The past couple of weeks included a big stretch of games for the Montreal Canadiens.
They played a back-to-back against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers, then went to Carolina to play the Hurricanes on New Year’s Eve, and back home for another game against Tampa on Thursday night.
They needed to win at least two of those games to remain comfortably in the playoff chase. Well, they went 0/4. That is what we, in the sports world, call “not good.”
With a multitude of players out of the lineup due to injuries and fans calling for change, the Canadiens General Manager, Marc Bergevin, went out and made two notable acquisitions.
Will these moves save the Canadiens’ season and catapult them into the playoffs? Probably not. But what Bergevin is doing is flexing his asset management skills — something a lot of Canadiens fans fail to see.
Scandella is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, meaning come the trade deadline, teams will be lining up to give up an asset for him for their playoff chase. This is what, in the business, is called a “rental player.”
Kovalchuk, who turns 37 in April, is an interesting one. He signed a contract two summers ago with the LA Kings, figuring he wanted to play with a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. Well, the Kings are anything but that, so in December they mutually decided to part ways.
According to many hockey analysts, Kovalchuk is still very motivated and wants to play. Bergevin said himself in a press conference that this move may work, or it may not, but it’s totally up to the player.
If the move works, Kovalchuk will likely get dealt again at the trade deadline should the Canadiens still be out of the playoff picture at that point. If not, they terminate his contract and everyone goes on with their lives.
Trading Kovalchuk at the deadline, should he pick up his play, would literally be Bergevin creating something out of nothing, when it comes to assets.
A lot of people are calling for Bergevin’s head saying that this was a desperate move. I think it was an incredibly savvy move on his part.
The Concordia Stingers men’s hockey team can have some fun in 2020, as a treat.
If their game on Jan. 4 was any indication of what the second half of the season is going to look like for the Stingers, then the players, coaches, and fans are in for a wild ride.
We’ve been over this before: the first part of the season for the Stingers was tough. There were 16 games plagued with injuries, bad bounces and a complete lack of goal scoring.
Things are seemingly turning a corner, though. On Jan. 4, they played with a healthy lineup for the first time, minus a banged up Marc-Antoine Turcotte, since shit hit the fan and the injuries started to pile up back on Oct. 18, 2019 when they played the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks.
Philippe Sanche, one of the three players who sustained injuries that game, reflected on the first part of his team’s season after Saturday night’s 8-7 overtime victory against the Ottawa Gee Gees.
“When things don’t go your way, maybe you grip your stick a bit too tight,” said Sanche. “We were trying too much, not scoring goals and forcing plays. I think [tonight] the boys were just happy to be playing hockey. It’s a fun game so we want to have fun out there.”
Tyler Hylland, who was doing the heavy lifting in terms of scoring for the Stingers, was giddy after Saturday’s game. I mean, how could you not when you go coast-to-coast and finish off the play with a between-the-legs goal?
“We were definitely at our best offensively,” Hylland laughed. “We can’t be playing every game like that; we gave them a lot that we probably shouldn’t have. But like I said on [the last time we played] Ottawa, with this lineup, we match up with any team in the league.”
This game could be a defining moment in the Stingers’ season. They were just able to keep their heads above water in the OUA East playoff race, amassing 15 points in 16 games. The most important thing to note about the first part of the season was that they never shied away from being held accountable.
Through many conversations with Hylland, Chase Harwell, and Carl Neill, they never felt sorry for themselves or blamed their situation on the injuries. They felt they were just not playing well enough to consistently win games. Now, it is evident that with the fully healthy lineup, they are a much more energized and confident team.
“It was definitely a huge boost of confidence. Everyone gave it all they had before Christmas but it just didn’t go our way,” said Neill. “Playing with all the guys does something to your confidence and the whole mental side of it.”
On top of Sanche, Alexander Katerinakis, and Zachary Zorn being back in the lineup from injuries on Saturday, the team had two newcomers: Félix Lauzon and Jéremy Diotte.
Lauzon spent his last season of junior hockey playing with the Drummondville Voltigeurs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL). Lauzon not only played with the likes of NHL prospects Joe Veleno, Maxim Comtois and Pierre-Olivier Joseph, but he was also a stand out performer for the team. In that same season, Lauzon put up 80 points and was given the Guy Carbonneau Trophy, which is awarded to the QMJHL’s best defensive forward.
Félix Lauzon lines up for a faceoff against Jacob Hanlon of the Gee Gees
Best defensive forward. In a season where he put up 80 points. 80. Eight zero.
Yeah, I think the Stingers found themselves a gem.
Lauzon was not fully healthy on his Stingers’ debut on Saturday but he still received high praise from his coach and teammates for his effort.
