium. It is however, almost unimaginable that Esposito bypasses the Habs 12th position. Should that happen, there would be the usual media repercussions regardless of who the Canadiens pick.























There will soon be a flood of articles on Esposito and other prospects. Here are some of the ones I've found.

Esposito's Prospects Blog at NHL.com

Hero's Welcome For Junior Star

Angelo Esposito Q & A

Esposito Pays A Visit To The Kids

The Q Typically Slow To Act On Problem

Q Draft Not Deep

The Guy Lafleur Urban Legend

This is the one of the funniest hockey story I've ever heard! Funny, in many, many ways.

It is one of those, "It gets better with time" tales, and has to do with Habs legend Guy Lafleur.

I've been told it over and over again and have often repeated it myself. It goes back over 20 years ago, and has almost gained an urban legend status. The final line of the story is just precious, but might well be made up from partial truths and a certain amount of myth.

I'm posting this on the site a second time, edited, because I keep hearing the story over, with new added twists to it each time.

The person who was most recently putting a newer spin to this tale, is a well known person in my small town, so he remains without a name here. He swore up and down that his take on it was all 100% true, which made it even funnier.

The man's well known as a harmless bullsh*tter of sorts, always entertaining as his "truths" get a little skewered with time.

Another gentleman who was sitting at my table, works at a local arena, and unintentionally helped out with the added twist. He had his own Lafleur tidbit to share, centered around the arena, which I'll get to in a bit. It was upon hearing what he'd found, that the "embellisher" hijacked the details, and rolled them into his own twisted revisionist tale.

First I'll share the story here, as I've always heard it and was telling it to the guys.

It's about a near fatal car accident that occured somewhere around 1980. At the time Lafleur had an endorsement deal with General Motors and was often seen in TV ads hocking Chevrolets. It is told he received a brand new Caprice each year of the deal.



















(This ain't no Caprice - it's Lafleur behind the wheel of Gilles Villeneuve's Formula 1 car.)

It was a well known fact that Lafleur's partying ways caught up to him one night in an almost fatal car crash. He'd often be out late, having a couple too many and then he'd proceed home via a Quebec backroad highway to get home. He was often stopped by the QPP, but never ticketed or charged. More than once, he actually recieved police escorts home, so I've heard.

At this particular time, Lafleur's fame and game were at a peak. Having 6 consecutive 50 goals seasons buys you some favor in your home province.

On this night, Lafleur was pretty hammered as he headed home, so much so, that he nodded off to sleep behind the wheel. Soon enough, his Chevy veered off the road and took out some fencing before smashing into a lamp post.

Police were quick to the scene and spotted the accident. Getting out of their vehicles, it's been told that one of the officers recognized Lafleur's car, running to it in fear the provincial hero was badly hurt.

As he approached the car window, he could see a post had penetrated the windshield and sat up against Lafleur's right shoulder. Lafleur's head was tilted to the left, his jaw slung open some, with no sign of blood other than small cuts from the shattered glass.

He was unconscious. Or dead!

The officer panicked and began shaking Lafleur's shoulder hoping in fright that he'd not left the world for good.

"Guy, Guy, wake up, wake up", he said, jostling him lightly.

To his surprise Lafleur, while totally dazed, came out of it straight away.

He raised his head to look at the officer bleary eyed, and asked in all innocent liquored sincerety, "Did I score?"

"No", replied the cop, "You hit the post!"

That was the way I'd always heard it told, and told it myself, until now.

The new wrinkle in it, played its way into the conversation from the arena worker, and led to the other friend, he of the wild imagination, claiming the "Did I Score?" line had to do with Lafleur getting knocked out cold during a game in his youth - just as he scored!

"This oughtta be good!", I thought to myself.

























While I can recall hearing about a goal something similar to that years ago, I'd never heard the "Did I Score?" line attached to that extension of it. The story of the crash has been told as Lafleur folklore and is mentioned in certain bios, though his drunken question has never been substantiated. At least, not in the two autobiographies I've read.

I have my doubts that such a line could attributed to a goal that Lafleur scored in his youth.

Especially considering that this particular goal, that my story shallacking buddy is making reference to, is attributed to a 1965 Pee Wee contest, a good fifteen years prior to the crash.

thinking he's got these two tales confused pretty colorfully at best!

The way he is now telling it, puts a hometown tilt to it, as well. It's also where the manure starts to permeate his take on the tale.





















Rink Rat had worked at local arena for years since his youth, driving the Zamboni and doing odds and ends.In the mid 1960's, Lafleur played a few contests here in Cornwall, usually in the context of Atom, Pee Wee or Bantam tournaments.

