Habs Blow A Golden Opportunity At MSG / Loose Ends

They can blame it on the dancing bears, the looming stench of elephant dung in the air, or the resulting mushy ice. Anyway you slice it, the Habs simply didn't measure up against the Rangers tonight at MSG.

The Canadiens missed a golden chance to clinch a playoff spot with a tie, as the Toronto Maple Leafs (still borrowing an old Canadiens logo from 1910 - see below) were whisked and flabbergasted 5-2 by the New York Islanders and a third string goalie named Wade Doodleyouawitch, or something like that.

Both New York teams are seemingly taking pleasure in making it difficult for either of the two Canadiens teams to pierce the eighth spot. The Islanders are surprisingly still alive in the hunt. They would need Toronto to beat the Canadiens in regular combined with a pair of wins of their own over Philadelphia and New Jersey this weekend to make the 8th seed. Stranger things have happened!

As far as the Habs tonight, there really isn't much to add to how out of sync they were.

March annually brings the circus to MSG (which is also an acronym for monosodium glutimate, a leading cause of migraine headaches similar to the one I felt coming on watching this game), causing the slushy ice the Rangers deal with every year at the onset of the playoffs.

The Rangers can keep that funky elephant smell and their 54 year Cup droughts that come attached to such an idiocrity.

The game was no treat to watch and only three things kept me interested as the score ran up to 3-0 Rangers.

The sideshow antics of Sean Avery are always entertaining. Whether one hates his face or hates his guts, one must admit that he is tactically irritating to any opponant, usually to the Rangers benefit. To think that the Rangers plucked this guy from L.A. for a song (the equivalent of a bad ABBA song - if you ask me!), in what is IMO the best trade deadline pickup this season.

Twenty-eight other GM's might be wondering why they didn't seek to add the effective imbecile to their roster.

Sheldon Souray now owns the NHL record for power play goals in a season by a defenseman. With his 19th PP tonight, he passed Denis Potvin and Adrian Aucoin for the record. While Souray is two markers away from the Canadiens record for goals in a season by a defenseman, he is only one more goal away from tying Yvan Cournoyer's team record for most PP goals in a season.

Guy Carbonneau wisely used the third period to test drive Cristobal Huet, who seemed his normal self while not being severely tested. In the post game banter he suggested that we might just see him again in Toronto on Saturday. Hearing that is as good as taking it to the bank that Huet will start. I'd be surprised now if he went back to Halak (hey, that rhymes!).

I've always believed that you dance with the one who brought you, and it's a shame that Halak will not get the chance to finish what he started. It's the coaches choice, but I feel for Halak, as the Habs would be polishing golf clubs had they relied on Aebischer one more game when it counted.

Halak, incidently, wasNHL's all-rookie team as well. He trails only Dallas' Mike Smith in wins (12-10) but has played way less games at a more crucial time. He just might get the honoured by the AHL as the chosen goaltender on the all-rookie team. The cool thing about that is he could also be considered for the nod in the bigs also. The downside of this is he would be duplicating a feat by the infamous Jim Carrey (remember the net detective?) who did the trick during the 1994-95 season, and we all know what happened to his career afterwards. Let's hope the same fate does not fall on Halak.

In the did you know that department: Here's a great tricky trivia question to baffled your know-it-all hockey friends.


Which goalie was named to back to back all rookie teams in the NHL? Yes, it actually happened in 1997-98, and 1998-99.

Habs World has a very informative piece on Halak and what the other Habs prospect have been up to of late. Call it a must read!

So it's on to a much dreaded final showdown with the Habs and Maple Leafs on Saturday night.

The game will likely be somewhat historic for the team that wins, and groaning agony for the losing squad and their fans.

Hockey History Around The Internet

I took a little journey through some internet back pages today, just looking for a bunch of cool hockey history stuff. I just clicked on those search words in Google and procceded to get lost for a good four hours. I found way more than I could even read, listen to and look at in that given time. So I went nuts saving links, pictures, making some memo's, all in the hopes of making it into one huge post on just how fun this kind of trip can be.

I came up with some real beauties! Site and pages that will interest both the male and female hockey fan. Some of the stories contained within are very interesting the spectre of hockey history.

I stared out at a site called ANSports, that bought and sold hockey memorabila. I saved a few pics there than you see right below.


The commemorative book from the 1972 Summit Series is valued at $124.00, and I own one!























1961-62 Montreal Canadiens team picture. No Stanley this time, just a useless Prince of Wales!


















The site is run by the son of a former New York Americans fan and features much of the memorabilia that was collected during his day. The jersey that is shown belonged to an unidentified former player, and is the only NYA jersey known to exist. The HHOF passed on it in 1977, incredibly.