“He was really good on faceoffs for us and really good defensively,” said head coach Marc-André Élement. “He’s going to be really good for us. He’s a complete centreman and will be a very important part of our team.”
Speaking of important parts of the team, Turcotte is still ailing with an undisclosed injury. But Élement did give an update on his starting goaltender’s status, saying he is “day-to-day.”
The Stingers have a tough stretch of games ahead of them, with just four home games left on the schedule. It’s no secret that the Stingers still have a ton of work left to do. But they can rejoice in the fact that they are once more a full, healthy line up.
“We have a lot of work to do, a lot of video to review especially after a game that [we gave up 7 goals],” said Element. “Right now, I’m just happy and it was really fun to see the guys back and [healthy].”
With the decade coming to a close, I really can’t help but be nostalgic of all the incredible sports moments we’ve seen in the past 10 years.
I have to give a disclaimer; this will be inherently biased as a Canadian. So let’s just call it ‘my’ best sports moments of the decade.
Sports evoke so much emotion and, like music, can take you back to where you were when these moments happened. I can remember where I was for each of these.
Alright, let’s get down to it. These are, by the way, in no particular order, my favourite moments:
We begin where the last decade did. The Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver was the third time in history that Canada played host to the world’s greatest athletes. Never before had Canada won gold on home soil, until Alexandre Bilodeau grabbed the hearts of so many – on Valentine’s Day, of all days – winning gold in men’s moguls.
Up until the final day of the 2010 Olympic Games, Canada held 13 gold medals. They had one more to collect. The feeling around the country was that even if they did collect the most gold of all the countries, if they didn’t take home the men’s hockey gold it would’ve been a bust for the entire Canadian Olympic team.
There was so much hype around this team, as there always is. But at the same time, odds makers had a reluctance by so many to give them any credibility after finishing seventh overall in the last Olympics in Turin.
Jonathan Toews and Corey Perry opened the scoring for Canada in the gold medal game, giving them a leg-up on the United States. Ryan Kesler cut their lead in half in the second period. Then with 25 seconds left in the third period Zach Parise stopped the hearts of Canadians watching everywhere by tying the game up.
It was a pretty uneventful overtime, with no high quality scoring chances, until the 12:30 mark. Every broadcast around the world picked up Crosby calling for a pass, “IGGY!”
Crosby put it through the legs of Ryan Miller and single-handedly united a country. I still get goosebumps from watching those highlights.
I am also a firm believer that this game is what made Canada a flag-bearing country. I felt such immense pride to be a part of this country after that game, words do not even begin to describe the feeling of elation that I and so many others felt when that red light went off. I couldn’t sing our national anthem any louder if I had tried during the medal ceremony.
I know, I know. Another Canada vs USA hockey game – very original.
This game was insane; no other way to describe it. It was the second time the Canadians faced off against the Americans in this tournament and hoo-boy the sequel did not disappoint.
Heading into the third period, the US held a 1-0 lead and would extend that lead very early in that same period. It looked like it would take a miracle to beat Jessie Vetter, the American goaltender, at that point with the way she looked throughout the game.
Hockey is a game of hard work and skill, obviously, but sometimes you need a bounce to go your way. The Canadians got one off the stick of Brianne Jenner when it fluttered into the back of the net with just over three minutes remaining in regulation.
While all of this was going down, I was in my grade 11 English class, half listening to my classmates’ public speeches. I remember telling my teacher Ms. Novek, that “it’s borderline treasonous to not let me watch this game.” After a relatively lengthy argument, she allowed me to watch the remainder of the game in the back of the class if I promised to not disrupt her class and the speeches any longer.
Oh boy was that a mistake.
Marie-Philip Poulin scored in the dying moments of the game, and I stood up and shouted “F*** YEAH!” right in the middle of one of the speeches. I was kicked out of that class and sent to the principal’s office quickly, but I didn’t really care. I booked it to the library where they had a TV to watch the rest of the game with the library staff and other students who were skipping class to watch.
Poulin scored and I jumped into the arms of a kid in grade nine that I had never spoken to before in celebration. That’s the beautiful thing about sports, but more specifically international competition; strangers immediately become friends as you cheer for your country together.
Luckily for me, the principal was a cool guy and didn’t care about me yelling obscenities in class and I got off scot-free.
Ah yes, December – a month seen by many as the best month of the year.
Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa. It’s a beautiful time of the year when families get together, people reflect on the year that was, and make new year’s resolutions that they will inevitably break. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
For the Concordia Stingers’ men’s hockey team, December really could not have come fast enough. The 2019-20 season hasn’t been kind to them so far, to say the least. The Stingers currently hold a 6-7-3 record, sitting in sixth place in the OUA East division.
