St. Louis Blues forward David Perron spoke to Mike Ross on Hockey This Morning about starting the season in Europe and keeping in touch with his fans through Twitter

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

St. Louis Blues and Team USA Forward David Backes joined Scott Laughlin from the World Hockey Championships in Switzerland and preview the USA/Finland quarterfinal matchup and recapped the Blues season

Sorry, I don’t have all the stats in front of me, though no doubt they’re out there lurking on the internet somewhere.

But let’s forgo the statistical evidence for now, and rely on your gut feeling in response to the question.  Which game is the most important in a seven-game NHL playoff series?

Obviously, the fourth win by a team is crucial, for that is the drop-dead point of the entire affair. 

Putting the obvious aside, at what point does a team get to that threshold, the earliest juncture in a series where they statistically hold the upper hand?

How crucial is it to win Game One?  What percentage of NHL teams that take Game One of a seven-game series go on to win three more games?

My gut tells me that, while getting off to a good start is nice, Game Two is where it really begins to matter.

For instance, let’s say your team wins Game One AND Game Two.  Many times in NHL history, a team has rebounded from a two-game deficit, but I’d venture that the majority of teams that get in that two-game hole to begin a series fail to climb all the way out of it.  It only makes statistical sense.

If your team is down two games, heading into game three, then you have to win four of the next five games.  Not impossible, but difficult, particularly since you’ve just lost two games in-a-row, so you’re not that hot to begin with.

Some will advance the theory that Game Three is the real litmus test, and they may be right.  This theory holds more water when teams are tied at 1 game apiece, but then again, once could say Game Five is the key game, if both teams are tied at 2 games apiece.

Hey, what about Game Six???  Okay, suddenly every game in a series is crucial, but you know what, they are.  Midway through the second period of Game One, it may look like a long series looms ahead, but the clock advances very quickly in the post-season, in some sort of warped Space Time Hockey Continuum.

Until convinced otherwise, I still postulate that Game Two is usually the turning point of a seven-game series.  Let’s use a current example.

The eighth seeded Anaheim Ducks took Game One over the powerhouse San Jose Sharks.  A road win in Game One automatically hands the home-ice advantage to the road team, erasing six months of hard work by the higher seed.

Suddenly, all the pressure is on the Sharks, who can’t afford to go to Southern California down by two games.  If they win Game Two, the Sharks have avoided a sweep at home, have gained some momentum, and have set themselves up to reclaim so-called home ice advantage by only having to win one of the next two games in Anaheim.

If they lose Game Two, then they face the unenviable task of having to beat the resurgent Ducks four out of the next five games, and that scenario doesn’t look too promising for San Jose.

Of course, the Ducks prevailed 3-2 in Game Two, and now head home up two games.  If the Sharks bounce back and take both games on the road, the worst Anaheim can be is tied heading back to San Jose, where they know they can win in the playoffs, because they’ve already won two games there.

True, if the Sharks take the next two games, they may regain momentum, and take control of the series, but that’s a pretty precarious branch to be walking out on, though now that’s all they’ve got to work with.

Game Three is also crucial, as the Blues found out, when they fell to the Canucks, who now have a stranglehold three-game lead in their series.  And we all know, only two NHL teams have ever come all the way back from a three-game hole, and prevailed….though I think we’re long overdue for it to happen again.

Okay, so maybe I’ve convinced myself that both Game Two and Game Three are the contests that, upon closer inspection, reveal much of how the series-in-question will unfold.  Someone please show me the math on this, because we can probably all list off teams that have come back from 2-0 and 3-1 game deficits, but it only stands to reason that most teams in that position never make it all the way back.

Math aside, there are other factors that have to be considered.  The Washington Capitals also have lost the first two games of their series with the New York Rangers, and they were home-ice defeats, but one gets the sense that if they can win at MSG in Game Three, they’ll force themselves right back into this series.  Same might be said for the Calgary Flames, and their battle with the Blackhawks, especially since the Flames are returning to the friendly confines of the Saddledome, or whatever they’re officially calling it these days.

Then again, does anyone really think the Montreal Canadiens will be right back in their series with the Boston Bruins if they manage to win Game Three on home ice?

Seven games in a playoff series seems to be the perfect number of games to separate the wheat from the chaff.

- Mick Kern

I hate predictions.

If I really knew what was going to happen, do you think I’d be sitting here in the basement of NHL Home Ice headquarters in uptown Toronto, at 4:30 on an overcast Tuesday afternoon, sharing them with you?  No, I’d be on some far-off tropical island, sharing them with gorgeous women, who only want to be with me because of all my money, which I made by charging you money to access my predictions website.

