Wilco, without a doubt the best band in the world at this moment, released their latest album last week.  Titled Wilco (The Album), it was eagerly anticipated by a legion of fans and music media who, for the most part, have shared a similar sentiment about the new release…

While the album’s good, it’s not necessarily up to the high standards of past Wilco offerings. 

Which is unfair, and probably inaccurate, to already have decided the fate of a release a scant seven days into its public life (yes, it was available earlier on the band’s website).  Still, take your pick of some of their earlier work…Being There, Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, A Ghost Is Born, Sky Blue Sky.  All fine albums, with each one setting up massive expectations for the next release.  And so far, Jeff Tweedy and crew have managed to scale those self-inflicted peaks, though in each case, it’s taken some time for fans and critics to have their eyes opened to the gems contained within.

In an earlier life, I reviewed new releases by a wide spectrum of bands.  What always bothered me was the need, due to the magazine deadline, to pass judgement on an album after only, at the most, a half-dozen listens.  Some records/CD’s require time to reveal all their hidden beauty; a cursory listen may turn up the radio-friendly hits, but not the real gold underneath.  If anything, a music reviewer/magazine should be required to revisit a reviewed album six months later.

While listening to Wilco’s latest offering on the way to work today, the immediate lukewarm reaction to it reminded me of much of the hockey world’s reaction to what GM Bob Gainey has done with the Montreal Canadiens in the past two weeks.

After watching his team take a nosedive after the All-Star break, firing head coach Guy Carbonneau, taking over behind the bench himself, and getting swept by the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs (all this during the overblown 100th anniversary celebrations), Gainey is understandably under considerable pressure to improve the lot of the Canadiens for the 2009-10 campaign.

He’s cast his lot with underachieving goaltender Carey Price, which might, in part, explain why Jacques Martin was brought aboard as head coach.  Gainey was facing a summer of significant roster turnover, as a number of players were set to become unrestricted free agents on July 1st.

While many in the media, and fans as well, were curious as to how Gainey would manage this off-season, most pointed to the fact that the Habs would benefit from having a lot of cap room to play around with.  Surely they’d be able to land the big stud centre the team has lacked since…since…Pete Mahovlich???

What about the Vinnie rumours?  How about Gaborik or Hossa?  Should they keep Komisarek or go a different direction?  And what about Kovalev and Kaptain Koivu?

So many questions, and Gainey began to answer them by engineering a pre-July 1st trade with the similarly underachieving New York Rangers.  Suddenly, Scott Gomez was a Hab.  That deal seemed to knock over a series of dominoes, which ended up revealing the names of Hal Gill, Mike Cammalleri,  Brian Gionta and Jaroslav Spacek, not to mention Perry Pearn.

Almost immediately, the reviews on Montreal Canadiens (The Album) were mixed, at best.  Were the Habs a better team now than they were in April?  Did they address any of the myriad of issues that faced this team going into the summer?  Are all these players too small?  Okay, Hal Gill excepted, but in his case, is he too slow?  Where’s that stud centre we’re all been clamouring for?  Why allow Kovalev to leave…and for Ottawa of all places?  Has he ever spent any real time there?  (To butcher Sinatra…I wanna sleep in the city that never wakes up).

Some have noted that Gainey and his Canadiens have moved neither forwards nor backwards with all these free agent signings and trades, but rather they have moved sideways.  As in, yes, things have changed, the team sports a new face today, but to what end?

This past weekend, a few of us from NHL Home Ice made the 10-hour car trip from Toronto, down over to Chicago (the home of Wilco), to catch the Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley on July 4th.  Being baseball season, there are White Sox and Cubs stuff everywhere in that town.  The NFL Bears were well represented, as were the Bulls.  Even noticed a couple of guys wearing Blackhawk caps, and more than a few shop windows displaying Blackhawk jerseys.

Regardless, for all the justified hype about the re-emergence of the Chicago Blackhawks, the Windy City is first-and-foremost an NFL town, then a baseball town, then the Bulls, and then the Hawks, make no mistake about it.

While we were there, the scandal involving possible contract errors by the Blackhawks were all the buzz back in hockey country, meaning Canada.  It was on the general sportscasts, as each and every hockey-related story is.

Nary a peep in Chicago, and I was monitoring the local television stations, and had my AM radio with me to listen to 670 The Score.  They had a brief mention of it, before going back to discussing the pennant chances of the Cubbies, and what Jay Cutler meant to the Bears.

Yet in Montreal, a hundred or so fans of the Canadiens held a rally to demand that GM Bob Gainey re-sign Alex Kovalev.  Have they seen Kovalev actually play these past few seasons?  Madness, I tell you.

Blackhawks’ GM Dale Tallon can screw up by signing over-priced over-rated free agents Brian Campbell and Cristobal Huet, and the hardcore fan base in that city will pillorize him for it, but he doesn’t have to face the same degree of pressure as a Bob Gainey, or a Brian Burke, or a Ken Holland.  While it’s on the radar, hockey gets lost in cities such as Chicago.  Let’s face it, hockey gets lost in almost every American city.  Make no mistake about it.

Yet in Canada, where apparently we have nothing better to do, every story is magnified, often far beyond its relative importance.  But that’s the way it is up here in Hockeyland.  Which helps to explain the overwhelming number of thumbs down reviews about Gainey and his moves so far this off-season.  We all think we know better up here.  There’s no allowance to actually see what these new acquisitions might do come October, we’ve already passed judgement.

50,000,000 critics can’t be wrong, but like all those stellar Wilco albums, this one will take some time to see if Gainey has engineered a masterpiece, or if all those signings were just the thrashings of a desperate man.

- Mick Kern

Eric and Mick are at it again, this time dropping the gloves about Game Three of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final, the Conn Smythe Trophy, Driven (the film), hockey movies, Canadian movies, the Avalanche cleaning house, the Canadiens hiring Jacques Martin, and the fact The One Percentile is now on itunes.  And, for the record, Eric is the one person, outside of the Martin household, excited about the hiring of Martin as the new head coach of the Montreal Canadiens.

It’s not like the Baseball Hall of Fame, where fans and media engage in debates as to which cap the likes of catcher Gary Carter should don when he was finally enshrined in Cooperstown.  The Kid came to fame with the Montreal Expos, but reached the pinnacle of his career with the 1986 New York Mets, combining clutch hitting and some fortuitous bounces in downing the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox as New York’s 2nd team became the toast of the town after winning the World Series.

Even though the player has a say in the decision, the tall foreheads at Cooperstown have the final word, and they went with the tricolour of the now defunct Expos, which did not sit well with Mr. 7-Up, who no doubt envisioned a healthy amount of appearance money flying away, thanks to the prospect of having to sign his John Hancock on BHOF memorabilia bearing the logo of a dead franchise, instead of the mighty Mets. 

Carter himself publicly showed his disdain for that choice, when he was recently introduced at the Baseball All-Star Game.  Festooned in the distinctive Expos cap, he also made a point of holding up a Mets cap.  There was no sign of a Dodgers, or Giants cap, even though he also suited up briefly for those franchises.

William Scott Bowman didn’t have to make that choice when he was handed the gold key to the Hockey Hall of Fame back in 1991.  At that point in his storied career, Scotty Bowman had won five Stanley Cups as the head coach of the Montreal Canadiens, in addition to three Cup Final appearances with the expansion St. Louis Blues.  Bowman’s tenure in Buffalo did not end in the manner he would have liked, and after a few years in TV, he returned to the league with the emerging Pittsburgh Penguins.

At the time of his departure from the Sabres, Bowman was already one of the greatest NHL coaches of all-time.  If he had never again stepped behind an NHL bench, his legend was sealed.  As life would have it, Penguins’ head coach Bob Johnson was struck with brain cancer, and tragically passed away in November of 1991.

The defending Stanley Cup Champions mourned for their beloved coach, and got back to the business of defending their title…with Bowman as their new head coach. 

The Penguins were a juggernaut, and swept aside Bowman wannabe Mike Keenan and his Chicago Blackhawks in the Cup Final.  Bowman won likely his most unexpected Cup, which just added to his legend.

Except there was a considerable backlash building against the Master.  There were many who clung to the faulted belief that anyone could have coached the late 70’s Canadiens to victory, that all Bowman had to do was open the door on the bench.  The same surface criticism was levelled at Bowman about these talented Penguins, and it only intensified the following spring when the heavily-favoured Pens fell in Game Seven overtime to David Volek and the New York Islanders.

Bowman moved on to the eternally under-achieving Detroit Red Wings, and initially experienced a bumpy ride with the Wings, including a sweep in the 1995 Final at the hands of the New Jersey Devils, coached by former Bowman disciple Jacques Lemaire.  Suddenly, the naysayers were emboldened with fresh evidence that Bowman was overrated.

Undaunted, the Red Wings did what any champion does.  They refused to panic.  They didn’t blow things up and start again.  They stayed the course, made the changes they deemed logical, and were rewarded with back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1997 and 1998.

The 1997 celebration remains, for me, the most joyous post-game celebration I have ever watched on television.  The pent-up frustrations and expectations of Red Wing fans finally had a platform for release, and Bowman took part in the festivities, donning skates and hoisting the Cup.

The Master would put an appropriate exclaimation point on his stellar career, capturing the Cup one final time in 2002, his final year behind the bench.  In total, William Scott Bowman won nine Stanley Cups, and led a team to the Final on an additional four occasions.

He set seemingly unassailable records for games and Cups won.  Along the way, he alienated players and fans alike with his style, but both parties understood one plain fact about Bowman.  He was a winner.

So when Bowman decided to jump ship and join the resurgent Chicago Blackhawks as an advisor (joining his son Stan in the Chicago front office), he once again exhibited a perfect sense of timing.  The Master tested the wind, and knew which way it was blowing.

During a recent game against the Red Wings, the TV cameras found Bowman in the crowd, surveying the game unfolding in front of him.  Which got me to thinking.

If Bowman was not yet in the Hockey Hall-of-Fame, and someone had to choose which NHL sweater or cap his plaque would display, which team would he represent, particularly if one was only to consider his record as an NHL head coach?

