Did politics kill the Habs franchise ?

[Toene]

Care to mention the rule where habs had 1st choice of any Qc born players or that there was only a handful of teams in the league when all those guys won ?

Please enlighten us with a glorious list of all the dominant cup winning french players the Habs had since Roy got dealt.

Name the players obtained with this rule. I'll wait. I love this urban legend.

 

[MakeTheGoalsLarger]

Internet killed the franchise.

The Habs aren't allowed to have one bad year game without the whole internet community going crazy.

 

[Dustin]

That's certainly some of it but they also need good consistent leadership from the top.

Some of the trades they have made over the past couple of years haven't been good either. Didn't someone get fired because they believed they should have kept Subban? Stuff like that is not great for a franchise. Everyone being on the same page is very important.

 

[57special]

Yawn.

Aurèle Joliat
Maurice Richard
Émile Bouchard
Dickie Moore
Doug Harvey
Jean Béliveau
Bobby Rousseau
Henri Richard
Bernard Geoffrion
Yvan Cournoyer
Jacques Plante
Jacques Laperrière
J-C Tremblay
Serge Savard
Guy Lapointe
Mario Tremblay
Claude Provost
Yvon Lambert
Guy Lafleur
Jacques Lemaire
Pierre Larouche
Pierre Mondou
Guy Carbonneau
Patrick Roy
Stéphane Richer
Vincent Damphousse
Serge Savard
Éric Desjardins

And many others

Scotty Bowman
Serge Savard as a GM
Jacques Demers
Pat Burns
Jean Perron
Claude Ruel

And many others

How many total cups between all of these people?

Seems to me that les Canadiens were at their best when they had MORE French/local players and staff, not less.

And who is the Lafleur of the NHL right now, let alone the Beliveau or Rocket? Where is the upcoming Dionne, Perrault, and Lemieux? Quebec hockey isn't as good as it used to be, compared to other areas and countries. Also, the days of MTL having rights to any player from Quebec are long, long , gone. Get your head out of the sand.

People like Lemaire, Robinson, and Lapointe left MTL because of the pressure and unrealistic expectations put on the team. Many Quebeckers(and Canadians), are happy to move south away from the harsh spotlight and heavy taxes in Canada. In some cases, they also want to go to the beach in between games.

Hire the best, and get a French speaker if necessary as his spokesman.

 

[JackSlater]

How can you forget Sam Pollock?

Sam Pollock was from Montreal, unlike Selke.

 

[Toene]

Myth of the Montreal Canadiens' Early Success

Michel Plasse, Réjean Houle, building blocks of a dynasty. We hit the jackpot with this special rule havent we?

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

Name the players obtained with this rule. I'll wait. I love this urban legend.

Richard and Béliveau were recruited directly by the club. Selke even tried to make up rules to force Béliveau to sign immediately.

 

[DowntownBooster]

I think Montreal can remain competitive if they have a strong scouting staff and draft and develop the right players. However, as the league has become so much more balanced since the days when the Canadiens were a dominant team, I believe they will continue to be somewhat hampered going forward if the coach and gm are always required to be bilingual. I do feel bad for the fans in Montreal that just want to see a winning team but are hampered by the politics of those that have linguistic demands for management.

 

[Toene]

Richard and Béliveau were recruited directly by the club. Selke even tried to make up rules to force Béliveau to sign immediately.

Like Bobby Orr and all players before the 60s. You know it's the way things were done because the amateur draft DIDNT exist? You should really read on hockey history since you ignored a well known fact like this.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Yawn.

Aurèle Joliat
Maurice Richard
Émile Bouchard
Dickie Moore
Doug Harvey
Jean Béliveau
Bobby Rousseau
Henri Richard
Bernard Geoffrion
Yvan Cournoyer
Jacques Plante
Jacques Laperrière
J-C Tremblay
Serge Savard
Guy Lapointe
Mario Tremblay
Claude Provost
Yvon Lambert
Guy Lafleur
Jacques Lemaire
Pierre Larouche
Pierre Mondou
Guy Carbonneau
Patrick Roy
Stéphane Richer
Vincent Damphousse
Serge Savard
Éric Desjardins

And many others

Scotty Bowman
Serge Savard as a GM
Jacques Demers
Pat Burns
Jean Perron
Claude Ruel

And many others

How many total cups between all of these people?

Seems to me that les Canadiens were at their best when they had MORE French/local players and staff, not less.

Quebec's talent pool (and Canada in general) will never be as strong as it once was, relative to other regions of the world.

The last elite d-men from Quebec were drafted in 2005 (Vlasic and Letang). I'm trying to find one since (hopefully Chabot).

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

Like Bobby Orr and all players before the 60s. You know it's the way things were done because the amateur draft DIDNT exist? You should really read on hockey history since you ignored a well known fact like this.

I know that the draft didn't exist before 1963, thank you very much. I know a lot about hockey history too, but I just wanted to point out that Richard and Béliveau together account for more than 10 Stanley Cups combined.

The Habs' success being based on French players is because the majority of those Stanley Cups were won over 40 years ago. We're in 2018 buddy, the game changed. If the Habs still think they can win with their recipe for success from the 1970's, they're just kidding themselves.

 

[Captain Mountain]

Richard and Béliveau were recruited directly by the club. Selke even tried to make up rules to force Béliveau to sign immediately.

Selke didn't make up rules, he got the owners to buy the entire QSHL and turn it into a minor pro league.

And I was unaware that recruiting players was against the rules. Selke (and Pollock) where great GMs because they knew the line and brushed up against it and exploited bad managers. The same thing good GMs do now.