Looking at how they performed in the month of November, it would be easy to say, winning just two of their eight games, that it’s been a cruel month for the Stingers. But the reality is that the season as a whole, so far, has been one to forget.
The story of the season for Concordia has been the team’s lack of goal scoring, a direct causation of the multiple injuries that the team saw in the opening half of the season. Two of their best offensive players, Philippe Sanche and Alexander Katerinakis, have been out for the majority of the season with injuries, playing just five games each. Other regulars such as Jeff de Wit, Zachary Zorn, Colin Grannary, Ryan Vandervlis,have missed some time due to injuries as well.Sprinkle in a couple of suspensions to Carl Neill and Liam Murphy to that equation as well, and we have a Stingers team that haven’t iced a full, healthy, lineup all season.
You get the point. It’s been rough.
After Saturday’s game against Ottawa, you could sense the frustration in the room. Head coach Marc-André Élement reflected on the first half of the season and everything that’s gone wrong for the Stingers.
“I’m not a guy who makes excuses, but it’s been a hard first half,” said Élement. “It’s not just little injuries. It’s [big ones] to our top guys.”
Regardless of the injuries, Élement says that there are a lot of areas that his team will need to improve on in the new year if they want to make a long playoff run and qualify for nationals.
“We’re going to have to better defensively. We’re gonna need to play better as a [cohesive] unit,” Élement said. “Special teams needs to improve as well, [all around] we just need to be better.”
Let’s unpack that statement.
Forward Chase Harwell battles for the puck against two Ottawa Gee Gees players.
Regardless of the injuries they’ve dealt with, the Stingers still need to improve on a couple of areas, like Element said. One of the biggest issues the Stingers have been faced with this season is their lack of finishing. The Stingers are averaging just over 3 goals a game, which on the surface is a nice number to be at, but U Sports is a completely different ball (puck?) game than the NHL. To find sustained success, teams need to be hovering around 3.5 goals per game.
Special teams is a massive part of the U Sports game and right now the Stingers’ power play is running at 18.5 per cent efficiency. It’s not the worst number, but with the lack of talent there has been on the ice in recent games, it’s understandable how it dropped off from the 31.4 per cent it was working at, at one point in the season.
The penalty kill is the one there is no excuse for. It’s no secret that the Stingers take a lot of penalties. They rank fifth in the entire OUA conference in times short-handed. Their penalty kill is not far behind at 76.3 per cent, good for 17th in the conference. That is simply just not good enough, injuries or not. The Stingers get too flustered in their own end shorthanded and need to be more aggressive when it comes to their kill – and they have the speed to do so. The main issue with their penalty kill is that teams cycle for too long on them, tiring out the penalty kill unit which often results in a goal or another penalty.
Alright, enough negativity. Let’s end the year on some positives.
One of the things the Stingers could take a lot of pride in, despite their record, is that they’ve battled and had a chance in every game this season. Forward Chase Harwell says that when staring right in the face of adversity, the Stingers never back down.
“I’m pretty happy, the boys work,” said Harwell after losing against Ottawa. “It sucks that we didn’t get the win before the break, but the boys battled. I really like the attitude in the room.”
Another one of the bright spots of the Stingers’ season has been Tyler Hylland’s rookie season. The rookie forward’s arrival at Concordia was overshadowed by the news of the recruitment of Katerinakis and of Sanche being named captain. But Hylland has quickly made a name for himself among Stingers fans, collecting nine goals and nine assists in 16 games this season, all while having a revolving door of linemates.
Despite the first half of the season not going according to plan, Hylland is still very confident in his team’s ability to bounce back in the second half and make a strong push towards the playoffs.
“We need to work on the little details like finishing our checks and getting sticks on the pucks quicker,” said Hylland. “If we can work on those little details I think it’ll make a big difference for us because when our guys get back [from injury] and we have our full lineup, talent-wise, we’re right up there with anyone in the league.”
OTTAWA – Down the 417, the Stingers lost their Saturday afternoon matchup to the University of Ottawa Gee Gees by a score of 5-3.
The Stingers were vastly outplayed for the majority of the game and it showed on the stat sheet, being outshot by Ottawa 52-26. It’s a good thing that game footage exists because Sebastien Lefebvre, who made his fifth start of the season, played a very solid game despite letting in 5 goals.
Defenceman Carl Neill, who scored a highlight reel goal in the third period, praised the Stingers netminder for another performance that kept them in the game.
“You wanna play well for anyone who’s in net but especially for [Sebastien Lefebvre],” said Neill. “He hasn’t played many games in this league and he’s been doing his best.”