Statistics don’t always present the entire picture, but they’re a pretty good starting point.   Let’s agree that his days with the Blues and Sabres are not in the discussion, despite his early success with St. Louis.  His six plus years in Buffalo are without doubt the most disappointing of Bowman’s NHL career.  His time with Pittsburgh wasn’t long enough to warrant inclusion either.

Which means, rather obviously, it comes down to his legendary stint with the 1970’s Montreal Canadiens vs. his more recent success with the one modern dynasty still operating in the National Hockey League, the Detroit Red Wings.

In Montreal, Bowman returned to the organization he got his start in, including a Memorial Cup win in 1958.  After a power struggle in St. Louis, Bowman left and took over the reins of the Canadiens, who the season before, had won the Stanley Cup with an underrated team that featured rookie Ken Dryden in net, and was captain Jean Beliveau’s final year in the league.  The trouble was, head coach Al MacNeil was called out by Habs’ icon Henri Richard concerning ice-time during the playoffs, which the French media ate up, and even though the Pocket Rocket tried his best to calm the waters after the season was over, the damage was done.

Bowman got the job, though that 71-72 team lost in the first round in six games to New York Rangers, who made it all the way to the Cup Final, only to lose to the Bruins.

The next season, Bowman steered the Habs to first place in the East Division. in the process losing only 10 games, as Montreal regained the Stanley Cup.  But the best was yet-to-come.

After losing Dryden to a contract dispute, Montreal came up short in ‘74 and ‘75, the years of Bernie Parent, Bobby Clarke, and the Broad Street Bullies.  The emergence of superstar sniper Guy Lafleur, the maturing of the Big Three on defence, the addition of effective role players such as Bob Gainey and Doug Jarvis, and the return of Dryden all added up to a dynasty, one that won four straight Stanley Cups between 1976 and 1979.

It was on the strength of these magnificent teams that the legend of Bowman was forged.  By the time he left for Buffalo, Bowman had won five Stanley Cups in five Final appearances during his eight years with Montreal, and compiled a gaudy 419 wins in only 634 regular seasons games, as well as posting a .714 winning percentage in the post-season.  These were truly Hall-of-Fame numbers.

Fast forward to the late 1990’s, and Bowman behind the bench of the Detroit Red Wings.  During his nine-year head coaching tenure in Michigan, Bowman won three Stanley Cups in four appearances.  He won 414 regular-season games in only 706 games, and his playoff winning percentage was an impressive .642.  Along the way, in part thanks to an additional two games added on to the regular season NHL schedule, Bowman’s 95-96 Wings set a league record by winning 62 times that season, two better than the 76-77 Canadiens, coached by Bowman.

The overall numbers are similar.  The Montreal numbers are slightly more impressive, though one has to factor in the circumstances under which these two franchises operated.  The late 70’s Canadiens were the most powerful team in a league that still featured a number of weak sisters.  The Habs were challenged by the young Islanders, and the very talented Boston Bruins, but managed to overcome all obstacles during that four-year run.  Montreal and Boston were among the powerful teams that fattened their averages against the likes of the Cleveland Barons, Washington Capitals and Minnesota North Stars.

By the time Bowman was hoisting the Cup with the late 90’s Red Wings, the landscape of the NHL had changed considerably.  Thanks to better training techniques, better coaching, better goaltending, and a resulting tighter style of play, there was more parity in the league than when Bowman was with Montreal.  There were less opportunities to feast on the unfortunate, which meant less inflated numbers.  Taking all that into account, Bowman’s final stats with the Red Wings compare very favourably with his halcyon days in Montreal.

In the end, both incarnations of Bowman are deserving of accolades.  And despite what the great unwashed may rant about on internet billboards, not just anyone could have coached these teams.  It takes a special kind of coach to be able to juggle all the demands of a talented group of athletes, each of whom believes they have what it takes to be on the first line, or start in net. 

A large number of books have been written about Bowman and his coaching style.  Suffice to say, Bowman is arguably the greatest head coach in NHL history.  His two greatest stretches of accomplishements happened in Montreal, and Detroit.  Each incarnation was impressive to behold.  My heart says Scotty Bowman is first-and-foremost identified with the Montreal Canadiens, but my head says that his most impressive coaching job was with the Red Wings.

The better question might be, who would win in a best-of-seven battle between the 1977 Montreal Canadiens and the 1997 Detroit Red Wings?

- Mick Kern

Less than a minute to go in the game.  The net at the other end of the rink is empty, the goaltender cooling his heels on the bench.  The visiting team is desperate, needing a goal to tie the game and send it into overtime.

The puck is dropped, and a mad scramble ensues.  The visitors keep the puck hemmed in the zone, and launch a volley of shots, but not one finds the back-of-the-net.  To the fans of the home team, the seconds on the overhead clock drag at an infuriatingly languid pace.  To the fans of the visiting team, it’s all over in a flash.

In this case, the Washington Capitals were unable to put the puck past Henrik Lundqvist for the tying goal, and the hometown Rangers escaped with a 2-1 win, and take a 3-1 stranglehold on their best-of-seven series.  What would have to be classified as the biggest upset in the first round is all set up to be completed in the next couple of days.  The Rangers will get three cracks at it.

If the Caps had been able to score the equalizer, MSG would have been deflated, and Washington would no doubt have entered overtime with all the momentum.  That’s how much things can change on the strength of one solitary goal in such a situation.  But it was not to be.

Name me one other sport that is blessed with the same edge-of-your-seat excitement.  In a key baseball postseason game, when the bases are loaded, and there’s nowhere to put the hot-hitting batter, and the bullpen is exhausted, and the closer has to come in with a pitch in the strike zone, and the crowd is on its feet, and the noise is deafening, and their cheers help keep winter away for a few more hours…well, that’s close.

In football, when a team is in the red zone, and the defence has to hold, late in the game, and the crowd is on its feet, and you can’t hear yourself think, well, that’s also pure gold.

But hockey has them both beat, because of the fluid nature of the game.  No other team sport features the constant ebbs and flows of hockey, due to the fact it’s played on ice, with grown men on skates.  The speed of the game, and the unpredictability, and the endless possibilities that are presented when the linesman drops the puck, all add up to create pure magic.

It’s games like the Rangers/Washington tilt that remind me why we slog through an overly long regular season.

On the other hand…Goodnight Montreal.  The Party is Over.

In truth, it ended sometime in January, but people were having too good of a time to notice it.

So much for the overblown 100th Anniversary Season.  Starting Monday morning, half price on all memorabilia.  Everything must go, including a large number of free agents.

I think I finally get what GM Bob Gainey was trying to do with goaltender Carey Price.  Unlike a lot of Montreal fans, Gainey no doubt knew that this team wasn’t deep enough to make a long run in this year’s playoffs.  His man in net is, without a doubt, young Mr. Price.  Why not throw him right in and get his feet wet, toughen him up using live ammo.

Trouble is, that strategy can backfire horribly if the goaltender’s confidence is shaken to the point he doubts the very things that carried him this far.  That has always been my worry with how Montreal has handled Carey Price.  He’s now played in three playoff series over two straight seasons, and he hasn’t looked good in any of them.

Mind you, this year’s edition of Les Canadiens were nothing to write home about, and my mother actually asked me to stop with the emails.  The real test for Montreal will be this summer:

- which unrestricted free agents do they attempt to keep?
- can they coax any key unrestricted free agents from other teams to sign here?
- is Gainey preparing to clear cap room in order to try to trade for Vincent Lecavalier?
- will this team finally get physically bigger, now that they’re been pushed around
   for two straight playoff years?
- who will be the head coach of this team?
- will GM Bob Gainey keep his job?  Does he still want the job?
- is this team for sale, or not?
- entering his third NHL season, it’s time for Carey Price to begin to
   realize the immense potential he has.

That’s a lot of stuff for one off-season.  The best news?

It’s the 101st season for the Canadiens.  Time to forget the distractions and get down to business.

Just wait ’til next season!  Go Bruins.  You guys look good.

- Mick Kern

“IN BOB WE TRUST”

Montreal fans, for the most part, cleave to these words, for you sir, Bob Gainey, represent all that is righteous and pure about Les Canadiens.  On a mid-70’s team crowded with superstars and game-breakers, you made a name for yourself with what was then considered a rather sublime skill set…and hard work.

Now that you’ve been the GM of the Canadiens for the past half-dozen years, this once-proud franchise appeares to have put itself back-on-track.  You’ve hired the right people, who have made all the right decisions, particularly when it came to carefully re-building the infrastructure of this organization.  Your Habs drafted well, which sets the team up to overcome the ongoing obstacle of attracting top-name free agents to the city.

After a surprising Eastern Conference regular-season title last year, everything slowly has come unravelled this season, and all under the unremitting glare of the overbaked 100th Anniversary celebrations.

There are a number of reasons why Montreal fell to eighth spot this season, and are barely alive in their first-round playoff match with the Boston Bruins, and all are worth closer examination in the rapidly approaching off-season.

But writing as a long-time fan of this team, Bob…I have only one question on this late Saturday night.

What is with your ongoing fascination with goaltender Carey Price?

No doubt about it, the kid has size.  He’s been a success at every other level of hockey, so when you took him 5th overall in the Sidney Crosby entry draft of 2005, us loyal Habs fans didn’t blink an eye, despite some negative things a number of scouts may have said about Price.

Most goaltender take a while to develop, but this is the Montreal Canadiens, not the Atlanta Thrashers.  There’s no place to hide, particularly for a top-rated goaltending prospect. 

Montreal has been a goaltending factory stretching all the way back to Georges Vezina himself.  Just look at some of the names.  George Hainsworth, Bill Durnan, Gerry McNeil, Jacques Plante, Gump Worsley, Ken Dryden, and Patrick Roy.

You can also add the names of Charlie Hodge, Rogie Vachon, Phil Myre, Michel Plasse, Wayne Thomas, Michel Laroque, Denis Herron, Rick Wamsley, Doug Soetart, Brian Hayward, Roland Melanson, Jeff Hackett, Jose Theodore, and Christobal Huet.

