Masao
Registered User
I was looking at old videos, and this highlight reel from a Habs / Nordiques game in 1988-89 makes me sad and nostalgic:
I remember this. Wow goalie is small. Scrudland McPhee Corson. I watched a lot of hockey that year I was in my early teens. Lemieux is ripping it up too and big bird is still playing
Courtnall was one of my favouirte players. He was very fast.
I remember this. Wow goalie is small. Scrudland McPhee Corson. I watched a lot of hockey that year I was in my early teens. Lemieux is ripping it up too and big bird is still playing
Courtnall was one of my favouirte players. He was very fast.
What trades: Kordic for Coutnall, then Courtnall for Bellows, then a cup!
Entirely different times. I prefer that hockey though. It was more entertaining. Stand up goalies and not being locked into a trap system is a lot more interesting to watch.-for me. YMMVI always get trashed for this, but 80's-90's hockey was a total joke looking back. Goalies were awful, small, the net looked enormous. Guys like Probert could pot 19-20 goals , you could clutch and grab .. try and find legitimate one-knee sniper highlights like what Stamkos, Ovy and some of these kids today do, you won't. I grew up watching hockey from the 70's onwards, and its funny to watch how awful the majority of the players were. Lemieux would be a god in any decade, but Gretzky? Not so sure, the stars alligned for him. Imagine having the fighting rules of today, no Semenko and the boys to patrol the superstars.
TLDR - Chelios was awesome regardless.
For sure not saying it was worse, the game could be 5-1 and a team could come back.Entirely different times. I prefer that hockey though. It was more entertaining. Stand up goalies and not being locked into a trap system is a lot more interesting to watch.-for me. YMMV
Entirely different times. I prefer that hockey though. It was more entertaining. Stand up goalies and not being locked into a trap system is a lot more interesting to watch.-for me. YMMV
Entirely different times. I prefer that hockey though. It was more entertaining. Stand up goalies and not being locked into a trap system is a lot more interesting to watch.-for me. YMMV
Serge Savard was a great GM.
Entirely different times. I prefer that hockey though. It was more entertaining. Stand up goalies and not being locked into a trap system is a lot more interesting to watch.-for me. YMMV
I always get trashed for this, but 80's-90's hockey was a total joke looking back. Goalies were awful, small, the net looked enormous. Guys like Probert could pot 19-20 goals , you could clutch and grab .. try and find legitimate one-knee sniper highlights like what Stamkos, Ovy and some of these kids today do, you won't. I grew up watching hockey from the 70's onwards, and its funny to watch how awful the majority of the players were. Lemieux would be a god in any decade, but Gretzky? Not so sure, the stars alligned for him. Imagine having the fighting rules of today, no Semenko and the boys to patrol the superstars.
TLDR - Chelios was awesome regardless.
An argument can be made that he is top 5 best American born player of all time
Kane
Modano
Chelios
Lafontaine
Leetch
Roenick
Housley
Is my gut feeling list but obviously not as knowledgeable as some others about stuff that happened before, we'll say, 1999. So Lafontaine is just a feeling of how people talk about him.
Chelios was a horse, a super fit athlete as well as a super talented d-man. The guy could play in any situations and be on the ice for 30 minutes if needs be. He was mean and nasty on top of that.
Too bad Ronald Corey and Serge Savard decided they had enough with Chelios' off ice behaviours (and bad knees, they said). This guy should had played all his long career in MTL.
But who is the last player who played his whole NHL career (10 + years) with the Habs ?
An argument can be made that he is the best, lol. He is for sure a top 3, if not top 2.An argument can be made that he is top 5 best American born player of all time
Chelios was a horse, a super fit athlete as well as a super talented d-man. The guy could play in any situations and be on the ice for 30 minutes if needs be. He was mean and nasty on top of that.
Too bad Ronald Corey and Serge Savard decided they had enough with Chelios' off ice behaviours (and bad knees, they said). This guy should had played all his long career in MTL.
But who is the last player who played his whole NHL career (10 + years) with the Habs ? Maybe Price (no other choice) will be that one.
