Whitesnake
If you rebuild, they will come.
- Jan 5, 2003
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Forever, Montreal had goons. Difference being: the team in general never acted so arrogantly by using goonery. In the 70's, John Wensink promised to KILL (yes, yes, children, KILL) Guy Lafleur. In the 80's same stuff from the illustrious Miller. From all the years I remember as a hockey fan (and that is since the early 70's), the Bruins have always epitomized goonery AND rough play. Like today, the early 70's team also had a glut of talent (Orr, Park, Espo, Bucyk, Ratelle, etc.). But they had their fair share of cro-magnons. And their coaches were inclined to play the card often against what was considered softer teams, like Buffalo. Montreal had the tools to respond because they had talented players who could fight: Savard, Robinson to name a couple.
The only episode during which Montreal responded 'eye for an eye' to Boston was when Perron was coaching and, after a drubbing, he asked Savard to get him a 'supposed' goon. Savard reacted by signing a bodybuilder name Baron. He looked foolish, the experiment lasted a couple of weeks. Hehehe. Harry Sinden then went on a rant, calling the Habs organisation a 'disgrace', a 'far cry from the classy Montreal Canadiens organisations of past'. That was pretty ironic to say the least. Anyways, it didn't last long: Perron got fired and Burns came in. At that time, Boston had Montreal's number (I'd say Patrick Roy's number). It took the return of a somewhat high flying team to put everything back to normal in the end of the 90's and in the 2000's.
Face it, Montreal fans, Boston will never change. And it's ok that way. You need vilains in sports. Boston will always ask for a blue collar, hard-working, in-your-face type of team. While in Montreal, high flying, fast skating and great puck possession teams are what is in our veins. And that's what we have been longing for...for decades now. This team is the closest to what I saw in the past.
Well there were other episodes. Episode that Mario Tremblay loves to tell that I don't particularly remember. Said that in the days of the broad street bullies who were intimidating everybody, Habs went to Philly for a preseason game. And brought with them every goon they had from their farm team and the ones they already had with them. Obviously the game turned into a fight fest. And for Tremblay, that's the day where Philly felt that they couldn't intimidate everybody, especially not the Habs and their "success" ended around that same date. So it worked, and personnally...I have no problem with that whatsoever. It had to be done hence the end-result.
And as far as your last sentence, while I usually agree with you a whole lot, I can't disagree more. I still don't see the great mix of grit and skills amongst this team. Prust is a start, White could handle his own. But that's it. Back in the days, we had heavyweights. We destroyed guys in fights, in checks and in scoring. We might be going towards that. But there are ways to go. But I understand it doesn't happen overnight. We were slowed down by the past managements and now we need another direction.
Here's Normand Baron...