The franchise even survived the likes of Richard Sevigney, Steve Penney, Andre Racicot, and the dude who played a couple of minutes when Roy had to use the washroom.

They traded away the likes of Tony Esposito, and Tomas Vokoun, before those guys even had the chance to get real good, because there was no room at the inn for them.

Point being, and Bob, you understand this more than most, the starting goaltender is THEE focal point of the Montreal Canadiens.  More so when the franchise hasn’t had a bona fide 50-goal scorer since Stephane Richer, and has been without a true superstar since the glory days of Guy Lafleur, and baby, that was thirty years ago.

Jaroslav Halak can be a frustrating goaltender to watch, as he’ll follow up a couple of stellar games with a so-so effort.  But here’s the thing.

Halak has stolen, OUTRIGHT STOLEN, a couple of games for the Habs this past season.  A game in Denver comes to mind, when Montreal had no business taking home the two points.

Price is your bonus baby, and as he’s a young man, his day may yet come.

But it is not right now.  Not when the guy doesn’t seem fully awake during play.  Sure, he’ll make a fine save, but then he’ll follow it up five minutes later with what appears to be a half-hearted effort at covering the puck…something that cost his team a goal in Game One of this series against the Bruins.

Like any goaltender, regardless of stature, Price is reliant on his team in front of him.  The current roster of the team has been exposed as being weaker than first advertised, so Price hasn’t always received the support he should rightfully expect, but neither has he returned many favours.

At this time of year, in order to get anywhere, as everyone who follows hockey knows, your goaltender has got to be The Man.  Meaning he’s got to be solid, not necessarily spectacular, but reliable.  And every so often, he’s got to steal a game or two for his team.

Bob, when was the last time Carey Price stole a game for the Montreal Canadiens? 

And even when the guy makes a good save, he’s often out-of-position following that initial save.  Much in the same way some baseball pitchers are described as throwers, not pitchers, Price is a blocker, not a goaltender.  Which may explain why he’s looked so lousy on some shootouts during the regular season.  Get his big body moving, and he looks sluggish.  Didn’t Stan Fischler call him a big stiff?  Harsh, yes, but possibly true??

No-one with any grey matter left in their brain honestly expected Montreal to win this series, though the Habs had a legitimate shot at winning Game One. 

Game Two?  A different story.  Price simply did not rise to the occasion.  He did not make the saves when his beleagured team needed him to.

Yes, to place the blame solely on his shoulders is not accurate; it appeared many on this team gave a half-hearted effort.  But we all know hockey.  Good, steady goaltending can cover up a lot of flaws.  A 3 dressed up as a 9, as that cheesy old Trooper song went.

Montreal did not receive such goaltending in Game Two until you put Halak in net for the third period.

The Washington Capitals made the right move when they put Simeon Varlamov in net for their second game against the Rangers.  Yes, they lost 1-0, but the kid sure looked better than Jose Theodore recently has, and anyhow, Varlamov may be the future of goaltending in D.C., while Theodore was a band-air solution once Christobal Huet jumped ship for more money in Chicago.

Trouble is, Bob, in Montreal, Carey Price has already been anointed the future of goaltending.  Even if the glass slipper doesn’t fit, you’re going to force it onto his foot.

- Mick Kern

Okay, let’s do a quick summary of how the 100th Anniversary Party for the Montreal Canadiens has been going.

EVENT: Montreal hosts the 2009 NHL All-Star Game.
ANALYSIS: Big deal.  Sure it was a great party, but in the end, it’s a meaningless floater game.  I’ve been told some people were falling asleep in the press-box, and that wasn’t because they were up all night at some of the more wicked parties raging across the city.

EVENT: Young Habs like holding wicked parties.  Internet pictures say so, so it must be true.
ANALYSIS: At least they kept their clothes on in the pictures.

EVENT: Montreal wears a series of throwback uniforms.
ANALYSIS:  Exactly as advertised…throw them back before I throw up.

EVENT: Hockey Hall-of-Fame goaltender Patrick Roy has his number 33 raised to the rafters.
ANALYSIS: Long overdue, but there was that old family spat to overcome.  Many wanted Roy himself raised to the rafters.  Others wanted him to don the pads again.  Still others think he should be the next coach of the team.  Apparently, this franchise has never completely gotten over their public divorce with Saint Patrick.

EVENT: Players on the roster linked to Organized Crime.
ANALYSIS:  So many nasty rumours.  Like me Mom said, when there’s enough smoke, there’s gotta be someone barbequing.  But which rumours to believe?   Players linked with Organized Crime?  That doesn’t have to be so bad.  Maybe they could organize the Habs’ power play.

EVENT:  2009 NHL Trade Deadline.
ANALYSIS:  GM Bob Gainey shops early, picking up ex-pat Mathieu Schneider from the Atlanta Thrashers, apparently so he’d have more time to contemplate exactly when would be a good time to fire head coach Guy Carbonneau during this celebratory season.

EVENT:  Canadiens fire head coach Guy Carbonneau.
ANALYSIS:  Ahhhhh, I don’t see this anywhere on the program.

EVENT: Les Canadiens want to host an outdoor game.
ANALYSIS:  Except it would be played inside the Great Toilet Bowl, aka the 1976 Olympic Stadium, aka The Big O, aka The Big Owe, aka The House That Rick Monday Destroyed, aka The White Elephant, aka, the Building With the Retractable Roof Which Didn’t Have An Actual Roof For Years Before Finally Getting One And Then It Couldn’t Be Retraced.  All this meaning…one Outdoor Game a year in the NHL is enough.  Talk about killing the Golden Goose.

EVENT: Montreal to host the 2009 NHL Entry Draft.
ANALYSIS:  Details to follow.   No doubt plenty of time for the Habs to trade away the past half-decade of carefully planned drafting in order to get Vincent Lecavalier into a Canadiens’ uniform.

EVENT: Canadiens’ principle owner George Gillett may sell the Montreal Canadiens.
ANALYSIS:  WAIT!  I thought this rumour was quickly shot down earlier this season.  Now you’re telling me there might be truth to the rumour?

EVENT:  The Montreal Canadiens are odds-on-favourites to win the 2009 Stanley Cup.
ANALYSIS:  Okay, who REALLY thought this was true, except for the new breed of Canadiens’ fans…the type that will take to the streets to celebrate a lousy first-round playoff victory….just like Maple Leaf fans have pathetically done for years.  Shudder the thought, but the Canadiens are the new Leafs.

EVENT:  The Montreal Canadiens are sold to Jim Balsillie and moved to Kitchener/Waterloo.
ANALYSIS: Don Lever cancels the Berlitz lessons, and is now able to become the head coach of the team.

- Mick Kern

Former Calder Trophy winner Danny Grant talked to Scott Laughlin about his days with the Canadiens, Red Wings, North Stars, and Kings

Andy Bathgate with Scott Laughlin talking about his upcoming jersey retirement with the Rangers and his career in New York

A uncharateristically warm, windy, rainy mid-February Wednesday night in the great metropolis of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 

Took the boy to another minor hockey game tonight.  Had a great time.  We both enjoyed the work of both goaltenders.

Got home a bit late, got the kid in bed by 9 pm…an hour later than preferred, but hey, it was for hockey.

Poured a tasty beverage and proceeded downstairs to watch the Montreal Canadiens limp into Edmonton, after a round of bowling.

Was bowled over to discover the basement was covered in a foot of water.  Very cold water, thanks to about a half-hour torrential rainfall around 8:30 that evening.

Put down the tasty beverage, called the wife as she drove home from her knitting class, who then went straight to her parents and picked up the Shop Vac.

Moved what stuff I could salvage from the basement, and resigned myself to a night of no hockey.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one…under water and resigned to no hockey.

Mr. Dan Blakeley had emailed to say he had water coming in and the good ship and crew were in peril.  There would be no War Room on Thursday (hold your applause).

After five hours and at least 36 gallons of melted snow/rain water, I quit for the night, and turned to the internet to catch up on the NHL action I missed.

What…The…Hell?

The Canadiens get thumped 7-2 by the host Oilers?  Goaltender Carey Price battles the puck in the first, and allows four goals?

Excuse me, ’cause I’m covered in sweat and filth (hey, sounds like an average day on The War Room), and I’m just getting over this sinus infection thing, and I’m drop-dead tired, and I haven’t eaten since a very nice bowl of chili at Tim Horton’s back at 6 pm, but…

Carey, what up?

Is your confidence that shattered?

This is, after all, a very young man.  Many, myself included, publicly mused last season that Bob Gainey was putting a heck of a lot of pressure on the lad’s shoulders this early into his career.

Add on to that weight this year-long overblown, geesh aren’t all we sick of it by now 100th year celebration, and the TOTALLY unrealistic expectations by a sizeable portion of Canadiens’ fans that this team would win the Stanley Cup this season, and maybe it’s understandable that young Mr. Price is burnt out.

He can’t even lift his glove hand to snare shots that the two young goaltenders my son and I watched tonight could have stopped.  Apparently, Price played tonight’s game in Edmonton like good ole’ Hardy Astrom.

Talk is now that Price is more Steve Penney than Patrick Roy. 

Wait a minute, Penney had a very nice run in the 1984 playoffs, and not a bad 84-85 regular season, before his bubble burst.

Taken 5th overall in the Sidney Crosby (and now Bobby Ryan…and good for Ryan!) draft of 2005, there were rumblings at the time that the jury was still out on how effective big Carey Price would be in the NHL.  He backstopped the Canadian junior’s to gold, including that memorable shooutout win over a very talented American team, and he backstopped the Hamilton Bulldogs to a Calder Cup championship.

About twenty years earlier, Patrick Roy led the Sherbrooke Canadiens to the 1985 Calder Cup Championship, and a year later, a number of those players, led again by Roy, won the Stanley Cup.

There would be no repeat of that pattern this time.  Price was suspect in the opening round seven-game win over the Bruins last spring.  He’d follow a solid game with a sub-par performance, so much so, the Bruins forced their way back into this series.