The Stingers made some crucial mistakes that ultimately cost them the game, most of which came in the first period, said head coach Marc-André Élement.
“It’s the little details. Little mistakes really cost us,” said Élement. “You have to give [Ottawa] credit though. They played a really good game.”
Other than a couple of mistakes made in the third period that led to the Gee Gees’ fourth and fifth goals, special teams was where the game was lost for the Stingers. The Stingers went 0/5 on the power play while letting in two goals on four opportunities on the penalty kill.
“We have to work on special units. They have to be better.” Élement said. “Our power play, our penalty kill. Everyone. They won the special teams battle and won the game.”
The Christmas break couldn’t come soon enough for the Stingers as they lost six out of their eight games in the month of November to close out 2019.
Despite their 6-7-3 record, brighter days are ahead for the Stingers. 2019 was not kind to the Stingers and was a year plagued with injuries to players like Philippe Sanche and Alexander Katerinakis, two of the team’s best and most important players. The two are expected to return for their first game back after the Christmas break.
The Stingers will cross the border to play the Boston University Terriers for an exhibition matchup on Dec. 29. They get back to league play on Jan. 4 when they will play host to these same Gee Gees for their second matchup of the season.
During week 11’s Thursday Night Football game, an ugly incident happened in the dying moments of the game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns.
Mason Rudolph was hit by Myles Garrett after he threw a pass. Rudolph was pissed and went after Garrett, tugging on his face mask. Garrett responded by removing Rudolph’s helmet and hitting him in the head with it. If you haven’t seen the video by now, take a look at it. It’s pretty frightening.
Garrett was subsequently suspended indefinitely by the NFL. He appealed the suspension but it was quickly upheld.
In an investigation of the incident, Garrett insisted that Rudolph called him a racial slur which sparked the entire thing in the first place. This claim came about a week after the initial helmet-swinging brawl.
The NFL responded by saying that they found “no such evidence” that supported Garrett’s claim.
I’m going to say this before I give my opinion on the whole situation: I am very well aware that I, a white male, am about to give an opinion on something race-related.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s think critically about this for a second before calling Rudolph a racist.
The NFL mic’s up every quarterback in the league during games to acquire audio for NFL Films purposes. So if Rudolph did in fact utter a racial slur at Garrett, they would be able to track down that audio right away. Garrett said “I know what I heard,” so if he is telling the truth, this is a major problem not only for Rudolph, but the NFL as well; it would seem like they were trying to cover it up
The second part that raises my suspicion of this story is the fact that Garrett came out with this accusation about a week after the incident. What was the thought process here? In my experience as a Jew, if I was faced with any type of anti-semetic comment, I wouldn’t wait a week before telling the world what happened. The second a microphone was placed in front of my face, it would be the first thing that left my mouth.
No one can say for sure what was said between Rudolph and Garrett. Maybe Rudolph did say something. Maybe Garrett is lying. Or maybe Garrett misheard Rudolph.
I won’t come out and call Garrett a liar, but let’s pump the breaks on calling Rudolph a racist for something we aren’t 100 per cent sure he said.
That is the message in the room after the Stingers lost their fifth game in a row on Saturday night. The Ontario Tech Ridgebacks, who blew a two goal lead in the final moments of the third period to McGill the night before, fought their way back to a scrappy 3-2 overtime victory over Concordia.
Head coach Marc-André Élement let out a big sigh of frustration before answering the first question from the media after the loss. He was not frustrated with his team, not with the officiating, and especially not with his goaltending, as Sébastien Lefebvre bailed his team out multiple times during the game.
It’s injuries.
On Saturday night, seven regulars were held out of the lineup due to injuries. Philippe Sanche, Alexander Katerinakis, Jeff de Wit, Jake Fletcher, Zachary Zorn, Mathieu Desautels and Anthony Dumont-Bouchard. That’s incredibly tough for any hockey team, let alone a university one that doesn’t have a farm team. Because of all the injuries, Élement was forced to ice seven defencemen and 11 forwards.
“[Fletcher and de Wit] got hurt after last night’s game,” said Élement. “We were waiting for the doctor’s report up until the game so we had to adjust the lineup. It’s not an excuse. Tonight we battled way harder than [Friday].”
If things weren’t bad enough, Chase Harwell had himself an injury scare on Saturday. Harwell blocked a shot in the second period and immediately went off favouring his right hand but the second year forward remained in the game and said it was nothing a little bit of ice couldn’t fix.
Injuries happen, it just sucks that we’ve had quite a few lately,” Harwell said. “We’ll be alright, it’s a little bit of an adjustment but it comes with [the game of hockey].”