On being on Hall of Fame defenseman Chris Chelios' bad side:
It was Chris Pronger's rookie year; he and the Hartford Whalers were facing the Chicago Blackhawks at Chicago Stadium.
Brian Propp had joined Hartford from Minnesota. And he and Chris Chelios had a long-running feud. When Chelios was with Montreal (during the 1989 playoffs), he hit Propp with an elbow that looked to me like it was a shoulder. Propp's head hit the stanchion, it knocked him out and he fell backwards. His helmet stayed on, but his head was cut and he was taken off on a stretcher.
I asked Chelios, "You just hit him with a shoulder, right?" And he said, "Oh, no, I hit him right in the effing head with an elbow. I got him good." So I said, "Thanks for that, I'll remember that." That was the playoff year where (Flyers goalie) Ron Hextall went apeshit and pounded him with his blocker, and he got a seven- or eight-game suspension into the next season. (Was actually 12)
In this particular game, Hartford was winning handily. Early in the third period, Brad McCrimmon was on defense for Hartford, and Jeremy Roenick, who never knew when to take the foot off the gas, ran McCrimmon into the boards with a couple of minutes left in the game. And in the ensuing scrum, over by the bench, Chelios sucker-punches Propp right in the kisser.
So Chelios is in the middle of this, and he wants to get over to another fight. And his jersey and shoulder pads are off, and the linesman was trying to control Chelios - and he was water-skiing behind Chelios on his suspenders. So Chelios gets to the fight, and sucker-punches Adam Burt right in the eye.
I go back to Chicago Stadium after Chelios serves his suspension. And I wanted to get my skates sharpened, so I walk down to the trainer's room and I start talking to Randy Lacey, the Blackhawks' equipment guy. And he's sharpening my skates, and Chelios comes out with his skates tied and all of his lower gear on.
He looks at me and says, "What are you doing here?" I say, "I'm just talking to my friend. He says, "You don't have any f***ing friends." So I went, "Lace, I probably shouldn't be here. When you're done with my skates, please send them down to the (officials) room."
As I'm walking away, Chris says, "You're f***ing right you shouldn't be here - and I'm going to shoot a puck right at your head tonight." I turned and said, "What did you say?" And he said: "You heard me. I'm going to shoot a f***ing puck at your head tonight."
I said, "I'll tell you what." And I pointed at him and said, "You might not want to finish getting dressed, because you might not be playing tonight." And I turned, and walked away. Chelios dressed, but he never said anything, never looked at me. Game over, no incidents.
The next year, we're in Chicago Stadium, and the Penguins are the visitors. One referee. Midway through the third period, the Hawks are down by a goal. Pittsburgh dumps the puck down. Chelios goes back and gets the puck behind the net. I'm following Tony Amonte, a left winger, down his side. I go as deep as the deepest forechecker, eight feet from Amonte, up the wall.
There was no outlet beyond me for the Hawks. If the puck comes to Amonte, he could stop and skate with the puck, or throw it to the far side. But he had no outlet. Chelios fired an excessively hard pass along the ice. Tony, being a left-hand shot, has his stick ready to take the puck. At the very last second, he saucered the stick, which launched the puck up toward my face.
I put my elbow up immediately to try and block the puck with my elbow pad, and I just missed it. It came through, broke my nose, cut my lip for seven stitches down the middle, and broke a tooth. I blew the whistle to kill the play, and blood went flying out of the hole.
I stop the game, go over to (Chicago head coach) Darryl Sutter, and say, "Suds, we gotta stop the game here. I gotta get stitched up. And typical Sutter, he says, "Holy f***, Frase. Hurry up and get back, we're pressing." I went into the locker room, the doctor zips seven (stitches) in really quick, and I came back out and finished the game.
Chris and I developed a positive relationship after that, but I never asked him how they set it up. It just didn't make any sense that on the power play, with no outlet up top, that Amonte would saucer his stick to redirect the puck into my face. You be the judge.
You gotta have hull in there.
I thought OP specified American born players which Hull technically isn't.
They can have him...whether I'm just being bitter or not, I don't consider him Canadian...
OK, yes I'm being bitter...don't care, he's an American to me...