In the next series against the Flyers, Price was exposed.  His glove hand was weak; his concentration appeared to wane.  Arguably, if the Canadiens had received even slightly above-average goaltending, they could have beaten Philadelphia.

Well, they didn’t, and going into this season, I had two questions I was curious about when it came to Montreal.

One, how would super-talented Alex Kovalev follow up his fine 07-08 season?

And two, how would Carey Price bounce back from his second-round playoff disaster?

We know the answer to the first question (and it’s not good), and it appears clearer every day we know the answer to the second question (also not good).

Still, I want to know why?

Why is Price playing this badly?  Was he overhyped?

Actually, the answer is yes.  But even an overhyped player can still be a good player.

Right now, would you want Carey Price starting in net for your team?

Carey, what’s wrong?

I’d cry, but I’ve seen enough water for the night.

- Mick “Poseidon’ Kern

Not sick-in-the-head, though many would advance that theory.  Sick as in “Man, I can’t get outta bed, it hurts so bad” sick.   One wicked case of sinus infection, which seems to happen this time every year.

Stuck at home, feeling like I blocked an Al MacInnis slapshot with my forehead, until the drugs kicked in.  Dragged myself to the basement TV room couch.  Thankfully, there were a lot of NHL games on this particular Tuesday evening.

Started with Pittsburgh in Montreal.  Talk about a game both teams wanted to win.  The Penguins trying to claw their way back into an Eastern Conference playoff spot; the Habs trying to hang onto theirs.

Don’t know what Canadiens’ head coach Guy Carbonneau said to Alex Kovalev, but the enigmatic Russian sniper played with some jump in his step.  Carey Price still makes me nervous as I watch him tend net.  His positioning is top-notch, but get the dude to move, and you’ve got a good chance of burying the puck.  Price will excel with a defensive core dedicated to clearing the puck.  Sounds simple, but not all defenceman master that basic skill.  Even so, Price appears to give up one questionable goal a game.  And he’s gotta stop doing that annoying shrug of his shoulders whenever he is scored upon.  It’s like he’s saying, “wasn’t my fault”.

Switched over to the resurgent Florida Panthers at the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Had intended to attend this game, but no such luck.  The Leafs staked themselves to a 3-1 lead, but watching it from the couch, I just knew that the Cats were gonna tie this thing up.  Toronto’s Alexei Ponikarovsky got caught for boarding with less than two minutes remaining in the game, and of course, Florida tied it up.

What cracked me up about that sequence of events was how Leafs’ uber-GM Brian Burke reacted, high up in the pressbox.  His face indicated he probably thought the penalty was horse-bleep.  Funny how that is.  It was clearly a boarding call.  It was also the only situation all night where a Leaf went to the penalty box alone.  Why can’t a team, or a kiss-ass TV/Radio play-by-play guy, or for that matter, most homer fans, admit when a penalty is a penalty?  Show some class.  Shuddup, and skate to the penalty box and feel shame for two minutes.  Or less.

And to complete the evening, ex-pat Bryan McCabe scored the overtime winner for Florida on a two-on-one slapshot.  Nice shot, but really, Vesa Toskala should have had it.  He’s a starting goaltender in the National Hockey League.  They’re supposed to get those ones, not allow them to squirt past him for the game-winning tally.

Hey, every so often one of those gets through.  Grant Fuhr was with the Maple Leafs when Trevor Linden unloaded a similar shot on him during a game at Maple Leaf Gardens during the autumn of 1991.  No doubt you could hear me scream with joy miles away, even though I was ensconced way up in the corner greys.

That goal stood up as the winner in a 2-1 victory for the Canucks.  After the game, Fuhr admitted one or two of those find their way through him every year.  He played the shot correctly, but sometimes, that little vulcanized rubber projectile has eyes of its own.

Same thing could be said for Toskula, but the trouble is, like Price, he tends to give up one bad goal a game.  A team cannot constantly win knowing they’re effectively one goal down to start.  Not that the Leafs’ brass probably minds; wasn’t this Year One of the constant rebuilding phase?

Switched games and caught the tail-end of the Capitals putting down the Devils 5-2.  Jose Theodore in net still makes me nervous.  Come to think of it, most goaltenders make me nervous.  So much so, I forgot about the sinuses for a while.  What will the Devils do when the Best Goaltender Of All-Time (C) returns?

A couple of late games that I was able to catch.  The mighty Marty Turco and his band of Merry Dallas Stars were at home and dropped the Calgary Flames 3-1.  Turco is back to playing like, well, Marty Turco, and the Stars are the force most of us expected them to be.

Which is why everyone has to keep their cool when it comes to watching this grand game of ours.  It’s a long, long season.  82 regular-season games.  All that matters is where you stand once your 82nd game is played.  Most teams will experience highs and lows during the course of the season.  Don’t allow either to convince you it’s a trend.

Having said that, Dallas moved to erase the cancer in their dressing room, and slowly, this team has rediscovered its confidence, even with key injuries.  Let the 2008-09 Dallas Stars stand as an example why a team should not automatically fire its head coach when things aren’t going as planned.  Often, the fault lines run deeper than that.

(Now watch, of course, as the Stars lose every game for the rest of the season).

Dallas were able to pull themselves out of a troubling nosedive, yet the Ottawa Senators seem keen on continuing their descent.  They get rid of the perceived malcontents, design some horrid third sweaters, the owner tells reporters to go blow themselves up, and then they fire head coach Craig Hartburg affter only 48 games.

48 games?  That’s not even as long as most people get to try out their fancy new widescreen HDTV before realizing they can’t pay for it, and return it to the store.

Whatever.  It looks good on the Senators that they lost tonight 1-0 to the rebuilding Los Angeles Kings.

Are we to expect a 11 am press conference on Wednesday morning announcing the firing of head coach Cory Clouston?  That’s the way things are tracking in Ottawa.

Flipped the channel.  Saw video of Adam Graves getting his number 9 retired by the New York Rangers.  With all due respect to Larry Brooks of the New York Post, who I enjoy reading, but is the whole world going crazy???

Okay, I get it.  Graves was a great guy off-the-ice, did great things for his community and was a key cog in the 1994 Stanley Cup winning Rangers team.  But c’mon.  This isn’t Rod Gilbert, or Jean Ratelle, or Ed Giacomin, or Brad Park, or Brian Leetch, or Mark Messier, or even Andy Bathgate, or Harry Howell, or Bill Gadsby, Vic Hadfield or the Cooks we’re talking about.

This is Adam Graves.

Messier commented that the night was not about honouring Graves’s stats.  Fair enough.  Raw numbers don’t always tell the whole tale.  But retiring his uniform number?   It should be first-and-foremost about what happens on the ice that determines sweater retirements, and Hall-of-Fame inductions, etc.

The standards have been lowered.  Ranger fans, take your best shot.  And don’t try and feed me the line, “ya had to be in New York to truly appreciate Graves”.

What about Bathgate, and Bernie Nicholls, and Rick Middleton, if the Rangers hadn’t been so stupid, stupid, stupid and traded away Nifty.  These guys also served as Number Nine.

Wow, win one Cup, one stinkin’ Cup after fifty-four years of nothing, and I guess you truly do walk together forever.

Then again, hey, it’s your team.  Do what you want.  The way things are going, each and every member of that ‘94 team will eventually have their number raised.  I can hardly wait for Jay Wells night. 

And I thought the 1967 Maple Leafs were honoured to death.

Stop the presses!  As I type, the Vancouver Canucks actually win a game, 4-3, at home against the Hurricanes.  Alex Burrows pots the shorthanded winner with under two minutes to play.  Mats Sundin stays out of the penalty box and contributes a goal and an assist.

Stay tuned.

Time to take some more drugs.  All is well in the NHL.  Goodnight.

- Mick Kern

Like most years, I taped the NHL All-Star Competition, and watched it later, when domestic duties allowed.

Like most years, I fastforwarded through most of the dreck that is the on-ice interviews.  Really, what’s the point of most of these over earnest feel-good gabs?  Sure, the guys are having fun.  Great.  I can determine that by watching them on-the-ice.  Nothing like clubbing the viewer over the head.

Props to Elliot Friedman of CBC; when he asks questions, he doesn’t pull against the overall tone of the evening (ie: We’re Having Fun), but he manages to ask one question that is pertinent to the season, and he poses it in such a way that it’s not an intrusion to the overtone tone of the evening (We’re Having Fun).

Maybe the best example of that is how he approached his quick hit with Vincent Lecavalier.  To not ask Lecavalier about the rumours of him going to the Canadiens, while the All-Star Game is in Montreal, would have done a disservice to the hockey fan watching at home.  Even better, Friedman asked him a straight-up question.  He didn’t put Lecavalier in the corner, but neither did he lob him a softball, like most of the “NHL-friendly” TV talking heads would have.

And, in case you missed it, Lecavalier received the loudest, and longest, ovation during the introduction to the Skills Competition.

The one image that will perpetuate itself on the internet, and YouTube, and in the hearts of the biggest NHL PR hacks on all the television networks, will be the one of Alexander Ovechkin being outfitted by Evgeni Malkin with a Tilley hat, and Canadian flag, and grabbing two sticks for one of his turns at the trick shot competition.

Yes, I laughed.  Not one of those “oh my God, what will these crazy hockey guys think of next” laughs.  More of a lighthearted chuckle.  Which is what the Ovechkin-Malkin hijinks was, a lighhearted moment.  Good footage for the highlight shows later.  Maybe Sports Illustrated will pick it up.

But that’s all it was, a small (manufactured) novelty within the heart of a greater novelty.  The aforementioned TV hacks will parade it out like it was the greatest thing since…since…well, since heated blades, but NHL apologists tend to do that with most insignificant trivia.

As a hockey fan, I didn’t completely buy the whole Malkin and Ovechkin make peace spin.  Or at least I don’t want to.  That supposed feud is (was?) one of the more delicious story lines of the current season.  Imagine if the Capitals and Penguins meet in the playoffs?  Imagine if the Penguins pull up their socks.