Élement only tipped his hand towards a timeline on Sanche when asked, saying that he’s expected back sometime after Christmas. The captain of the Stingers last played on Oct. 18, when he broke his hand in the third period after blocking a shot.
The injuries kept piling on, and have caught up with the Stingers. Their last win came on Nov. 1 against UQTR. Since then they’ve lost five in a row while only scoring 11 times in those five games.
Even before the injuries started to accumulate, goal scoring wasn’t exactly a strength of this team. Through 14 games, the Stingers average under 3 goals a game, 2.69 to be exact, their lowest total ever.
Alexandre Gosselin, who scored his first goal of the season last night, was optimistic after last night’s defeat when asked about the team’s offensive output and its potential with a fully healthy lineup. Gosselin said he believes that they will be a much more dangerous team.
There were a lot of positives to pull from last night’s loss, despite falling further in the standings and the lack of goal scoring.
One of those positives was that the Stingers looked quite good on the powerplay despite only converting on one of their six opportunities, with most of the puck movement and opportunities being set up by the defence; something that Gosselin says is incredibly important for this team.
Photo by Cecilia Piga.
“We want to create more from the [defence],” Gosselin said. “We have the guys to do it. Neill, [Lalonde], Corbeil, Bilodeau. They are all offensive guys. If we use them more I think it’ll lead to more goals [which will] lead to more wins.”
Another bright spot is that the Stingers battled for a full 60 minutes. Consistent play has been an issue for this team and has no doubt made Élement’s head want to explode at times. Friday night’s performance against the last place Laurentian Voyageurs was an ugly one, to put it lightly. Players were coasting, perhaps with the mindset that it would be an automatic win. Well, it wasn’t and they had to come up with a rebound performance, if not for themselves, for the fans that come out every weekend to see them.
Saturday was a completely different story. Forwards were back-checking hard, defencemen were making smart decisions with and without the puck, and when mistakes were made, Sébastien Lefebvre was there to bail out his team.
“It was his third start of the season. He now has one win and two overtime losses, when he could easily have three wins,” said Gosselin. “It’s just a matter of details and not for him. For everybody.”
The Stingers have two regular season games left in 2019 so they will have ample time to get healthy and ice a full line up.
Concordia will head to Kingston next week for their second and final matchup of the season against RMC on Saturday night.
The Concordia Stingers women’s basketball team lost to the nationally ranked #8 Gaiters in a blowout.
Bishop’s really flexed their muscles and showed the Stingers and their fans in attendance at the John Dore Court why they are the 8th ranked team in the nation, beating them by a final score of 79-53.
It was a tight, fast paced game through the first 5 minutes of the opening tip-off but then it fell off the rails for the Stingers. The size mismatch proved to be too much for them as they were out-rebounded 47-33, which included 19 offensive rebounds for the Gaiters.
The Stingers also shot way below par at 35.6% from the field, and only made 2 three pointers on 20 attempts. On the other side, the Gaiters only shot 41.8% but made 12 more shots from the field, mostly coming off second chance opportunities. Their rookie guard Jael Kabunda took the game by storm and introduced herself to the RSEQ division, putting up a game high 32 points. Kabunda more than tripled her team’s next leading scorer.
Here’s what we learned from the women’s game:
The Stingers short bench is going to be a problem for them down the stretch of the season. It’s not that this team doesn’t have talent, they simply just don’t have the (wo)manpower on the bench to give their starters a rest, only rolling 8 players throughout the game. Down the stretch of the season, that can wear on players and fatigue will set in. Nelly Owusu is recovering from a knee injury that kept her out for all of last season and is expected to return at some point this season. After Thursday’s performance, it’s evident that they need her back sooner rather than later.
A major bright spot for the Stingers, on a night that was bereft of them, was Sabrina Linéus. If you looked at her statline from the game, you might not find anything all that impressive. That being said, if you watched the game, you know what I’m about to talk about. Defensively, even when the Stingers were down by as much as 32 at one point, she was still giving Bishop’s issues as her compete level never dropped. She proved that she can be an effective bench player who will always give it her all, even when the game is far out of reach. That’s the type of attitude that coaches love.
We’ve seen these types of games before from the Stingers. Their shot selection was not the problem Thursday night — they were taking good shots, just nothing was falling for them. This game taught us way more about the Gaiters than it did about the Stingers. Last year, we saw Myriam Leclerc come in and dominate for the Stingers, so much so that it won her the U Sports rookie of the year award. Well, one year later, Jael Kabunda looks to be poised to win that award. It’s only one game into the season for the Gaiters but she had an absolutely dominant performance, finishing with 32 points and 8 rebounds. Kabunda wasn’t even a starter for the Gaiters but after that performance I’m sure she’ll be in their starting five for the foreseeable future.
