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Sunday, November 14, 1999
Montreal in mourning
Fans disgusted at the Canadiens' fall from grace as things going from bad to worse
MONTREAL -- On the premise that you won't take a bullet between the eyes if you keep your head below the trench line, the Montreal Canadiens' executives are laying low.
The relatively new president, Pierre Boivin, isn't responding to interview requests these days. Even general manager Rejean Houle, who used to be so accessible as a beer salesman he bordered on being a pest, is not talking.
It is a full-blown siege mentality in Montreal, where the attitude of the fans has gone from anger to lethargy and at one point last week, degenerated into disgust.
In some cities, pity would have come into the picture somewhere along the way, but in Montreal, pity is not an sentiment which gets accorded to its hockey team.
These are the Montreal Canadiens, after all, and one of their local nicknames is Les Glorieux. You don't need to take a Berlitz course to figure out what that means.
Ryan Walter, who use to play here, tells the story about the 1989 post-season break-up party. The attitude was total doom and gloom. After all, the Canadiens had lost the Stanley Cup final that year.
To say times have changed in a decade is to put it mildly. On Thursday night, when the Canadiens came onto the ice for their game against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, they were roundly booed. When the starting lineup was announced, it too was booed.
Even veterans on the team were stunned by that.
"I've been in situations where the team was going through tough times," one player said. "But normally, when you come out for the start of the game, you always get cheered. After the first period, if you're not doing well, you can expect that when you come out for the second, you'll get a rough reception. But not off the start of the game."
HIGH EXPECTATIONS
The fans demand a lot in Montreal. They've seen a lot of winners here over the years and are firmly convinced the Canadiens are to hockey what the Yankees are to baseball -- a team that might suffer the occasional slide, but which always comes back to win again, as if by divine right.
But now, as Montreal's magnificent century draws to a close, the Yankees still are winning and the Canadiens are No. 27 in a 28-team league.
Around the town, in the bars and workplaces, there is no shortage of ideas as to where to put the blame.
Lately, some of it has been conferred on the coach, Alain Vigneault. A couple of weeks ago, he made the huge mistake of telling forward Trevor Linden that Linden was not to discuss a third-period benching then, the next day, cancelled his own news conference.
That's only a smart move if you think it is fun to poke hornets' nests with sticks. In sports, and especially in Montreal, the wise coaches don't shut out the print media. They do the exact opposite, making sure the print media is given plenty of information to work with. As veteran coach Scott Bowman once said: "The last thing you want is the media thinking for themselves."
Vigneault, whose skill in handling the media played no small part in his getting the job in the first place, suddenly found himself under the gun, thereby, for a short time at least, taking Houle off the firing line.
On Friday, Vigneault said he doesn't care about the media response.
"Criticism? I don't even know what you are talking about," he said. "Anyway, I don't read the morning papers and I don't watch TV. In fact, in this job, we don't really have a choice. Rejean and I don't spend a lot of time on that.
"It reminds me of an article I just received from a Canadiens fan. It is about Mike Shanahan, the coach of the Denver Broncos who is being criticized even though he won two Super Bowls in a row. People always criticize."
If you talk to the Montreal players off the record, they say Vigneault is not the cause of the problem. They find him to be a good coach who treats his players fairly.
Houle? That's a different story.
The players seem to feel the team's biggest problem is its lack of depth. Granted, the Canadiens have suffered a host of injuries, but if a team has depth, it can ride out those inevitable stretches and overcome the impact of those injuries.
The Canadiens were hoping Houle would dip into the free-agent market to help them get out of their current predicament. But they have seen no action and when they listen from afar like everybody else, they get only mixed messages.
Sometimes, Houle says there is no sense chasing free agents because there's no one out there who would help, a curious evaluation at best.
Anybody who has seen the Montreal defence play lately and honestly doesn't think Marty McSorley or Gerald Diduck could help probably should not be running a hockey team.
At other times, Houle suggests since the team is in so much trouble, there is no sense increasing the budget, another curious evaluation. If he really feels that way, he might as well unload every high-priced player. After all, the Canadiens already are in second-last place; they might as well be there cheaply. And there's ample precedent for contract dumping in this city, although not in hockey.
Right now, the players feel that any move Houle could make would help -- as long as he doesn't try to make a trade.
In two areas, trading and drafting, the Houle era has been a disaster. You could put together a first-rate starting lineup with players Houle has virtually given away over the years.
You would have Patrick Roy in goal; Lyle Odelein and Stephane Quintal on defence; and Pierre Turgeon, Vincent Damphousse and Mark Recchi up front.
To be fair, Houle did make a great deal in acquiring goaltender Jeff Hackett and Eric Weinrich from Chicago.
If it weren't for Hackett and Weinrich, the Canadiens would be hard pressed to beat a good American Hockey League team, but too many Houle deals have resulted in a total waste of assets, a major factor in the Canadiens' lack of depth.
BAD DEALS
In February 1998, for instance, he sent Valeri Bure to the Calgary Flames for Jonas Hoglund and Zarley Zalapski, both of whom were later lost to free agency. In 1996, he sent Donald Brashear to Vancouver for Jassen Cullimore, who later was claimed on waivers. The same year, he sent Jim Campbell to Anaheim for Robert Dirk, then released Dirk two months later.
Houle's drafting has been just as awful and since he assumed the position of general manager on Oct. 21, 1995, the Canadiens have won only one playoff round.
Around Montreal, the debate rages. Some fans blame Houle for the Canadiens' freefall. Some blame Vigneault. Others see former president Ronald Corey as the villain and some think all the problems began when former coach Mario Tremblay forced Roy out of town.
That, in turn, leads to more debates. Some think the Canadiens' demise began much earlier, with the trade of Chris Chelios by GM Serge Savard. Others say the turning point was Savard's unloading of Eric Desjardins and John LeClair.
Still others see Savard's firing as the cause, pointing out Corey then became a de facto GM and brought in all his own people, none of whom proved to be capable.
And so it goes. The interest in the Habs' performances may be waning somewhat, but interest in the Canadiens as a topic of conversation rarely has been higher.
Still, the Canadiens may be flirting with disaster.
Pierre Leduc, a baggage handler at Montreal's Dorval Airport and a stereotypical Canadiens fan, put it this way.
"I've been a passionate fan of the Canadiens all my life. If I had to go out at night and couldn't watch the game, I would tape it. By the time I got home, I'd know the score and my girlfriend would say, 'Are you going to watch a game even when you know the score?'
"I would say, 'Of course. I want to see them play.' They are my Canadiens.
"Now, it's not the same. I never thought I would ever say this in my life, but I am starting to get fed up with the Canadiens."
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