Check out ANSports site map to see more rare treasures like this 1967-68 Topps Bobby Orr card. Worth a small mint!



















Frank Finnigan's Leafs jersey from the mid 1930's. The pic gives an idea of how hockey has played at the time. Finnigan played from 1923 to 1937 for Ottawa, Toronto, and the St. Louis Eagles, scoring 115 goals in 553 games. The Senators retired his # 8, when the franchise was renewed in 1992. Finnigan was the last living Senator from that era.























After looking around some, I followed their links section to pages of old Bee Hive hockey shots.

The picture of Maurice Richard ia available for sale at the site.























I ended up on Canada's West coast for a bit, checking out some sites of the PCHL and WHL from the early 1900's Vancouver Millionaires era. While I didn't find any new info on Jim Seaborn - I helped out a relative a while back locate some of his ancestry - I did get into some league histories with more great captures from the era.


















The 1917 Seattle Metroplolitans - first U.S. team to win Stanley. The did it with a team stacked with players from the 1914 Toronto Blueshirts Cup win.



















Lester Patrick with the Renfrew Millionaires, circa 1911. Renfrew were the smallest city to ever win the Cup. Patrick and his family soon moved the team they owned to Vancouver and thrived, winning another Cup soon thereafter. Not only did the Patrick's build a team, the also built the arena and ran the PCHL. Patrick made over 30 rules changes to the game as league president, over 20 of which are still part of the game. A true hockey genuis and a man of vision. And yes, they were millionaires from the family lumber business.












The jersey of the Nelson B.C. team in the WHL, nickname unknown.










Another link took me to Hockey's Greatest Legends, one of my favorite sites. It is run by Joe Pelletier of Terrace, B.C., an incredibly knowledgable fellow when it comes to the games history. Since I just made a bet with Zandstorm at Waiting For Stanley on Tuesday's Canucks - Habs matchup, I thought I'd grab some Canuck info while I was there. Surprising I happened upon a page with bios on 18 differents

















Harold Ballard, the Leafs cantankerous owner, from the late 1960's. Here he is with a Team Canada 1972 jacket.









I hooked up a wicked piece on the former owner. As another site said, "It would take a dictionary of adjectives to describe Ballard, a flamboyant and controvercial figure who unquestionably carved himself a place in hockey history. One of the game's most philanthropic individuals to be sure. He was also one hell of a chauvenist pig and had a hate on for female hockey broadcasters.

If you follow the links, you can listen to his infamous rant with Barbara Frum and see why the man was so despised.

Also on the Ballard page were links to Tim Horton, both the player and then the proprietor. Another side to the Leafs curmudgeon was a piece on hockey's worst miscreants. Two pages contain the lowdown on hockey's evil villans.

Former Bruin defenseman Eddie Shore was a legendary crank - nuttier than squirrel shit! As the owner, manager, and coach of the Springfield Indians, Shore treated players in such a slave-like manner, the team became known as hockey's Siberia.












From that bit of old codginess, I got tipped onto some cool writeups on womens hockey and it's history. Interesting stuff for all the chicks with sticks, as my daughters call themselves.













They've come a long way from the KTHL - Kitchen Table Hockey League!














Finally, I caught up with something I'd been curious to find for years - information on the birthplace of hockey. While loads of cities and towns have laid claim to being the sight of origin, the city of Dartmouth N.S. has many things the others don't, including a tie in with the game's name.






















The painting above was found years ago in a church in Dartmouth. It was said that it was painted to represent games children played outdoors in the middle 1800's. Looks like a little shinny ready to break out.








Happy reading all!

Sidney Crosby Timbit Card

I've had some folks asking me lately if the Sidney Crosby Timbit card from the commercial was available for sale. They wanted to see if his minor hockey league stats would be on the back of it.

I'm still in the midst of locating all those statistics, but here are a few.

If you haven't yet seen the ads, they are pretty cool.

Here's the Tim's press release:

On December 13th,Tim Hortons announced a multi-year partnership with Sidney Crosby. Crosby will lend his name to the program where he started, Timbits Minor Hockey.

Sidney has a natural connection to Timbits Hockey through his participation back in 1993. At age 5, Sidney played for the Cole Harbour Timbits in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. Standing at 3' 11" Sidney wore jersey No. 8 , Montreal Canadiens socks, and played centre, clearly a sign of things to come.

"I am proud to represent Timbits Hockey," said Sidney Crosby. "In my early days of playing hockey, my parents and coaches always reinforced the importance of having fun. That is something I take to the ice with me everyday."