On the men’s side of things, the Stingers fared much better against the 7th nationally ranked Gaiters. They took down Bishop’s 79-72.
The scoreline is being a lot nicer to Bishop’s than how the actual game went as the Stingers held a double digit lead for most of the game.
The Stingers played as perfect of a first quarter as a team possibly could, going 14-16 from the field or shooting at 87.5%. Olivier Simon stole the show for the Stingers as he threw down two dunks in the opening quarter — a rarity in RSEQ basketball.
Of course there was regression to the mean for the Stingers in terms of shooting percentage, but they never looked back from that first quarter. Cedric Bryan Coriolan also had one of his best performances as a Stinger, putting up 20 points, going 7 for 12 from the field, including 4/7 from three point range.
This was one of the best full-team performances I’ve ever seen from the basketball team. Here are my takeaways:
The Stingers are not a one man team. A lot of people have been counting out this team with the departures of 2018-19 RSEQ MVP Ricardo Monge and Garry Merisier and now it seems like this team has a chip on their shoulder to prove that they still belong in the RSEQ Championship conversation. On Thursday night, four out of the starting five players for the Stingers put up double digit point totals. The offensive depth is something to keep an eye on for the rest of the year as they have some talented players on the bench as well. This group looks poised to make another run at the RSEQ Championship and book themselves another trip to nationals and they proved that last night by taking down the #7 ranked team in the country.
While it was an all around great game, it has to be said, Olivier Simon has taken his game to another level this season. It’s only two games into it, but he looks like a man on a mission out there. He didn’t get much playing time in the second quarter, but still put his stamp on the game, putting up a respectable 10 points, and going 5/7 from the field in just 17 minutes of game time. I for one, believe he is worth the price of admission alone, and if he continues this level of play, he will be at the front of the line to pick up RSEQ MVP honours for this season.
Lastly, Adrian Armstrong is not just a three-point shooter. In a game where he went 0/5 from three point range, he still put up 14 points going 7/11 from inside the three point line. Armstrong showed off his incredible ball handling skills all game long and did not force any tough looks. Concordia’s version of Ray Allen has added another weapon to his game. He also added six assists to his statline, creating offense from everywhere. This has been a lot of smoke blowing up the Stingers’ behinds, but after a performance like last night’s, praise has to be thrown their way.
If you’ve been reading my columns, I think I have made it pretty clear that I am a Montreal Canadiens fan. Like most fans, I love trade rumours – they create fun discussions and make imaginations run wild.
Amid the New Jersey Devils’ horrendous start to the NHL season, Taylor Hall’s name has started to surface in trade rumours. The 28-year-old winger will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year and will presumably not be resigning in New Jersey.
I think it is objectively fair to say the Canadiens have one of the top five best prospect pools in the NHL. Ryan Poehling, Nick Suzuki, Alexander Romanov; the list goes on and on.
Here’s where the two connect: the idea of Taylor Hall being traded to the Habs has caught fire in the Habs-Twitter world. Naturally, when the idea of Suzuki, a first round pick, and another player was thrown around as a hypothetical trade, fans were split in saying either yes or no to that idea.
I understand that Suzuki and the others are exciting prospects. In Suzuki’s case, he has the potential to be a top six centre in the NHL. The operative word in that sentence is potential. If he were to reach that ceiling, it would be amazing. On the other hand, he can very well fall flat and become a 40-point-player.
Hall doesn’t have the potential to be an elite scorer. The former Hart Trophy winner has already proven to be one while playing for two pitiful teams. He is an instant game-changer that is worth taking a one year gamble on.
The fact is, a marquee free agent has never signed with the Canadiens. There are too many factors working against the organization. They need to be creative in how they acquire elite talent.
Potential is nice. But it is just that: potential. Nothing more.
Some fans, and this is not exclusive to Canadiens fans, fall into a trap of overvaluing potential and would not give it up for a tangible asset.
You may have noticed that I excluded Cole Caufield from the list above. That’s where I draw the line. Caufield is considered by many analysts as a “can’t miss” prospect. Other than him, when it comes to acquiring elite talent, potential should not be the determining factor on a possible trade that pushes the needle of a team from being a bubble playoff team to an instant contender.
It’s not everyday a player goes from one team to their greatest rival. Names that come to mind are Carlos Tevez, Mark Recchi and Terrell Owens. Now, Olivia Atkinson joins that list along with her teammate Erica Starnino.
The fourth year player began her U-Sports career with the McGill Martlets in the 2015-16 season. She transferred to Concordia last year but was unable to play because of U-Sports eligibility rules. The season did not go to waste by any means for Atkinson, playing 17 games for Les Canadiennes de Montreal.