One of the PR hack myths I can’t stand is the constant hammering by some commentators (including here at NHL Home Ice) that ALL the players are great guys, and ALL the players are just wonderful to be around, and ALL the players are just like kids when they get out on the ice, and ALL the players consider it an honour to be at the All-Star Game, etc…

The staged Malkin-Ovechkin hat trick will only be more fuel for that artificial fire.  Anyone, such as myself, that dares to approach The Event from a different angle will be summarily dismissed.

So, let me repeat this for the record.  The Malkin-Ovechkin hijinks was cute.  A nice moment in an otherwise uneventful event.

Yup, the rest of the skills competition took a lot of skill…to keep watching it.  Don’t get me wrong; back when this was first introduced (1990???), I was a big proponent of the idea.

What a great way to showcase the individual skill of NHL players.  And all in a pre-packaged soundbite/highlight clip manner.

The trouble is, like anything, what was new slowly becomes familiar.  They try to jazz it up every so often, so effort points have to be given out for trying to revive the contest, but when the highlight of the evening was Ovechkin wearing a Tilley hat on a breakaway, well, honestly examine it yourself.

Honestly look at it.  Don’t look at the All-Star Game Competition, and for that matter, the entire All-Star weekend and see it as you wish it to be.  See it how it really is.

No, I am not one of the fans or media in Montreal this weekend.  There’s little doubt being at the epicentre of All-Star events would change my perception of them somewhat. 

But here’s the thing, most of the fans, and sports media, and non-hockey sports fans, also aren’t in Montreal this weekend.  What is presented on the old television screen is the reality that will be remembered.

The YoungStars game was boring, but really, what could one expect?  The actual All-Star game is such a waste of time (which is why I won’t be taping it); removing a couple of players on each side and having a smaller game of shinny is not the recipe for success.

The entire All-Star weekend works best as a hockey convention.  Have the fan zones, have the meeting of the so-called minds, get all the players together in their team uniforms and have a fancy practise.  Why spoil everything with a game?

Unless.

Unless the NHL were to, say, marry up the Outdoor Game with all the fanfest all-star stuff. 

No, I’m not advocating playing the All-Star Game outside.  I’m for putting that lame dog down.  Instead, hold the All-Star festivities around the Outdoor Game.  Keep some semblance of fan voting for the various skills competition, keep the fan fest stuff, have the meeting of the minds…and then, on the Sunday, actually play a real NHL game outdoors.

For example, this weekend, it would have been the Montreal Canadiens against, say, the Boston Bruins.  For two points.  Or maybe three.

Hey, Montreal fans already sent half the team to the event anyhow, so we’re almost set.

By merging the two events, the league could possibly generate more attention for itself, outside of the usual hockey media.  The Outdoor Game, at least right now, is on the radar of the U.S. sports media.  The All-Star game isn’t.  But putting the two together, what’s there to lose?

And Ovechkin could still wear his Silly Tilley hat.

- Mick “Fedora” Kern

The first NBC Game-of-the-Week this season featured the Penguins and the Rangers.  During the second period, Sidney Crosby was hooked from behind, negating a good scoring opportunity.  The referee gestures towards centre ice.  There’s gonna be a showdown in Steel City.

Sidney Crosby one-on-one against Henrik Lundqvist.  Two marquee players face-to-face.  And on U.S. network television.  This is what you want.

Or do you? 

If one looks at it from a marketing angle, the answer is a resounding yes.  Crosby is one of the young superstars of the National Hockey League.  Lundqvist is one of the top goaltenders. 

Often called “The Most Exciting Play In Hockey”, the penalty shot has lost some of its lustre with the implementation of the shootout.  Even so, it’s still a relatively rare moment when a penalty shot is called.

In all the NHL games I’ve attended, it has only occurred twice.  The first one was at Madison Square Garden, as the Rangers hosted the Detroit Red Wings in February 1987.  Petr Klima took the shot against John Vanbiesbrouck.  The joint was rocking as Klima lined up all alone at centre ice.  It was hockey theatre at its finest.  The decibel level rose even higher when The Beezer stoned Klima.

Second penalty shot I witnessed live was at Maple Leaf Gardens in the mid 90’s during a Leafs-Canadiens exhibition game.  Joe Sacco took the shot, and I can’t recall who was in net for the Habs.  Hey, it was an exhibition game.  From what I do remember of that sleepy affair, the penalty shot was the highlight of the evening.  Oh, Sacco didn’t score.

Last season, there were 64 penalty shots.  Only 19 of them found the back of the net.  Valterri Filppula of Detroit scored twice in a week; the first goal on Nashville’s Dan Ellis, the second against Florida’s Tomas Vokoun.  Vincent Lecavalier also converted two penalty shots last season, albeit four-and-a-half months apart.  Eric Staal also scored twice.

Lundqvist faced three penalty shots in the 2007-08 campaign, stopping Jordan Staal, but yielding goals to Lecavalier and Sergei Kostitsyn.  He got the better of Crosby on this day, getting Sid the Kid to shoot the puck into his chest. 

The Rangers were trailing 2-0 at the time of the penalty shot; could this have been a turning point?  Not this time.  The Penguins would score the next goal, and won the game 3-0.

Regardless, a penalty shot featuring two marquee players is notable.  If Crosby had scored, the clip may even have made a few sports shows that don’t usually linger on hockey.  The penalty shot is one of the signature events of the game of hockey.  Unlike soccer, the goaltender has a reasonable shot at stopping the shot.

So it was intriguing when Pierre McGuire, working on the NBC telecast, suggested that coaches should have the option to decline the penalty shot, and take a two-minute powerplay instead.  The reasoning was something to the effect that the penalty shot is only one chance, and as earlier discussed, arguably the odds favour the goaltender.  If a team were to decline the shot, and take the powerplay, odds are that they would get more than one chance at a quality shot.

Then again, the argument the other way is also convincing.  Many times, a team fails to generate a quality scoring opportunity on the powerplay.  Sometimes it looks at though the team with the man advantage is trying too harder to set up the perfect tic-tac-toe goal.  Why surrender the clear cut scoring opportunity that a penalty shot provides?  Like they say in football, never take points off the board.  The equivalent in hockey being, never deny yourself a scoring chance.

McGuire maintains that the option to choose should be there; let the head coach make that decision.  While I see this point, I still think the penalty shot as it is now should stand. 

If Michel Therrien had elected to decline the penalty shot, and went instead with the two-minute powerplay, a number of things would have changed.

First and foremost, hockey fans would have been denied the Crosby-Lundqvist matchup.  Depending on which team you’re pulling for, the result was either wonderful, or a disappointment.  But that’s not how to judge the moment.  The anticipation was wonderful, something a two-minute powerplay rarely generates.  It was perfect for television.

Second, the fact the penalty shot featured one of the young guns of the league allows sports media outlets to isolate this moment, as opposed to just another powerplay.

Third, the Penguns were pretty much guaranteed a good scoring chance, unless the player taking the shot loses control of the puck, or falls.  (Even then, that play would have lived in infamy for years).  If the Pens had taken the two-minute powerplay, they may have never generated a similar scoring opportunity.  Sure, you take your chances; Pittsburgh might have manufactured a half-dozen good chances.

Or, they could have had their power-play time cut by being called for their own penalty.  So many variables, some good, many not so good.  By taking the penalty shot, you’re pretty much guaranteed one stellar scoring opportunity, which is what it’s all about.  Giving back to the player the scoring chance the defence illegally took away.

Keep the penalty shot the way it is.

- Mick Kern

It must be January, ’cause there’s a ton of hockey to argue about.

First off, for a hockey fan, the World Juniors are almost always a treat to watch.  The Americans and Canadians delivered a game-for-the-ages on New Year’s Eve.  Many were anticipating a rematch in the Championship Game. 

Not gonna happen, thanks to Slovakia and their red-hot goaltender.  But that’s hockey, particularly in a one-game elimination situation.  Here in North America, we have generally been schooled to approach a playoff series as a best-of-seven cage match.   The refreshing beauty of the World Juniors is that on any given day, any dog can rise up and bite the postman.

Why then, are most of the hockey intelligentsia on television calling for the U.S. Hockey program to take a long look at itself and right its ship?  Did I miss something (very possible)?  Is this one loss a telling snapshot of the greater picture?  Or is everyone over-reacting to a hockey loss, which I was sure was a knee-jerk reaction patented by Canadians?

Secondly, the very thought of actually giving a hoot about an All-Star Game runs counter to every logical thought in my head.  Still, that’s what couch musings are about, so allow me to briefly wade into this Montreal-made morass.

The starting lineups for the NHL All-Star Game, as decided by “The Fans”, were officially released on Saturday afternoon.  As expected, as feared, members of the Montreal Canadiens dominated the Eastern All-Stars.  The party-minded Habs swiped four of the six spots, with arguably only one of those players (Andrei Markov) deserving of that honour.  Lord knows Alexei Kovalev has played so poorly, he shouldn’t even be allowed to watch the game on TV.

Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby managed to crack the All-Habs All-Star Team, so someone somewhere successfully stuffed the ballot box to counter the previous ballot box stuffing that went on throughout Canada, particularly in the province of Quebec.  Rumour has it that two Habs were also voted on to the starting lineup for the Western Conference, but the league quickly covered it up.

Really though, WHO CARES?  It’s the frickin’ All-Star Game.  A lackadaisical, snooze-fest of subpar shinny that best serves as a placebo for sleeping pills.  If you really want to work yourself into a lather because more deserving stars didn’t place on the starting line-up (you know, the five guys who line up for the opening faceoff and all the flashbulbs, and then usually beat a hasty retreat to the bench), then that’s the beauty, and idiocy, of democracy.  Go ahead.  But remember…in space, no-one can hear you scream.

Third point, why does anyone bother to ever make predictions?  They rarely turn out to be true, and even then, most prognosticators beat the drum about the one prediction they correctly stumbled upon, not the other nineteen they missed.  Something about a blind squirrel comes to mind.