Lafleur's coming out party was the Quebec Pee Wee Tournament, which is to this day still, a huge event. Lafleur single handedly tore up the scoresheet with twenty-something goals in five games. National attention was soon to follow. It was not long after that event that Lafleur played here in Cornwall.

At one of the two arena's in town, the Bob Turner ( no relation to the former Habs defenseman ) Memorial Center, the boys minor hockey league was run by the same group of people for close to 25 years. In the arena, the stands on one side stretch about 15 rows high, and beneath them are rooms that had not been used for decades due to a renovation project around 1970.

Under these stands, in a type of concierge store room, were broken down skate sharpening machines and lots of collected junk. The room was a type of long corridor that stretched almost the length of the ice, and had several sections to it. Electrical wire was strung all over from renovations past. The place was so littered with old junk that no one dared to venture into the dark and dusty, not to mention dangerous, area. It soon became a forgotten dungeon of disarray and broken old hockey sticks.

One day, in the late 1990's, the house league president got curious. As he was prepared to finish up his career in the rink, he decided to check out under the stands to see what he could find. It had been itching at him for years. He'd been told that the trophies that no longer had a place in the arena's main showcases were once stored there. Forgotten there!

















(The Water Street Arena, now known as the Si Miller Arena)

But it was such an unsightly mess, he got Rink Rat on the job of cleaning it up.

Armed with a searchlight and hundreds of feet of extension cord, he threw on an old jacket and a hardhat, ready to star in Indiana Jones and the Lost Hockey Relics.

After spending a good two hours coughing up dust, he landed a half dozen old trophies. Once out of the rubble, he got to cleaning them off and discovered that one of the trophies had been awarded to Guy Lafleur.

Lafleur's name was the last plaqued MVP name on a half filled Cornwall Pee Wee Tournament piece of hardware.

The trophy was no masterpiece of creation. The wood had rotted badly and the metal plates were rusting, damaged and bending from time in the cold.

To him, finding it was priceless. He's kept the league from knowing about it for years and promised to let me see it one day, but there was no way he was going to sell it off.

I still have yet to see it.

As Rink Rat was finishing this bit of storytelling, our conversation partner was looking slightly agitated, as if he had something to add that could not remain inside of him for very long.

We listened with BS detectors on alert, and let him chime in.

This tale started out totally fact based, I'll give him that much!

He was telling us about a game played at what was once called the Water Street Arena in the 1960's. The WSA is a 70 yr old structure that leaks from the roof today and is one good winter storm from being condemmed. It's where the Cornwall Colts presently call home.

Lafleur was there in the mid sixties with a team from Rockland and their tournament opponants were a team from the Ottawa area. The Ottawa team was a hapless bunch made much better by a forward / defenseman named Larry Robinson. The "Big Bird", as he was yet to be known, was doubleshifted most of the game at both positions.

















(Lafleur is in the second row, fourth player from the left)

The game in question has been mentioned in both the Lafleur books I've read, as well as the "Robinson For The Defense" autobiography. Mentions were made of the game, merely in passing, as they were on that day, each teams best player, and it didn't really connect with the two stars until both were playing for the Montreal Canadiens almost a decade later.

Not surprisingly, neither book refers to what my storytelling friend was to allude to next.

During the game, which he says he was at, (oh yeah, let's see a ticket stub!), Robinson was nothing but a mere goon put on the ice to run Lafleur down. He said that Robinson's skating was rough, but his long legs allowed him a certain speed. Catching a youthful Lafleur was in his dreams.



















Towards the games end, which Thurso won handily, Robinson, I am told, nailed Lafleur with a shoulder to the head, as he stood creaseside poking at a rebound.

The hit supposedly knocked Lafleur cold ( ! ) and it is upon him opening his eyes that he supposedly uttered the infamous "Did I Score?" line.

That would be too good a story not to tell - if it were true, and I suggested as much to my unfazed, tale stretching friend - but no book I've read in my lifetime ( yes, lots of 'em ) makes mention of this. Then again, the man has a huge nose!










Sometimes it's a fine line between legend and fact, myth and truth. It gets finer as stories blur, get stretched, forgotten and generally more detailed with age.

Still today, I know of only two things concerning the Lafleur crash story. One, he did smash his Caprice into a lampole, surviving with just small injuries. Two, the whole mess still makes a helluva good joke going on thirty years.

Now I have a magazine photocopy, from a rock star memorabilia auction, of Bruce Springsteen's California drivers licence. Next time I enjoy a coffee with this fellow, I just gotta tell him the one about the time the Boss and I drag raced for pink slips!

Nah!