“It was a learning experience,” Atkinson said. “The pace of the game is much faster. Decisions need to be quicker. The physicality was the thing that showed me what my play lacked, I tried to focus on [improving] that aspect of my game.”
Atkinson joins a talented Stingers team with expectations sky high. She says to be a better, more impactful player for the team, she’s been focusing on her defensive play.
“Offensive [play] was something that I focused a lot on in the past,” said Atkinson. “Coming here with the knowledge of the coaches, I want to learn how to be a better defensive player.”
Nobody can dispute Atkinson’s offensive abilities, having been a top scoring RSEQ player during her time with McGill. Head coach Julie Chu had nothing but high praise for Atkinson when talking about her willingness to improve.
“She works hard all the time, wants to learn and wants to get better,” said Chu. “Even as someone who coached against her for three years, I saw that on the ice through her intensity and compete level.”
Atkinson, enrolled in psychology, says that she made the switch from McGill to Concordia because Concordia offered more specialized courses of behavioural neuroscience that she’s interested in.
It also helps that the Stingers women’s hockey program is year after year regarded as one of the top in the country.
It can be tough coming on to a new team, especially when playing for that team’s greatest rival. However Atkinson says that her new teammates have been nothing short of spectacular in helping her adjust to life with a new team and school.
“In the first couple of games, she had to get back into the swing of playing at the U-Sports level,” Chu said. “The truth is when you’re playing for Les Canadiennes, [Atkinson] probably wasn’t given the same amount of ice time and opportunities that she’s been getting at our level. From day one she’s been such a hard worker and teammate. It’s been great to watch.”
Chu was excited when Atkinson approached her about joining the team but she says she didn’t make any promises to her when it came to her role on the team.
“We don’t talk about roles, it’s about our culture,” said Chu. “What we promise here is that you’ll be loved and supported. You’ll get every resource possible to be successful on and off the ice. We don’t promise anyone a certain role or position on our team. That’s not who we are and it’s not reality of life. We promise opportunities if you work hard and execute.”
Offensive execution is what Atkinson is known for. As a second year player in 2016-17, Atkinson was second in goal scoring and in points, lighting the lamp 12 times that season and finishing with 25 points. In her last year of university hockey in the 2017-18 season, before making the jump to the CWHL, she finished eighth in the RSEQ in points with 16 on the season.
Adding Atkinson and a number of other recruits, along with the team’s returning players makes this squad an incredibly talented one. They started the season ranked as the fourth best team in the country, and after going undefeated in the opening weekend of the season, have shot up to the top ranked team in the country.
“Polls are always a funny thing. It’s so early on in the season and no one really knows how they stack up [against other teams],” said Chu. “It’s a nice compliment, we know we’ve been playing great hockey but we also know that where we stand at the end of the season is what really counts.”
Atkinson shares the same sentiment when it comes to the ranking and says that the teams approach along with her own hasn’t changed.
“Every day we’re coming to the rink and putting in the work,” Atkinson said. “We haven’t been taking our success [for granted]. We’re in a really competitive league and anyone of the teams can win on any given night. We have a target on our back and we need to be prepared for every game that way.”
Atkinson and the Stingers will take on the second nationally ranked Carabins on November 1 at 7 p.m. at the CEPSUM
It seems like we have this conversation every couple of months, and I’m sick and tired of it. But since seeing the signs some people decided to put up all around the streets surrounding the Bell Centre, I’ve been really pissed off.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, there are a bunch of signs hung up on lampposts in the design of a Habs jersey that read “Minimum 10 Québécois.” The signs were paid for and authorized by Stefan Allinger of La Fondation Équipe-Québec.
Really? We’re doing this again?
Before I rant on this subject, let’s think about this logistically for a second. Including goalies, there are 38 active players in the NHL that are born in Quebec, two of which play for the Canadiens. Some of these players have played most of their careers with the same team; Patrice Bergeron, Jonathan Huberdeau and Kristopher Letang. Yes, the Canadiens had the chance to draft two of those players, but they didn’t, and 29 other teams passed on them as well.
Traditionally the Canadiens have always had a French-speaking coach; this has apparently turned into a prerequisite for the job as they need to be able to address the French media in the city. Even with that reasoning, I don’t understand the need for it.
The Montreal Canadiens are the only team in the world that limit themselves to hiring a coach and general manager from a single region of the – one that isn’t the most highly populated. Now some people are calling for a minimum amount of Quebec-born players.
In 2013, Gareth Bale, who could have been argued as one of the top footballers on the face of the planet at that time, signed with Real Madrid in Spain. He did not speak a lick of Spanish, so what did the club do? They hired a translator for him to answer questions because they have millions of dollars at their disposal.