Reminds me of a snowy Tuesday night in Ottawa back during the 83-84 OHL season.  A friend and I sat behind the net at the 67’s game, and spend most of the night trying to outpredict each other.  Who would score next, how a two-on-one would turn out, etc.

Most of the times, we were wrong, but we had a good time smiling through our own B.S.  I can still see Don McLaren on a clear-cut breakaway late in the game, Ottawa comfortably up on the opposition.  My buddy yells out that McLaren would not score, so, by default, I vigorously maintained that The Don would indeed bulge the twine…which he did.

Did that suddenly make me a genius?  Of course not, but that’s part of the game of publicly predicting sports.  One can go with the tried-and-true (the Red Wings will win the Cup), or one can go against the grain and pick an underdog (Nashville will upset the Wings in the first round).  The beauty of being the contrarian is that you are basically hedging your bets; if your pick actually wins, you puff up your chest and arrogantly proclaim that any fool could have seen the patterns.  If your teams doesn’t win - which it most likely won’t - then your exit strategy goes something like this… hey, no-one REALLY expected them to win, but I liked the matchups, blah, blah, blah.  A noble failure. 

And, for the record, I did pick the Predators to upset the Red Wings in the first round last season, mainly because I had no faith in Dominik Hasek.  And I wasn’t alone, certainly not after the Preds roared back to tie the series at two games apiece, and Detroit inserted Chris Osgood between-the-pipes.  Game Five went to overtime, with Detroit winning, so I wasn’t that far off, even when the Wings won in six.  A noble failure.  But I had had enough of that ride; I backed the Wings for the rest of the playoffs, and, of course, they won the Cup.  And I won the unofficial NHL Home Ice playoff pool here at XM.

Am I a genius?  You know the answer to that question.

Which brings me to poor old Shane Malloy, who declared here on NHL Home Ice, on Friday, January 2nd, to Boomer and Rob Higgins, that there was no way that the Slovakians could beat the Americans in their showdown at the World Juniors that afternoon.  No way.  No chance.  100% chance of rain.  Bet the rent.  No net needed.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong and wrong.  The Slovaks upset the U.S. 5-3, mainly because of the stellar play of goaltender Jaroslav Janus, but as Terry Mercury pointed out later that evening, hey, that’s hockey.  It  happens, particularly in a one-game winner-moves-on scenario.  Mercury makes the point that if the famous 1980 Winter Olympics U.S. upset of the Russians was only game one of a three game set, most likely the Soviets take the next two.

We’ll never know, nor does that in any way dimish that era-defining win by the young Americans.  They won that game, and advanced and captured the Gold Medal.  One of the greatest moments in all of sports.

This time, the young Yanks lost.  Probably didn’t even make page 54 of USA Today, but imagine the headlines in Slovakia.

Fourth and final point, and with all due sensitivity, not much bothers me more than the insipid lip-service that we the media pay to those who die.  For some reason, whenever an athlete passes away, TV producers feel the need to finish the story with a picture of the person, accompanied by lilting, piano tinkling.

Why?  I understand the photo, and the graphic that shows the years that the person lived.  It would be more effective, and more respectful, if there was NO music of any sort underneath that graphic.  Sure, probably once upon a time, that cheesy mall organ music was a nice touch, but like most things in sports, the sheep that work in the industry have copied it to the point of it having become a bloodless cliche.  A cliche they feel they must follow, which reduces the person’s death to a momentary footnote in the highlight package that night.  Which, if we’re being brutally honest, is exactly what it is.

During the winter of 1998-99, I worked part-time as a sound technician at one of the Toronto-based national television sports networks.  My job was to handle all the audio elements for the top-of-the-hour sports updates.  On one particular evening, an ex-athlete passed away, and the staff scrambled to find a suitable image of the gentlemen to end the first segment with.

The producer that night, a well-known hothead to begin with, was in a particuarly ornery mood.  As we came up to the piece, Mr. Producer spoke into his mic that connected to my isolated sound booth, and barked at me to be ready with the obituary music.

It was that same damned tinkly piano music, which always makes me feel like I’m watching The Masters.  But orders are orders, and on my cue, I played the music, but very, very low.  You’d have had to have been a dog in order to have heard it.

This understandably did not go over well with Mr. Hothead.  He sharply instructed me to pump up the volume when the obituary piece came around again next update.  And I did, raise the volume.  How much is open for interpretation.  Suffice-to-say, Hothead didn’t appreciate it.

In hindsight, it was rather juvenile of me to act this way.  It wasn’t my decision to make, but then again, as small an issue as this was, I had long complained about the canned, scripted false-sensitivity of such cloying music, and when faced with my chance to do something about it, I did.  The world didn’t change, and sports television still embraces the same cliche, but I guess I was hoping that someone somewhere was thinking the same thing I was.

The passing this week of Don Sanderson, the young member of the Whitby Dunlaps, brought this odious practise up again.  It may seem that I’m off-kilter for stressing the music bed of an athlete’s obituary, but I believe it speaks to a larger disconnect in sports, in how we cover death.

Sanderson’s tragic death, the direct result of a hockey fight, quickly becomes a footnote in the evening sports parade.  The very same simpleton’s who will cry a river of crocodile tears for this young man and his family, will temper such comments by advising us not to jump to conclusions about fighting-in-hockey, and that accidents happen.

Yup, they sure do; sometimes with fatal consequences.  When that happens in real life, any responsible society will go out-of-its-way to investigate the root causes, and will do their best to mitigate these factors to prevent tragedies in future incidents.  Life can never be 100% safety-proofed, but the odds of disaster can be cut down significantly.

The very same TV broadcasts that will follow the tired-old sports TV playbook on how to handle an athelete’s death (dust off the obituary music) will turn around the next day and play the latest knuckle-dragging hit song by Nickleback under a montage of hockey fights from earlier that week.

Most people don’t want fighting in hockey to go away, they enjoy it.  Oh, nobody except the sickest individual wants to see anybody die or be seriously injured from fighting, but somewhere, mostly unspoken, there is the steadfast belief that fighting is an integral part of hockey, and since the number of fatalities are very low, they are viewed effectively as collatoral damage, a price that is paid.

Maybe statistically speaking, that is true, as brutal as it is.  I personally don’t subscribe to that line-of-reasoning, but if you do, then spare me your emotional theatrics when you metaphorically play the tinkling piano music under your own mumbled comments about thoughts and prayers for the players’ family.

It is B.S.  As is the saying, “our thoughts are with the family”.

Are they?  Are they really, or is that just another term in the sports media playbook, the same way that the tinkling piano music is?  Devoid of any true emotion, it is a robotic reaction to what we all expect has to be said.  Unless you know the family, or have experienced a similar situation in your life, the vast majority of people give such tragedies nary a thought.

It’s all public posturing, much the same way wearing a poppy on Rememberance Day often is.  And, as such, it is an insult to the very real tragedy that has just occurred.

Next time, have the guts to say what you REALLY think when someone dies from fighting; that it’s unfortunate, but in the greater picture, the death is an anomaly.  The fighting must continue.  The fallen player probably would have said the same thing.  Get over it. 

Let’s see some old-school hockey guy say that.

The majority of us would gasp at such insensitivity, and tsk-tsk at such un-Canadian thoughts..and then turn and sing the praises of some Good Ole’ Canadian boy after he gets into a scrap Saturday night.

It’s all such crap. And, sadly,  it’ll probably happen again.

- Mick Kern

Well, that’s over.  Another January 1st, another outdoor NHL game.  If they keep this up, I’ll soon be marking time by the amount of weepy overhype that’ll steamroll it’s way into my basement every New Year’s Day.  Beats marking time by how many sleeps ’till Spring.

This time, at least the novelty wasn’t a novelty.  It looked like a real game.  And no matter how ya’ll spin it, the NHL Winter Classic is one big novelty.

Put together to grab eyeballs, and hopefully dollars.  And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Kudos to the league and their partners for thrusting what was just another regular season game into much of the U.S. sporting spotlight.

But it’s still a novelty, the entire concept of the outdoor game.  Don’t let the fumes from the half-drunk bottles of hockey romanticism go to your head.  Too much Pierre McGuire and too much CBC mythologizing can have a ruinous effect on your digestive system.

The first regular-season NHL game that was held outside was, of course, in chilly Edmonton back in late 2003.  That match between the Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens is best remembered for three things; the Alumni Game that Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier showed up for, the toque on Jose Theodore’s head, and the bitter cold.  Somehow, a reasonable facsimile of a hockey game was played.

Mark II of the NHL Winter Classic was a year ago in snowy Buffalo.  That match between the Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins is best remembered for three things; those funky Penguins’ powder blue uniforms, Sidney Crosby scoring the shootout winner, and the swirling snow.  Somehow, a somewhat reasonable facsimile of a hockey game was played.

This year, the setting was Wrigley Field in Chicago, and after about a half-year of over-the-top gushing sentimentality, the game was finally played.

It helped big time that two long-time rivals faced off against each other.  The Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings were engaging in battle for the 701st time, as the television graphics were fond of repeatedly pointing out.

The TV monster was also overly fond of continually underscoring the connection between this outdoor game, and the purported roots of the game.  Pond hockey.  Hey, everyone knows that every Canadian citizen, and many northern-based Yanks, have all grown up playing pond hockey.

Actually, that’s a pile of crap, but it looks and sounds nice on television.  A number of decades ago, this would have rang true, but not so much today.  Nonetheless, it speaks to the deep roots of the sport, and the entire contruct of the NHL Outdoor Game is predicated upon that myth.

The buildup to the game was like almost any other buildup; it was almost a shame they had to drop the puck.  Give me more of old Blackhawk and Cubs’ alumni standing shoulder-to-shoulder.  Give me more of the idyllic, HDTV-friendly overhead shots of the Friendly Confines awash in snow.  Heck, even the national anthems weren’t intrusive.  Both singers sang with gusto and kept things going at a pretty good clip, no doubt partially motivated by the thought of the Friendly Confines of a heated box awaiting them.

