Tag: Montreal Canadiens

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Colour commentary: The NHL has to stop rewarding losses

Colour commentary
Sports Editor Nicholas Di Giovanni gives his take on his latest in sports with his weekly Colour Commentary

Seeing teams tank just isn’t good for the league

The Montreal Canadiens aren’t that bad of a team this year. They have a 25-17-5 record, sitting in seventh place in the Eastern Conference with 55 points. Despite this, there are still fans who believe the Habs should lose in order to get a better draft pick. Yes, more than halfway through the season, and in a playoff spot, Canadiens fans want their team to lose.

Sure, most people including myself did not see the Habs as a playoff team at the beginning of the season. But here they are, fighting for a playoff spot and looking like a good team. The only reason people are suggesting them to tank is because the structure of the NHL season allows them to.

At the end of the season, the 15 non-playoff teams enter the NHL Draft Lottery for a chance to win a top-three pick in the upcoming draft in June. The worst team in the league has an 18.5 per cent chance of picking first, with the odds decreasing until the best team remaining has a one per cent chance. Logically, losing means a better shot at securing the league’s next big star in the draft.

Past teams like the 2014-15 Buffalo Sabres or the 2015-16 Toronto Maple Leafs tanked in order to get generational talent in the draft, but that stuff isn’t good for the league.

In simple terms, you play sports to win, not lose. Sports at a professional level should also act as a role model for young fans, so the NHL has to put an end to this mentality because losing should never be rewarded.

I understand the NHL, like most other North American sports leagues that use a draft lottery system, wants to have parity in the league. That’s why it only makes sense to make weak teams stronger through the draft. But the NHL needs to come up with a way to have teams competitive all-year long.

One system I’ve seen suggested is eliminated-teams standings where teams fight for a higher draft pick. Once a team is mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, they start accumulating points for these draft-pick standings. For example, if the Philadelphia Flyers get eliminated with 20 games left, they will have to battle hard in that final stretch to finish first in a fight for the number-one pick. It still gives them a better chance of earning points than a hockey team that is eliminated on the final day of the regular season, and can’t collect points. This way, it keeps fans entertained all season long, and ensures that teams stay competitive.

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Colour commentary: Habs defence needs to be better

Sports Editor Nicholas Di Giovanni gives his take on his latest in sports with his weekly Colour Commentary

Montreal Canadiens offence is clicking, but they’re still losing

The Montreal Canadiens’s start to the season has been a promising one: they have an 11-7-4 record and sit in eighth place in the Eastern Conference. Not many people, including myself, expected the Habs to be this good this season, so it’s been a pleasant surprise.

One particular stand-out is forward Max Domi. When the Canadiens acquired him in June for Alex Galchenyuk, fans were outraged, mainly because Domi scored nine goals last season with the Arizona Coyotes. Now, he has 26 points in 24 games, and had an 11-game point streak until the Habs’s loss on Nov. 23 against Buffalo.

New acquisition Tomáš Tatar is impressing fans with his work ethic and scoring ability, while Jonathan Drouin is finally becoming the player people expected him to be. 18-year-old rookie sensation Jesperi Kotkaniemi doesn’t look out of place either.

Despite all the promise they have offensively, the biggest worry for the Habs in this young season is their defence. They’ve allowed the fifth-most goals in the NHL, with 81, and no other team in a playoff spot has allowed more than 75. They’re lucky their 74 goals for is one shy of the top-10 in the league, which explains why they’ve been winning games.

The Habs defence is to blame for allowing so many goals—not goalie Carey Price. When looking at the Habs defence, players like David Schlemko, and Jordie Benn just aren’t good enough for today’s fast NHL. Even a young player like Victor Mete, who had the potential to be a first-pairing defenceman, struggles to defend bigger players. At this point, Jeff Petry carries the defence, as he averages 24:57 ice time per game, which is the second-most in the Atlantic Division.