There are countless other examples of teams signing foreign coaches and players. It’s okay with fans because they are proven winners. Winning is a universal language that everyone understands.
I couldn’t care less where a coach or player is from – if they bring a team success, they’re good enough for mine. Let’s stop this debate right now, because frankly I’m not alone in being absolutely sick of it.
When you think of best friends that have played together on a hockey team, Jeff de Wit and Ryan Vandervlis probably wouldn’t be the first duo to come to mind.
“We work together, we spend almost every day in the summer together,” said de Wit. “We know each other really well. He’s not much of a friend, he’s like family.”
The two Red Deer, Alberta natives haven’t played together since they were 14 years old, back in their hometown as members of the Red Deer Rebels Black Bantam AAA. Seven years later, and 3600 km away from home, they are once again reunited as members of the Concordia Stingers.
Both players were looking for a fresh start and wanted to experience life outside of Alberta, figuring a new city and new experience would be good for them.
“If [Vandervlis] wanted to go to another school, it would’ve been something we had to talk about,” de Wit said. “But I knew for a while that moving away from Alberta would be the right decision for me.”
“I think there were five or six different schools that have reached out, but this is where I wanted to be,” said Vandervlis. “It’s so different out here. There’s a lot more European, a lot more culture.”
Head coach Marc-André Élement is excited about what de Wit will bring to the table, giving the rookie a large offensive role right from the get-go.
“He has a really good game,” said Élement. “He’s a big body, he’ll bring a huge netfront presence for us on the power play.”
De Wit played five seasons in the Western Hockey League (WHL), mostly for the Red Deer Rebels. He played for three teams in his second-to-last season and struggled to find his game, putting up 20 points in 43 combined games. After moving back to the Rebels and making changes to his off-season regimen, de Wit put up a career high 27 goals and 44 points.
The Concordia Stingers are the only school in Quebec to have players from the province of Alberta. The WHL is by no means an untapped market when it comes to recruiting, with most of their players playing in the Canada-West division. But with only four Alberta teams in the division and a load of talent to choose from in the WHL, spots on rosters are limited, so Élement decided to pounce on the opportunity.
“A lot of the schools say the same things to you, so it’s a feel-out process,” said de Wit. “One thing that made it better was [Élement] took time out of his life to fly out to Alberta to see some alumni but still made time to see me and Ryan. It was super nice of him, really personal and it really aided the process.”
The players are excited to play on the same team again. Vandervlis made his debut last Saturday night versus McGill; it was his first time playing competitive, contact hockey in over a year. In June 2018, Vandervlis was involved in a campfire accident where he ended up having approximately 50 per cent of his body burnt.
After the Stingers lost to the Carleton Ravens 2-0 on opening night, Élement decided it was time for Vandervlis to get into the action.
“It was a lot of fun, it’s been a long time coming,” said Vandervlis. “To finally get back out there was awesome.”
Before his accident, Vandervlis played in the WHL as well as a member of the Lethbridge Hurricanes. After struggling in the 2016/17 regular season, Vandervlis broke out in the playoffs scoring eight goals and putting up 14 points in 17 games. The following season was cut short but he still managed to put up 11 goals and 19 points in 19 games.
Last year, after waking up from a medically-induced coma and spending 11 weeks in the hospital, Vandervlis found himself back on the ice playing in the Heritage Junior B Hockey League (HJHL) as a member of the Red Deer Vipers. The 6’3, 212 pound centre was clearly one of the bigger talents in the league, putting up 21 points in nine regular season games, and 10 points in seven playoff games.
With stats like that, the Stingers may have very well found themselves a hidden gem. At first glance of his stats, its fairly evident that he is a big playoff performer. In his debut on Saturday night, Vandervlis looked like he did not skip a beat, slotting into the lineup on the second line and logging a good amount of ice-time.
“He’s an offensive guy so for sure he has to play on [a top] line,” said Élement. “He did a lot of the little things right. The game shape is gonna come, but [overall] he did really well.”
The two Albertans were not just brought in for their scoring abilities, though. De Wit said the best aspect of his game is that he’s a 200-foot player who has a nose for the net but can bring a physical presence when needed. Vandervlis says that his “Hockey IQ” is his greatest strength as it sets him up for success on both ends of the ice.
Vandervlis and de Wit were slotted together on the same line against McGill, but it remains unclear if they will be sticking together long term as they are both listed as centres. For now though, the two are enjoying playing together for the first time since their Bantam AAA day.
“In the summer time we talked about playing together [at Concordia] for a long time,” said de Wit. “It was super cool to see that come to life.”
