Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘habs’

Well, the Habs are down 3-0 against the Bruins, and the season is a hair’s breath from over. But, watching from the reds this evening, I couldn’t even work my way up to being upset about it.

From the minute the sellout crowd booed loudly and rudely through the U.S. National Anthem, I knew it was going to be a long night. There is no excuse for that kind of disgusting display. If you don’t want to sing, fine, but stand quietly and show some respect.

The boos continued all night for the likes of Zdeno Chara and company. The cheers, on the other hand, were loud and boisterous for hits, checks and fights, but were mostly absent otherwise. Last season, the Bell Centre was so loud during the playoff games that you couldn’t even hear yourself think. Not so this season. When the team needed the crowd to rally behind them as they limped their way through a scoreless third, it was so silent you could hear a pin drop.

This fanbase eggs on the likes of Laraque and Stewart and encourages the team to play like thugs. Meanwhile, the so-called “big bad Bruins” beat us on skill, not might.

Yes, it’s true that a good number of our key players were injured. Yes, it’s true that Gainey has made some incredibly questionable decisions, including giving Carey Price a stranglehold on the starter’s job for no apparent reason.

Ultimately, the better team won all three games. Boston has outplayed us, outmatched us, outdueled us in every critical category, and has walked away with the victories fair and square.

And until we fans start demanding better and acting with class, we can expect more of the same. This season, Montreal fans truly got the hockey team that we deserved.

Shame on us.

Turns out Bob Gainey wasn’t completely accurate when he said he wasn’t going to make any more moves this season. He didn’t trade any players on deadline day, but he did just fire Guy Carbonneau as coach.

It’s hard to argue that the Habs’ recent woes can be blamed solely or even largely on Carbo. On the other hand, sometimes fault doesn’t come into it. Sometimes it’s just about shaking things up.

Can’t help but feel bad for the guy, though. I liked Carbonneau as a player and I liked him as a coach. He led the Habs to their best record in over a decade last season, and this season started off promising as well. Then again, I guess the higher you rise, the further you fall.

Shots: 48-22 in favour of Colorado. Final score: 4-2 Habs.

Halak stole that one for us. At least one of our goalies seems to have rediscovered his confidence, even if it’s the wrong one. But that was a really dismal performance by the rest of the team.

Let’s hope that this victory – however undeserved – helps energize the rest of the team to turn things around for real.

Trying to find an adequate word to describe the Habs’ dismal performance as of late. “Disastrous” just doesn’t seem strong enough.

Gainey’s got a busy couple of weeks ahead. He’ll need to do something to turn things around before the trade deadline.

Update: The carnage continues.

The Habs looked like themselves again last night, handily beating the Penguins 4-2 and playing like they meant it.

About time. Hope they can keep it up.

And now, you can study it at school. Yes, believe it or not, there’s a course at Université de Montréal, all about the religion of the Habs:

The Swiss-born Universite de Montreal professor said the ubiquitous relics and rituals linked to the Habs struck him when he arrived in the city a few years ago.

The similarities prompted Olivier Bauer to launch a crusade – in the form of a university course – to explore the many ties between a team that hails its sweater as La Sainte Flanelle – or holy flannel – and spiritual devotion.

Yes, it’s a religion here all right. In its jubilee 100th year. With a big revival in the form of All-Star Weekend coming up next week. And of course, we’re all hoping that this will finally be the year when Les Boys bring home the Holy Grail: the Stanley Cup.

Two seats in the reds at the Bell Centre: $240.

T-shirt with Habs logo in Hebrew letters: 30 shekels.

Coffee and a muffin from Tim Horton’s: $2.50.

Being there to see the game-winning goal scored with 22 seconds left: Priceless.

There’s a busker in the Place-des-Arts metro station almost every afternoon at rush hour, playing Moonlight Sonata on his keyboard. Three notes, over and over again, echoing off the walls. Beautiful. Haunting.

The melody stays in my head as I walk home, setting the tone for the rest of the evening. It is already dark, long ago. The days are so short now.

Outside, a few snowflakes fall lazily, trying only halfheartedly to amount to something, but succeeding only in lightly dusting the ground and the shining pavement. There’s no more ambiguity now about the season. The trees are bare now, autumn leaves replaced with Christmas lights.

Hardly anyone is on the streets. Even in the middle of downtown on a Thursday evening, it’s quiet. They’ve all hibernated. Gone underground for the winter.

The headlines today are all from Mumbai, and they’re all horrifying. Nobody reacts much. The rest of the news is about the economy. People worry but they don’t panic. They can’t quite work up the energy to panic. They exchange platitudes at the water cooler before heading back to their desks to cough and sneeze. They work hard, but they’ve slowed down since everything was new. The shorter days make everyone tired.

South of the border, it’s Thanksgiving. Here it’s just another day, like all the others. Maybe with a little less life than yesterday. And tomorrow with a little less life than today. They say it’s supposed to be the festive season, but aside from last night’s hockey win, people can’t seem to find much to be festive about.

November is a month of endings. Cold rains and early snowfalls, without the joy. The knowledge that winter has set in and will be here for the next five months. A long road with no end in sight. We walk it steadily, one foot in front of the other, because it’s all we can do.

And so we draw those we love close to us, hunker down and wait for spring.

The Habs opened the regular season tonight with a 2-1 shootout loss against Buffalo.

Lang played a great game. Tanguay, not so much. Kovy is hogging the puck again, but it’s definitely the Kovy of 07-08 and not of 06-07 on the ice. Captain K, Pleks and AK all look good. Breezer is back to his cringe-worthy self. Markov doesn’t look too comfortable in his new role yet. Lapierre, wtf was up with Lapierre? And as a team, these guys are still getting used to playing on lines together. A lot of missed passes, blueline confusion, the usual stuff for the start of a season. And very nearly a photo finish. But in the end, it wasn’t enough.

And Price. Price, Price, Price. Yeah, so he lost the shootout, but the kid still made 35 saves tonight, and looked really sharp doing it. The kid’s the real deal. He’ll improve on shootouts with practice.

All in all, we looked pretty damn good out there. We came away with a point, and we’ll build on it. Bring on the Leafs!

• A Palestinian terrorist asshole sent Livni a welcome message by slamming his car into a group of Israelis in Jerusalem, injuring 19. Analysts are predicting more attacks, as summer vacation is apparently over and terrorist schools are back in full swing. It’s no coincidence that this shit heats up every year right when universities are back in session, either.
• Meanwhile, on a visit to the region, Barack Obama made all the right noises, but it remains to be seen how much he meant them. Skepticism still abounds.
• Ominous news from Austria, where the far right seems to be making electoral gains. The situation bears watching.
• Back in Canada, on the campaign trail, the Liberals unveiled their platform, with more criticism than fanfare. Seems it’s trendy to be an environmentalist these days, but Dion’s having a tough time convincing Canadians that his numbers add up.
• Car-free day went by without much notice from the millions of people who drove their cars as usual, merely avoiding the few blocks closed off for the event. Far less of the city than is shut down for the typical summer festival, I might add. Some politicians scored some symbolic environmental points. The AMT announced a fare hike, giving new meaning to the phrase “worst timing ever”. I walked to work, as usual.
• Speaking of transportation, however you’re getting around these days, avoiding Greyhound seems like a good idea in light of a second stabbing attack in as many months.
• Hockey pre-season kicked off this weekend. The Habs lost their pre-season opener tonight, 8-3 against the Bruins in a quasi-playoff rematch of last season’s rivalry. Ouch. I’d be more upset if the game actually mattered.