After last year’s picturesque but rather mediocre outdoor game between the Sabres and the Penguins, I half-expected today’s affair to follow the same story acre.  Great buildup, and lousy payoff.  Much like most Christmases, come to think of it.

It didn’t turn out that way.  Thanks to NHL scheduling, the Blackhawks and Red Wings had played each other a couple of nights earlier, with Detroit claiming a decisive 4-0 win.  There’s Key Point Number One to recall when setting up next year’s Outdoor Winter Classic - make the outdoor game the second game of a home-and-home series.

Actually, let’s consider that Key Point Number Two.  Key Point Number One is to make sure two natural hockey rivals face off against each other in the game.  The Oilers and Canadiens had some cachet, but the Penguins versus Sabres doesn’t leap-to-mind when scrolling through the memory banks considering classic NHL rivals.  Sidney Crosby on NBC, at Ralph Wilson Stadium, in the snow, had a lot of merit, but if you’re actually hoping new fans stick around after all the old-timers have been trotted out, it’s best they actually witness a good hockey game.

Almost from the start, the Red Wings and Blackhawks went at each other.  There was no confusion on anyone’s part that this should be played as a Friendly.  The 2003 and 2008 games sometimes took on that tone, unintentionally, of course, for points were on the line in both games.

At one point, it looked as if a good old fashioned hockey fight was going to break out.  Imagine that.  A hockey fight during a hockey game.  How would the NHL spin masters’s have dealt with that?  After all, they’ve always given tacit support to fighting (and a bit of the ultra-violence) in the game; hey, if you hold enough outdoor hockey games, eventually someone’s gonna take a slug at someone.

Imagine how the jaded U.S. sports media establishment would have had a Wrigley field day with that.  Which always brings me back to why the NHL (and other North American professional hockey leagues) will always remain second-class sporting citizens in the United States.  Fighting is part of the fabric of hockey.  Sometimes it rises in prominence and influence; other times it beats a hasty and welcome retreat to the back of the bus.  Regardless, it’s always been a part of the game, and most likely always will be.

But its also a crack in the matrix of the game, a Founding Father’s Fundamental Flaw, as least in terms of presenting a mass consumption product to the uninitiated American sports fan.  Which is hysterical, when one stops to think about it.  The very myth of America is largely built upon acts of violence, both large and small.  Like many countries, Her legends are steeped in blood, be it the opening of the West, the sublimation of the native peoples, the Civil War, particularly so in the perpetuation of the very right to bear arms, even though British Redcoats aren’t expected to come crashing through anyone’s front door in the next while.

America loves its violence, and that’s reflected in its popular culture, which is popular not only in the New World, but all over the planet.  It has seeped its way into sports; American football is no walk-in-the-park.  Disregarding the silly slapfest that baseball fights usually are, MLB has long had its brushback pitches, and spikes high.  Boxing, auto racing, the emergence of Ultimate Fighting, and Tonya Harding have all drank from the same wellspring.

So why wouldn’t the American sporting fan embrace fighting in hockey?  Why is it usually the one part of the game the non-interested, lazy American sports writer/TV producer both highlights when it happens, and uses as their primary thesis dismissal point when rationalizing why hockey doesn’t deserve its fair share of coverage?  Maybe Tiger Woods was right.

All that considered, one of these days, a real fight will break out at an Outdoor Game…unless there’s a secret rule in place.  Everything else seemed to happen in the game at Wrigley.  There was a lead change, there was a video review, there were questionable penalties, and there was Ty Conklin.

Once given up-for-dead beside an arena in Northern Alberta, Conklin has carved himself into NHL history, by having now appeared in all three regular-season outdoor games the league has held.  The obvious joke has been which two teams are going to play next year’s outdoor game, and how long ’till Conklin makes his way to one of those squads.  Maybe they have a secret meeting before the season about this.

The other thing is, the home team has now lost all three Winter Classics.  So much for home-field advantage.  It just doesn’t translate in hockey.

In the end, after all the panoramic shots of Wrigley, after all the over-extended Walden Pond musings about the roots of hockey, and after all the pricey souvenirs had been snapped up, it was just another hockey game.  Not a bad game at all, but not a classic, no matter how many times that point was continually reinforced during the broadcast.

And if the league is intent on holding these games every year, you’re going to need one of these outdoor matches to be jaw-droppingly good in order for one to refer to these games as Classic, while keeping a straight face.  After a while, all novelties lose their…novelty.

- Mick Kern

Saturday afternoon.  3 pm eastern standard time.  Nap time for some of us.  But not this afternoon.

On this particular dull, metal gray afternoon, naps would have to wait.  Mommy was busy preparing some broccoli salad concoction for a gathering of the clan later that evening.  Daddy and Son were busy, preparing to take the bus (and subway, and then another subway) to downtown Toronto.  We had been to Cooperstown this past August, and I felt it would be appropriate to finish the year by visiting the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Growing up in Alberta, most of my hockey knowledge was gleaned from the back of O-Pee-Chee hockey cards, dusty old hockey biographies checked out from the school library, and the occasional chance to read a copy of The Hockey News.  When Scholastic Books began offering selections such as Hockey Stars of 1974 by Stan Fischler, I felt like I had found the Rosetta Stone, and suddenly the once-murky world of NHL hockey exploded in glorious technicolour right in front of me.

Like most Canadian kids, I made my weekly pilgrimage to the front of the family television set in order to tune into Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday evening at 6 pm…mountain time, remember.  Dinner was usually at 5 pm, which allowed plenty of time to prepare for the big game.

in those days way before Internet access, I would construct my own makeshift program, spread out in front of the TV, out of various bubblegum cards of whomever was facing Montreal or Toronto that night.  Even in Alberta, it was rare we were offered a Vancouver Canucks game.  There was no Saturday night doubleheader.

The point being, not very much was instantaneous thirty-five years ago.  Even Minute Rice took longer back then.  But you found ways to follow your sporting passions.

An early goal of mine was to visit the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario.  One autumn, that was the subject of study in grade school.  The home to apples, Niagara Falls…and the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The very idea that there existed a whole building dedicated to the sport of hockey sounded like Nirvana to me.  I could only imagine what it looked like inside that hallowed Hall.  I knew all about the men who had been honoured, but that information I got from books.  What I wanted to see, with my very own eyes, was a place where hockey ruled supreme.  To have been able to visit such a Puck Valhalla would be akin to peeking through the window of Santa’s workshop on December 23rd.

As time moved on, and so did my family, we ended up in Ontario.  By then, while hockey was still on my radar, it shared space with baseball, football, music, films, politics, and girls.  A trip to the Golden Horseshoe finally came about in the summer of 1981, when my father was to address a military conference at McMaster University in Hamilton.

After all those years of reading the multi-coloured tourist pamphlets, I finally laid my eyes on Niagara Falls.  Being the jaded age of 17, this wonder of nature failed to resonate with me the way it would have had I experienced it through the wide-eyed gaze of a 10-year-old. 

Passing through Hamilton on our way back to my father’s house in Picton, we ventured across the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, another place I had very much wanted to visit when I was a kid.

Alas, it was closed.  To this day, a couple of friends still bug me that I probably was the only kid in the world crushed that the CFL Hall-of-Fame wasn’t open.  As we drove through Toronto, it dawned on me that the Hockey Hall-of-Fame, which I once considered the Promised Land, had to be nearby.  We entertained the notion of searching for it, but neither could recall where it was located.  The HHOF remained elusive.  It would have to wait for another day.

That day came the summer of 1992, during the Canadian National Exhibition, otherwise known as the CNE.  The August fair was in the waning days of its glory, having been eclipsed by year-round amusement parks and the advent of home video games.  Not having grown up in Toronto, I was curious to attend the granddaddy of Canadian exhibitions.  Suffice to say, most of it was just a louder, smellier version of the Vancouver PNE, the Calgary Stampede, Edmonton’s Klondike Days, and the Central Canada Exhibition in Ottawa.

Wandering around, a little punch drunk on bad food and sensory overload, we came across a stout little building that was festooned with 12 stone logos of the franchises of the National Hockey League as it stood after the 1967 expansion.  Come to think of it, the Sabres and Canucks logos could have been up there as well, but it didn’t matter.  All I know is that, like a disoriented archaeologist in some George Lucas movie, I had somehow stumbled on to the entrance of the hidden temple I had been seeking all these years.

I had finally found The Hockey Hall of Fame.

Once inside, I experienced one of those rare moments in life, and I assure you I am not exaggerating.  There was a sense of accomplishment, a feeling that a goal has finally been achieved.  As I walked into this modest building, all awash in everything hockey, the wide-eyed 10-year-old emerged, not the jaded 17-year-old who dismissed Niagara Falls with a wave of the hand.

Despite the CNE raging just outside their doors, the Hall of Fame was not swarming with visitors that day.  There were probably a half-dozen people milling about, taking in all the treasures contained within.  Crammed within that small building was a king’s ransom in hockey goodies; trophies and uniforms and photos and pucks and sticks and pennants.  I suddenly remembered that hockey mattered to me.

The crowning glory to me was something that looked like an ashtray, standing off in the corner.  Closer inspection revealed it to be The Avco Cup, or more accurately, The Avco World Trophy, the symbol of supremacy in The World Hockey Association, and for a kid who attended Edmonton Oilers’ games in the mid-70’s, that was a big deal.

What struck me the most was the lack of glitz and flash that the Hall had.  It was merely the facts, ma’am, which was fine with me, but the relative lack of visitors that day spoke volumes.  This was a Hall badly in need of modernization.

Unbeknownest to me, that was exactly what was happening behind the scenes, even as I was poking around that day.  A year later, the entire affair was shipped to a glorious old bank building in downtown Toronto,   instantly becoming a must-see destination for tourists.  As much as the old building held a special place in my heart, it was a move long overdue.

And through those doors, my 4 1/2 year-old son and I walked this past Saturday afternoon.

When he was told where we were going, he immediately informed me that the Rangers would be playing the “bad Maple Leafs” that day at the Hall.  I explained to him that the “hockey guys” would not be there that day; they were busy elsewhere, but there would be games, I assured him.

