BY: DUANE A. STEINEL
There are certain franchises in all of sports whose history really defines the sport itself. Last week I wrote about one of those teams, the Toronto Maple Leafs. A team I absolutely despise. A rival to my beloved Buffalo Sabres, the Leafs and their fanbase has provided me with many memories growing up, both good and bad. Another team that fits that entire build, too, would be the Montreal Canadiens.
See, as much as I hate the Leafs, I respect their fans because they are as passionate as I am about their team. Albeit we do it in different ways, at the end of the day, we live for watching our teams through the good and bad. Canadie
ns fans, however…….fuck em. I can’t stand their fans. The sense of entitlement that that fanbase brings to Buffalo whenever they flood our arena with their dumb bright red jerseys with that stupid “C” logo on the front. Like none of us know how to spell Canadiens. Then there is that ANNOYING SOCCER SONG. Newsflash. This is hockey. Not soccer. You can stick your “Olay, olay, olay, olay….olay olay” straight up your candy asses.
Just like with Toronto, though, you have to respect the greats that have come through Montreal. The first guy that always comes to mind for me is Maurice Richard…..” The Rocket.” He scored 544 goals in 978 games and was one of the few players in the league’s history to score “50 in 50”, which meant fifty goals in just fifty games. He won eight Stanley Cups and was awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league MVP in 1947. He was enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame just one year after retirement and had his number “9” retired by the Canadiens in 1960. He was one of the greatest ever to play the game and even had a movie entitled “The Rocket,” made commemorating his legacy and what it meant to hockey. I highly suggest anyone reading this to watch it.
I list him and his accomplishments, though, because he won’t be on my list of top five favorites. While I recognize his greatness and legacy, I, unfortunately, wasn’t born until 1987 and couldn’t watch him play. So it doesn’t feel right to include him and other players like Jean Béliveau or goaltender Ken Dryden. Players I couldn’t appreciate or love in real-time.
5.) José Théodore
Theodore became a full-time NHLer after splitting time between Montreal and the AHL in 1999-2000. Sharing goaltending duties with fellow netminder Jeff Hackett, Théodore posted a 12-13-2 record with a 2.11 GAA and five shutouts. Two years later, after taking over the net full time, Théodore had the best season of his career, when he posted a 30-24-10 record with a 2.11 GAA and an eye-popping .931 save percentage. For his efforts that season, Théodore was awarded both the Vezina and Hart Trophies for the league’s best goaltender and MVP.
What intrigues me most about Théodore wasn’t just the weird way he plays the position, and by that, I mean how he catches with his right hand. Yeah. I hate that. It looks weird, awkward, and just wrong. I hate most righties. But getting past that, I loved his never quit and playful attitude. Théodore, like most goalies in the NHL, went through highs and lows in his career.
At his peak, though, he was nearly unbeatable. One save that always stuck out to me and exemplified that never give up attitude was a game against Carolina. They were in the closing minutes of overtime, and José had just made a huge save. Then the puck was thrown to the front of the net and deflected off a Montreal skate up into the air. After hitting Théodore’s helmet and then the crossbar, the puck started to roll down Jose’s back. He quickly threw his glove behind his back and caught the puck before it could fall into the net. It was absolutely incredible. But it was big saves like that which defined his career. His innate ability to come up with the big save when the Canadiens needed it.
His playoff numbers were not too shabby either. Even though he posted an 11-15 record in 4 different playoff runs with Montreal, Théodore posted a 2.54 GAA and a .921 save percentage. He ended his 16-year career with 286 wins in 648 games and was one of only seven goaltenders to ever win the Hart Trophy for league MVP and one of only 12 goalies to have ever scored a goal. He did this in the 2000-2001 season against the New York Islanders.
Although he didn’t have a Hall of Fame career, Jose Théodore was exciting to watch. His puck stopping ability was world-class, and it’s a shame Montreal never had the teams good enough to compete for a cup during his tenure in Montreal.
4.) Carey Price
Okay, so those who follow me know I’ve chirped Carey Price a lot. Especially this past season. Before I get into why he makes this list let me clear that whole thing up.
I have a huge issue with paying goalies a ton of money. Surprising, I know, considering I play the position, and you’d think I would be biased. But no. It’s my opinion that in today’s NHL, you don’t need elite goaltending to win a Stanley Cup. That’s been proven time and time again. Build-in front of your goalie, Spend your money there and get a goalie who is good enough. That’s where my issue with Price comes in. His salary of 10 million per year really handcuffs Montreal in other areas that need to be addressed, and with that cap hit, it’s nearly impossible to trade that cap hit. I do think Price is still one of the best goalies in the league. Not what he once was, but still good enough to win a cup. But again, the salary really hinders Montreal. Okay. Now that we’re done talking about that let’s move on.