Dare to dream, or more accurately back here on Planet Earth, dare to predict.

Before the 2008-09 NHL regular season got underway, we were asked to name which two teams we thought were going to be in the Stanley Cup Final eight months later.  I decided to throw caution to the wind, and put all my eggs into the Cleveland Barons’ basket.  Heck, why not?  Considering I picked the Dallas Stars to get there, a vote for the long-dead Barons would have been as productive.

There are many things about sports predictions that don’t sit well with me.  I’d say they were things that bother me, but honestly, I can’t get that worked up over predictions.  Roll the dice, flip the coin, spin the wheel, hey, spin the bottle if you’re lucky enough, but it’s mostly luck-of-the-draw.

This all coming from a guy who “won” the NHL Home Ice prediction pool last playoffs, and tied with Mike Ross for first place the year before that.  Which only means one thing…I had luck on my side.  It’s not like the St. Louis Blues or NHL Central Scouting were suddenly ringing me up with employment offers, though, for-the-record, I’d listen.

The big thing that irks me about sports predictions are the type of people who will crow about the one or two big picks, usually upsets, they got right, while conveniently forgetting the 90% of picks they got wrong.  More than a couple of people around this building fit that description to a T.

The other thing that rubs me the wrong way about predicting sports (or politics, or the weather, or hog futures…name your poison) is when people hedge their bets.  Not that I blame them.  Again, who really knows what’s going to happen?  A number 8 team could upset a number 1 team this spring.  There is plenty of historical evidence of that occurring, just ask any Bruins’ fan over the age of 15.

Still, some wiseguy will, say, pick the Penguins in 7 over the Flyers, but when it’s the Flyers who triumph in 6 or 7, Mr. Wiseguy will fall back on his ready-made excuse,  “Well, I picked the Pens in 7, which means it could have gone either way, so I wasn’t that wrong”.

No, you were wrong.  You picked the Penguins.  Some team named the Flyers won, not the Flightless Birds.  And so on.

Another thing that cracks me up about hockey predictions is those folk who believe they have a clause in their predictions that allow them to opt out of their previous prediction after only one game.  That’s like changing your lottery ticket two numbers into the 12-number draw.  It can’t be done, yet I know many who have tried.

One other thing that kills me are universally recognized experts of the grand game of hockey, who are invited to appear on TV panel shows, and invariably pick the Conference champions to meet in the Stanley Cup Final.

Excuse me, are we paying this dude anything?  A monkey could have made that choice.  No wait, that little one that shows up on TSN with James Duthie has exhibited more hockey intelligence over the past few playoffs than some of the big name hockey experts.

C’mon, everyone knows there’s an upset or two lurking in the weeds of the first round.  Put your hockey thinking helmet on and explain to me and Joe Six-Pack why the Blues have a good shot at upending the Canucks, or why the Rangers will derail the Capitals.  No, the odds are not in favour of those teams, but this is called playoff predictions, not mathematical probabilities.

Anyone, even me dear old Mom, could pick the Bruins to face the Sharks in the Final, or the Caps to face the Red Wings.  Who dares to go out on the limb and pick, say, Carolina to meet Calgary, or Pittsburgh to face the Blackhawks…and that second pick is not all that improbable.  Yet most people stick to the tried-and-maybe-true, for fear of looking stoopid.

Yet who thought the Calgary Flames would fall only one game short of the 2004 Cup, or that the Habs would win the 2005 Stanley Cup, or that the Oilers would fall only one game short of the 2006 Cup…to the Hurricanes???

Hey, somebody must have picked John Druce for their playoff pool that one year.

As for me, did I mention that I hate predictions?  Nonetheless, I was asked to come up with mine for the first round, so here they be.  Warning, do not rely on these when betting the rent.

Boston over Montreal in 5 games  (though I bleed bleu-blanc-et-rouge)
Washington over New York in 6 games  (though there are many questions about Jose Theodore)
Carolina over New Jersey in 6 games  (though I worship at the altar of Martin Brodeur)
Pittsburgh over Philadelphia in 7 games  (though this one appears to be a toss-up)
San Jose over Anaheim 6  (though the Ducks are a strong number 8 seed)
Detroit over Columbus in 5  (though is Chris Osgood once again ready-for-prime time?)
St. Louis over Vancouver in 7  (the Blues are my 2nd favourite team, and have been since I was a kid, so
I’m picking with my heart here…besides, there’s an upset somewhere every year, why not here?)
Chicago over Calgary in 7  (Flames are stumbling going in, though this is a toss-up)

Okay, so for each of the eight series, I offered a ready-made excuse for why my pick may not turn out correct.  Talk about hedging your bets.

I hate guys like me.

- 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