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

Selke didn't make up rules, he got the owners to buy the entire QSHL and turn it into a minor pro league.

And I was unaware that recruiting players was against the rules. Selke (and Pollock) where great GMs because they knew the line and brushed up against it and exploited bad managers. The same thing good GMs do now.

All of this is irrelevant now.

Quote from Wikipedia, in French:

À la fin de la saison 1950-1951, Béliveau n'est officiellement plus considéré comme joueur junior et Selke pense qu'il va enfin rejoindre son équipe des Canadiens mais Béliveau veut continuer à jouer avec Québec. Selke n'entend pas se laisser faire et veut faire passer une nouvelle réglementation obligeant les joueurs engagés par un contrat de type B à signer d'abord avec l'équipe professionnelle avant de rejoindre une équipe amateur. Les As contre-attaquent en menaçant de quitter la LHSQ si les conditions de Selke étaient acceptées.

He tried to make up some rules. Eventually he found a way around it.

 

[OldManGroin]

Name the players obtained with this rule. I'll wait. I love this urban legend.

Call it a urban legend all you want. Simple google search will yield the facts for you.

There was a rule enacted in the 30s and brought back in the late 60s specifically for the Habs regarding french players.

 

[Toene]

Call it a urban legend all you want. Simple google search will yield the facts for you.

There was a rule enacted in the 30s and brought back in the late 60s specifically for the Habs regarding french players.

Care to name the players obtained?

 

[boredmale]

What killed the franchise was expansion franchised wised up in the 80s and stop sending them high picks for has beens

 

[LeafFever]

It sucks expansion teams that haven't even played yet will have a much better pool of GMs and coaches than Montreal did.

 

[dechire]

Obviously when you limit candidates in any way, you will be missing out on potentially excellent candidates. With that said, the Habs' issue is that they choose to hire shitty French-speaking management instead of good ones. It's not like they can't find significantly better GM candidates than Bergevin even if they look exclusively in Québec.`The Old Boys Club is the problem. The fact that all the Old Boys have to speak French is secondary.

 

[Captain Mountain]

All of this is irrelevant now.

Quote from Wikipedia, in French:



He tried to make up some rules. Eventually he found a way around it.

Uh, there's a difference between trying to implement a rule change to the team's benefit and making up rules.

 

[EdmFlyersfan]

Discriminatory and bias hiring practices have made the Habs irrelevant...they are just living off of legacy now.

 

[Toene]

I know that the draft didn't exist before 1963, thank you very much. I know a lot about hockey history too, but I just wanted to point out that Richard and Béliveau together account for more than 10 Stanley Cups combined.

The Habs' success being based on French players is because the majority of those Stanley Cups were won over 40 years ago. We're in 2018 buddy, the game changed. If the Habs still think they can win with their recipe for success from the 1970's, they're just kidding themselves.

Yeah. It's better to try the Capitals way, it appears so much more successful.

 

[Paperbagofglory]

Language, Identity, Race, Gender. These are politics that will dilute and diminish the skill of organizations when they focus on filling an exact number of the required amount instead of the best candidates.

Happens in the states with colleges and universities having to fill a quota and denying students that were clearly more qualified. Hence Asian students suing a prominent university for discrimination based on information that a group from a different quota had a much easier time qualifying based on uneven rules.

Sad times.

 

[sandysan]

Hear me out.

Montreal by far has the most media coverage of any team since they deal in both official languages and anyone who lived here knows french sports media is 24/7 about Habs.

That adds increased pressure for any potential UFAs wanting to play here.

Not to mention higher tax rates.

Also the reputation they have for demanding french representation from their players.

It really started to become apparent during the Koivu captaincy era. He had already been with the team for years and i remember the media started ripping into him because he couldn't speak french despite living in Quebec for years.

Obviously this did get heard about amongst the players community.

Than they rehire the same 2 coaches they fired just becuz they spoke french meanwhile disregarding better english only candidates ( apparently Babcock was interested ).

Than they obviously needed a french speaking GM, not just a GM. Once again limiting your candidates.

And now all the pressure to get a french speaking superstar they traded away a solid bluechip D ( Sergachev ) after they had lost Subban n Markov and were in desperate need of D now for a LW Drouin ( who lets not forget he had drama while in TB playing for one of the best teams in the league and HOF Yzerman ) that they decided was a natural C to please the masses.

Not counting all the forced drafting of french players not panning out ( Leblanc, Latendresse )

Anyone else believe if the Habs focussed on getting the best coaching staff, management and players regardless of language spoken theyd be better off ?

We may be reeling but news of our demise is greatly exaggerated. We have suck before, we suck now we will suck again in the future. it might take longer to turn the current ship around, but rest assured, the ship will be turned.

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

Uh, there's a difference between trying to implement a rule change to the team's benefit and making up rules.

I don't see a difference but it doesn't matter now anyway. Suppose that the top pick in the 2021 draft is a kid from Trois-Rivières, a generational player like the Habs haven't had since the 70's. In a 32 team league, the chances of landing that player are very low for even the bottom teams. It's just foolish to think that the Habs could be more successful if they focused on getting the top French speaking players and by limiting themselves to French speaking GMs and coaches. The Habs are the only team that regularly re-hire coaches they fired over 10 years ago. Are we going to see a 3rd stint for Michel Therrien in 10 years again?

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

Yeah. It's better to try the Capitals way, it appears so much more successful.

We have other issues, but that's irrelevant. Look at the way the winning teams are managed, and compare it to how the Habs are managed.