Carey Price in his prime was remarkable. No other word to describe it. He could by himself win games, which is a huge value to any team. But he would consistently night in and night out, especially in today’s NHL, where the players are that much better than in the days of Hasek, Roy, and Brodeur. No disrespect to the greats who played in those times, but the players are just better. Between training regime, advancements in equipment, and changes in the rules, the league is just more talented than it once was at all positions.
Price broke into the league as a full-time starter almost immediately in 2007-2008. He didn’t disappoint either, posting a 24-12 record with a .920 save percentage and a 2.56 GAA. Three years later, he would start 70 games, winning 38 of them, which led the league. In 2014-2015, he posted some of the best numbers I’ve seen since Hasek was in buffalo. He led the league amongst goaltenders in wins, save percentage, and GAA. At season’s end, he would clean up at the annual NHL Awards ceremony, taking home the Hart Trophy (League MVP), Vezina Trophy (League’s top goaltender voted on by NHL general managers), Lester B. Pearson Award (voted leagues most outstanding player by the players association), and the Jennings Trophy (awarded to the starting goaltender(s) of the team with the fewest goals allowed in a season).
Price could crack a joke or two as well. He appeared in a skit with actor Jonathan Cherry, who played goaltender Marco Belchior in the movie “Goon.” The segment was titled “In your 5 Hole with Marco Belchior” and was inspired by a post-game interview where Price quoted Belchior line in the movie when he referred to his goalposts as “Siegfried and Roy.” The segment was absolutely hilarious, giving the dynamite Marco Belchior personality from both movies, followed by Price’s awkwardness. Referring to himself as the “Goalie-Llama,” Belchior sets out to help Price become a better goaltender by channeling his inner “5-Hole”.
Price today may not be the same goaltender he was five seasons ago. In fact, I think he’s far from it. He’s not getting any younger, but he’s still a top ten goaltender in this league, and although I HATE THE CANADIENS. I would love to see Price take a run at a cup. I won’t openly root for it, though. But I won’t hate it. Does that make any sense? Probably not. Screw it. Suck it, Montreal.
3.) Max Pacioretty
Patch has always been a player I admired. A guy when I watched play would always think to myself, “Man would I love to see him in a Sabres sweater.” He was a leader on and off the ice and wore the “C” in Montreal with a lot of pride. A five-time 30-goal scorer for the Habs, he was byfar one of the most dominant scoring wingers in the league during his time with Montreal.
He also cared about the surrounding Montreal communities and those in need. After creating the Max Pacioretty Foundation in 2011, Patch set out to help fund the MGH Foundation to get a functional MRI machine for the Traumatic Brain Injury Centre within the Montreal General Hospital. Pacioretty stated, “The fact that this new MRI unit has several applications not only for athletes but for concussion patients of all ages, adult, and children, is really important. Also, members of the Canadian Armed Forces suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS), will benefit from this new equipment.”
Dr. David Mulder, who is the Montreal Canadiens head physician, stated he was impressed with Pacioretty and his family’s commitment, saying “This equipment will revolutionize our understanding of brain injuries”. Six years later Pacioretty’s vision for the foundation he created came full circle when he visited the Montreal General Hospital to see the new site for a recently-purchased High-Performance Magnetic Resonance Imaging Machine for their Traumatic Brain Injury Centre. This was all of course possible because of Patch’s foundation. According to an article titled “Pacioretty’s philanthropy coming to fruition” found on the Canadiens website, Pacioretty shows pride in the foundation’s accomplishments, and what it will do for those with traumatic brain injuries. “To talk to the team and the doctor we brought in about the research they have done and are going to do on the trauma side of things… to see it there and the way it’s going to be set up is special. It makes me understand how much bigger this is than what I was able to paint in my own mind.”.
Pacioretty’s career with Montreal came to an end in 2018 when he was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights. In 448 points in 626 games. He was their captain and truly exemplified what it meant to lead by example. He became the Canadiens 29th captain in team history in 2015. The previous captains being Brian Gionta and Habs legend Saku Koivu, he had big skates to fill. Playing in Montreal, there’s a big spotlight on you.
Especially with their surrounding media. Whoever dawns the “C” is always the first to shoulder the blame whenever the team struggles on any team, and Patch always held himself and others accountable. In 2012, he was awarded the Bill Masterton Trophy, which is awarded to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to the game, after returning to the ice following a severe injury on Mar 8, 2011.
Pacioretty was hit into a glass partition by Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara, causing him to sustain a severe concussion and a non-displaced fractured fourth cervical vertebra in his neck. Max laid motionless and unresponsive to the medical staff for what seemed to be an eternity. To this day, I still cringe anytime I watch the replay. Had it not been for that injury, though, Pacioretty would have never been inspired to create his foundation…..So I guess that’s turning lemons into lemonade. So to speak.