My son’s love of playing sports was no doubt fostered by my own love of hockey and baseball, but I never pushed it on him.  To live in our house, though, one cannot help but be immersed in sports (just ask the wife), but he took naturally to throwing a baseball, a basketball, and drop-kicking a football.  Delightfully, he took a small plastic hockey stick in hand and began whacking everything in sight.  Time-out for behavoural indiscretions at dinner time became time in the penalty box.  If my son had been issued a hockey card, his PIM total would be, ahh, impressive.

This was to be my fifth visit to the Hall, but it never grows old.  There’s always something new to savour, and I never tire of looking at their embarrassment of riches, particularly the hockey sweaters.

The first sight that greeted us as we approached the cashier was a simple, yet dazzling display of the finest goaltender masks assembled in one place on the planet Earth.  My son is too young to know any of the goaltenders who donned these visages, yet he ran towards each one with glee, pointing out the ones he found to be scary, and asking which ones I liked.  Of course, I liked them all.

Once admission had been paid, we entered the Hall, my kid jacked up about which type of hockey games we would play.  He was delighted when we found the Xbox 360 display, and he picked the Rangers.  I chose the 1981 Minnesota North Stars, and after a quick lesson on what button to push to shoot, father-and-son played their first ever video game together.  For the record, before the little squirt gains the upper hand in the months and years to follow, the North Stars beat the Rangers 3-1.  No quarters asked.  Actually, my son had asked for some money for the table hockey game, but I was fresh out.

We stood in line for the chance to snap a plastic puck at a video image of Ed Belfour in his bad Maple Leafs’ uniform.  My son topped 8 mph with his shot; in his opinion, he scored on every shot.  Dad didn’t fare much better, hitting only 62 mph and finding the back-of-the-net only twice, and even then, I think Eddie was taking it easy on me.

None of this would have happened at the old place.  That building was for the converted, this place is for the uninitiated, and the converted.

We toured the mockup of the Canadiens’ dressing room and, like most kids, my son gravitated towards the goalie equipment, and not fully comprehending why he couldn’t suit up, he moved on to the next shiny thing.

While the vast majority of displays were over my son’s little head, he perked up at any picture of one Robert Gordon Orr.  “Bobby Orr…Numba Four”, he already knows.  This is a good thing.

He tried his hand at the TSN mockup technical suite, but as this struck me as being too close to what I do at work, I suggested we move on.   First, though, he handled the play-by-play of a couple of famous goals, including adding the sound of the goal horn when Lafleur beat Gilbert with the greatest goal of all-time.

We also stood and stared at the Avco World Trophy, always a must see for me everytime I visit here.  I tried to explain that this forgotten trophy was like the Stanley Cup to me when I was a kid, but he wasn’t buying it.   He wanted the real thing.

The visit to the Great Hall always has the feeling of entering one of the great cathedrals in Old Montreal, regardless of what faith one may adhere to.  In this church, hockey is what is worshipped, and the Great Hall is the summit of that love.

As that 10-year-old collecting hockey cards, some of my favourite cards were Trophy cards.  Here in the Great Hall, those cards come to life.  I’ve seen the Stanley Cup up-close enough times that it’s almost second nature…ohhh, the Cup, nice…so to see the Vezina and the Hart and the Art Ross, to me, always inspires awe.

My kid, on the other hand, having no idea yet what that silverware represents, was estatic when he saw the Cup.  So much so, that like a child in church on Christmas Eve, he let his joy ring out, much louder than any self-conscious adult would have.  Which reminded me, this was hockey, not a church.  You’re allowed to get loud.

He insisted we take a closer look.  Once we got near, for some reason, it struck me that on this particular day, the backup Cup was the one on display.  A quick question to the staff member nearby verified this.

This slightly lessened the effect, but my son and I had already had our photo taken with the “real” Cup when it was here at the NHL Home Ice studios almost two years ago.  Looking over the doppelganger, he searched for his name.

Not yet, kid.

After that, it was back to the main level, where the souvenir shop beckoned.  I resisted buying a gorgeous Glenn Hall St. Louis Blues’ jersey circa 1968; not a good time of the year to be buying yourself expensive presents.  But I’ll be back.

Tried to get my son the very sharp looking powder blue Pittsburgh Penguins t-shirt, but he insisted on buying the throwback Montreal t-shirt that has the A in the C as the logo.  I am not making this up.  Apparently, my almost five years of brainwashing has worked.  The trouble is, the Penguins’ t-shirt looks so much better.

Grabbed a few things to help Santa fill the stockings, and we headed off into the cold night, looking for supper. 

For the 90 minutes we were there, the two of us probably saw 2% of the collection on display.  My son didn’t learn any hockey history that day, still thinks the Rangers play there, and was rather concerned that they only had the “backup Cup” on display.

What did happen was a 90 minute break from the rest of the world.  An hour-and-a-half where a father shared with his young son those things that were so very important to him when he was a boy.  The Hall-of-Fame was the ideal setting for a shared experience in a place that has always held a special place in my heart, even when I lived thousands of miles from it.

We will return.

- Mick Kern

Okay, okay.  I know.  The National Football League game that was held on Sunday, December 7th, 2008, at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, was not technically a neutral site game.  It was a home game for the Buffalo Bills, and a rather important one, if they still entertained any playoff hopes.

The truth is, it was unlike any Bills’ home game ever.  Sure, there were more Bills’ fans than Miami Dolphins fans, but the “visitors” were well represented.  And, as it was the first-ever NFL regular season game in Toronto (in all of the Dominion of Canada, from sea-to-shining-sea, for that matter), there was a sizable contingent of fans in attendence who cheer for other NFL teams. 

The Pittsburgh Steelers, for one.  So much so, that the good folk at the Rogers Centre who stock the souvenir booths, made sure to bring a healthy supply of Steelers’ paraphernalia, in addition to the Bills and Fish.

But mostly, this NFL game was about being seen.  I don’t consider myself a football snob, though I love the game (NFL and CFL), and played some of it earlier in my life.  But I do know when I’m surrounded by folk who are there more for the experience at being at the big league NFL, as much as they’re in attendence for a football game.  And that describes a great deal of the people at the Rogers Centre on this Sunday.  The football was secondary to the experience of commenting on the size of the crowd, texting their friends across the way, trying to start the wave, and drinking copious amounts of bad beer.

But that’s all fine.  After all, pro sports is entertainment.  Some of us hold it near-and-dear to our hearts, but for the vast majority, it’s another way to spend a frosty Sunday, even better so when there’s a novelty factor involved.

The game itself was a dog (16-3 Dolphins), and a lot of people started streaming for the exits at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Which was a shame, but you pay your money and you take your chances.  The Bills aren’t exactly setting the football world on-fire this season, but one hoped that this heated rivalry would produce sparks.  It didn’t.

What it did produce was an appreciation by myself for when the National Hockey League used to play a couple of neutral site games during the early-to-mid 1990’s.  The league played an 84 game schedule, and ended up taking to the ice in exotic locals such as Cleveland, Halifax, Sacramento, and Hamilton.

It was at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario, that I attended two of these neutral site games.  The second one (11-18-93) featured Ron Hextall and the New York Islanders defeating the Montreal Canadiens 5-1, with the majority of the crowd festooned in Habs’ gear.  It was a lively crowd, though the game was lukewarm.

It was the first neutral site NHL game at Copps that remains fresh in my mind.  That cold November night, Ron Hextall and the Quebec Nordiques took on the Toronto Maple Leafs…and there was no doubt whatsoever what team was the crowd favourite.

Thanks to a sell-out crowd, and apparently most of those folk deciding to pick up their tickets at the will call, there was a huge throng that jammed the front doors, and most of us did not get into the venue until after the first period was finished.  It was frustrating standing out in the cold, knowing a game was going on which you had a valid ticket for, but there was no way to do anything about it.

By the time the puck dropped for the second period, Copps was packed.  To this day, it remains the noisiest sports crowd I have ever been a part of.  It tops even the game at the Montreal Forum, the one where Guy Lafleur first played on Forum ice against the Canadiens.  He suited up for the New York Rangers, scored two goals and added an assist, and brought the roof down with each goal, particularly the second one.  It was so loud I could not make out at all what the guy in the next seat was trying to shout at me.

That was February of 1989.  A few years later in Hamilton, November 17th, 1992, the crowd topped that.  Since it was a neutral site game, it appeared most of the corporate fat cats didn’t bother to make the trip down the road to The Hammer.  The real hockey fan filled the building that night with a true appreciation for the game in a way no typical Maple Leafs’ crowd could hope to match.

The Nordiques won the game 3-1, but that’s not what has stayed with me.  I’m probably the furthest thing from a Maple Leafs’ fan, but that evening I developed a real appreciation for these fans, who didn’t need a scoreboard to implore them to cheer, didn’t resort to the wave, didn’t need to rely on overplayed cheesy commercial rock music to fill the spaces between action.  They stood and cheered and yelled and laughed and argued and cheered and drank and cheered until the final star was announced.

They were just happy to be at a Toronto Maple Leafs game.

This wasn’t a European soccer crowd either, which itself can be very impressive.  There was no organized singing or chanting.  There was just real hockey fans watching a pretty good game.  It’s a shame it can’t be that way at every game.

It was after this game that I stopped picking on the real Maple Leafs’ fan, and came to the realization that real fans of whatever sport are very much the same.  They share a undiluted passion for their sport, and their particular team.  You can dress up the arena, the field, the ballpark.  You can, as everyone’s so fond of saying these days, put lipstick on a pig, but the real fan doesn’t care.

Just give them a shot at half-decent tickets, and let the actual game be the centre-of-attraction, and, trust me, word-of-mouth will spread and people will want to be there.

The trouble is, with the high cost of tickets, and the scarcity of said ducats (depending on the market), the real fan is either consigned to the upper deck, or have to be content to watch from their living room.  Which saps the arena of the very lifeblood of what makes sports special in the first place; the shared experience between a group of strangers, who have come together for three hours with a united purpose.  Which is a rare and precious thing these days.

- Mick Kern