2.) P.K. Subban
Okay, I know this is a controversial pick for some. But before you belittle this pick, let me explain. P.K. Subban, for me, exemplifies a real love for the game of hockey. Just take a step away from his skillset and look at what he did during his time with Montreal. It was Subban’s personality that appealed to me.
The kid is just always smiling. He wore and played with his heart and emotions on his sleeve and just loved to have fun. Old-time hockey folks called this immature and that he was cocky and did not respect the game. Now there are a lot of different thought processes on Subban’s demeanor. Some may even insinuate there were racist undertones when it came to viewpoints on P.K. That he was in over his head. But in all honesty, he was a kid who was extremely talented and loved to play the game. He was and still is grateful to be playing professional hockey.
Along with the charismatic personality came his unreal skillset. He could move the puck up the ice as well as any forward, and his ability to lay an open-ice hit made jaws drop. Remember when he dropped every hockey fan’s favorite rat-faced dweeb Brad Marchand? Marchand was carrying the puck into the offensive zone and dropped his head as he crossed the blue line. It was then that you saw shades of Scott Stevens when Subban turned his back into Marchand and buried the forward, sending him out of breath to the bench, where you saw that bloated face of Claude Julien looking for a call for what was a clearly clean open-ice body check.
Along with his elite ability to carry the puck up the ice, Subban also had an absolute piss missile of a shot from the point. A cannon. When one of those shots would find the back of the net, Subban’s celebrations were just as exciting as the goals themselves.
In fact, in “NHL 19”, the cover dawns Subban’s image celebrating in stylish and flamboyant fashion. With the NHL being a more conservative league where players were not viewed as athletes who’re as charismatic as say those in the NFL or even the NBA, having a player like Subban be as outgoing and exuberant as he was, wasn’t always taken positively.
Especially with him being a black athlete in a mostly white-dominated sport, the pressure and criticism of P.K. Subban were always higher. In 2017, TV analyst Mike Milbury, another guy we all love to hate, criticized Subban for dancing in warm-ups to stay loose. Calling him a “clown.” Listen, Mike, you assaulted a 12-year old during a youth hockey game and beat up a fan with their own shoe. If you want to see a clown, take a look in the mirror.
P.K. has also taken a ton of pride in breaking down walls throughout his hockey career, not just on the ice but off it. He’s shown hockey doesn’t have to be so conservative and that it can be fun and exciting. From his Don Cherry impersonation on “Hockey Night in Canada, his mouthwash gag with Sidney Crosby, or his Jaromir Jagr mullet impersonation during the breakaway challenge at the 2016 All-Star game, Subban is a consummate reminder of the reason why we dream of playing in the NHL one day. It reminds us when we lace up our first pair of skates, pretending to score a game seven overtime goal while playing street hockey with our friends while wearing our favorite player’s jersey or commentating the moment out loud in Doc Emrick’s legendary voice.
P.K. was also a staple in the surrounding communities of Montreal with his charity work. After joining Georges Laraque on a trip to Haiti in support of the “Hockey for Haiti”.
Subban vowed to be a difference-maker and bridge gaps between athletes and the less fortunate. According to an article by the Hockey Writers entitled “Seven Things About P.K. Subban,” Subban started the foundation “P.K.’s Helping Hand,” which is dedicated to assisting vulnerable families devastated financially by a child’s illness.
In September 2015, Subban announced his support for sick children and their families when he and his foundation committed 10 million dollars to the Montreal Children’s Hospital. To date, this is the largest philanthropic commitment by a professional athlete in Canada. As a spokesperson, donor, and board member, P.K. Subban’s impact on the Hospital is beyond measure. Projects funded by P.K.’s Helping Hand help over 9,000 families a year. Three years later, Subban, along with Nashville teammates, visited that same hospital and spent time with some of the families his foundation had helped. Subban then would follow that visit up when he hosted a hockey clinic in Montreal, donating all of the proceeds to Montreal Children’s Hospital.
Even here in Buffalo, the inspiration P.K. Subban has shown through in one young boy named Faustin Ushindi. Faustin was born in the Congo and immigrated to Buffalo from Uganda in 2013. After six years, Faustin found a home away from home at Bud Bakewell Ice Rink, where the “Hasek’s Heroes” foundation, started by Hall of Fame goaltender and Sabres legend Dominik Hasek in 2001, is located.
The foundation, whose day to day operations are run by Director of Hockey Instruction Ian Trudell, took Faustin in and showed him how to skate. Skating led to eventually putting a stick in Faustin’s hands, and he took the game in stride.
He excelled almost immediately. He even made a local travel team, The Wheatfield Blades, barely eight months after learning how to stop on his own. Not only that, but a strong friendship was formed between Ian and Faustin. Ian became a coach, mentor, and almost father figure to Faustin. To this day, they are inseparable. I had the honor of being a goalie coach for the foundation for over a year before the COVID-19 outbreak, and I can assure you, they are the best of friends.
Faustin’s drive to want to get better and improve is something very rare you find in a kid at his age when he first laced up a pair of skates. Thanks to Ian, he’s found a passion and goal in life to one day play in the NHL. But even though Faustin has found a friend and mentor in Ian. His favorite player is P.K. Subban. Faustin wears P.K. ‘s number “76” and plays defense. He has a very hard shot for his age. I can also vouch for that, as a few of those shots have sailed over my own shoulder into the back of the net from time to time when playing pick up hockey. I can’t wait to see how both Faustin and Ian’s story unfolds as the years go on. Regardless, what’s most important is they’ve found each other and are both better for it.
After being traded to Nashville at the end of the 2015-2016 season, P.K.’s career with Montreal was awe-inspiring. In seven years with the Habs, Subban scored 278 points in 434 games. He won the James Norris Memorial Trophy in 2013, awarded to the league’s top defenseman. That year he scored 38 points in just 42 games in a lockout-shortened season. Upon returning to Montreal for the first time the following season, Canadiens fans stood up and thanked P.K. during a touching tribute video that brought Subban to tears. It confirmed what we always knew, that he loved his time there. Even though he was from Toronto, his favorite team growing up was the Canadiens. So it was a dream come true for him to spend that time with his beloved Habs.
P.K. embodies what we all were as kids every time he steps on the ice. Never losing his childhood passion, he will forever be a guy I root for to win…..just not against the Sabres.
1.) Saku Koivu
This one was an absolute lay-up for me from the beginning. There’s no other player for me that deserves to be ranked at the top of this list than Canadiens favorite Saku Koivu. He never led the league in any particular statistic or had even eye-popping stats while with Montreal. Still, anyone who’s familiar with Koivu’s story knows why again he tops my list.
Cancer is a devastating disease. You’re hard-pressed to find anyone you know that hasn’t in some way been affected by cancer. Whether directly themselves or through a family member or friend. It’s a disease that is merciless and tragic. I lost my mother when I was just 21 years old to lung, brain, bone, and adrenal cancer. She was only 48 years old and only lived a little less than two months after being diagnosed.
Watching her go through the radiation treatments and the war it waged within her body with that deadly disease is still, to this day, is one of the hardest things I had to witness. Watching what it did to her mind, body, and soul still keeps me up some nights over 10 years later. So when Saku Koivu was diagnosed with intra-abdominal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2001, when team doctors discovered malignant cells in his abdomen, both he and his wife knew that they were in for a long grueling fight and that hockey was no longer a priority.
According to an article written by Dave Stubbs for the Montreal Gazzette, Koivu, “Throughout his entire public battle with cancer, and in the 12-plus subsequent years he has been in remission, former Canadiens captain Saku Koivu has been impressively, uncommonly stoic”. Stubbs also writes, “Koivu would undergo radiation and chemotherapy in an aggressive fight whose happy result was never guaranteed. He always understood, in the months and years that followed his being given a clean bill of health, that he would never again be merely a hockey player for his fans.” No truer words could be said in regards to Saku Koivu. Anyone who grew up watching hockey throughout the late ’90s until today asked about Saku Koivu will almost always eventually remember his battle with cancer. Not just Montreal and its fanbase, but hockey fans everywhere rallied around Koivu to show their undying support for the forward and Habs captain.
One year later, and 79 games into the season, Koivu made his return to the Bell Centre. A heart-warming and tear-jerking tribute that included multiple minute-long standing ovations by Habs fans brought not just Saku, but many teammates and team lead physician and chief surgeon, Dr. David Mulder. Dr. Mulder was the one who initially discovered the malignant cells in Koivu’s abdomen and worked tirelessly with both Saku and his family to get him into remission and that fateful night on April 9, 2002. Mulder exclaimed, “… and they had a standing ovation for many minutes. I looked all around, and the people were crying around me,” Mulder says. “Maybe the most happy moment in my life, in my career was when Saku returned to play.”
Koivu would go on to play 1,124 games in the NHL, 792 of those with Montreal. Scoring 832 points in his career, one would have to believe had he not been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, he would have gone onto maybe a more statistically impressive career. Probably even score 1,000 points. Or win a cup. But that’s not what matters here. While he did go on to play five years with the Anaheim Ducks, it will always be a small footnote in what was his career. He was and always will be a Montreal Canadian. A warrior and personified what it meant to fight and never give up. He exemplifies that there are things that are so much bigger in this world than sports. He was and will always be the captain. A leader. An inspiration. My favorite Hab ever. No chirping here from me. Just my utmost respect. Thank you, Saku. And never stop fighting for those who are suffering. Never give up. I love you all.
Thanks guy, I’ll hang up and listen.
The Sports Desk can be reached at editorialtrainwrecksports@gmail.com
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