This Habs defence core is really missing captain Shea Weber, who will be returning from an injury as early as Nov. 27. Weber brings a style of play that is both physical and calm—he knows when to pick up the tempo or slow it down. There’s no other defenceman who can do that right now.

Still, even with Weber back, Price will still need a good defenceman on the left side. Too many times this season have the Canadiens allowed a player open on the left side to score. I think the Habs are one good left-handed defenceman away from being a strong team, but for now, they will struggle to hold the fort defensively.

Until the defence can improve, the Habs have to rely on Price to stand on his head and bail his team out. But you can’t expect him to bake a cake without eggs or milk.

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Colour commentary: Previewing the Montreal Canadiens 2018-19 season

Sports Editor Nicholas Di Giovanni gives his take on his latest in sports with his weekly Colour Commentary

Kotkaniemi, Drouin could make a big difference for Habs

With the Montreal Canadiens season starting on Oct. 3, it’s the time of year to get super hyped about the Habs, only to be let down come November.

This year, I have a different type of anticipation for the team’s first NHL game of the season against the Toronto Maple Leafs. I really don’t know what to expect from these Canadiens, with many new and young players on the roster.

After finishing last season with a 29-40-13 record and fourth-last in the league, general manager Marc Bergevin made several changes. Skilled forward Alex Galchenyuk was traded to the Arizona Coyotes for playmaker Max Domi, while captain Max Pacioretty was shipped off to Vegas for forwards Tomas Tatar and Nick Suzuki, plus a draft pick.

Heading into training camp, I kept thinking how bad the Canadiens would be this year. They didn’t do anything over the summer to make the team better. It looked like they would be heading into a phase of rebuilding, relying on their young players and not worrying about the results.

However, when I started watching them in preseason, the Canadiens looked like a completely different team on the ice. This team can skate, pass and defend well enough. In seven preseason games, they finished with a 4-3 record, scoring 21 goals and allowing 18. I don’t look too much into preseason stats, but they had a 2-6 record a year ago and sucked for the rest of the season.
The offence impressed me the most during the preseason. For so many years, the Habs were known for their lack of scoring. But with Jonathan Drouin moved to the wing, 18-year-old Jesperi Kotkaniemi playing like a 27-year-old veteran, and Tatar returning to his Detroit Red Wings form, I don’t think the Canadiens will have a scoring problem this season.

In a Habs’s preseason game against the Leafs, who are a Stanley Cup contender, Toronto head coach Mike Babcock said, “Right now, [the Habs] are hungrier and a better team than us.”

Hunger—that’s the biggest difference for this year’s Habs, and it could be what makes them a good team.

The Canadiens will also need to rely on goalie Carey Price to be better than last season. When he won the Vezina and Hart trophies in 2014-15, the Canadiens were a top team in the league. All good teams have good goaltending, and the Canadiens need that from him.

I still think the Montreal Canadiens 2018-19 season will be without playoffs, but they could surprise us.  

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Pacioretty’s hit changed the NHL’s safety measures

Seven years after the infamous incident, hits to the head have decreased

On March 8, 2011, Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty lay motionless on the Bell Centre ice, as 21,000 fans in the arena and thousands more watching on television looked on in shock.

Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara slammed Pacioretty head-first into a metal stanchion separating the two benches, fracturing then-22-year-old Pacioretty’s fourth cervical vertebra and giving him a concussion. Even though Chara received a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct for interference, the National Hockey League (NHL) did not discipline Chara any further.

Following the league’s announcement not to suspend Chara—who went on to win the Stanley Cup that year, while Pacioretty didn’t play again for the rest of the season—many people began to question the NHL’s commitment to player safety. Just two days after the incident, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: “I am very concerned about the growing number of very serious injuries […] I don’t think that’s good for the game, and I think the league’s got to take a serious look at that for its own sake,” according to the CBC.

At the turn of the decade, the NHL was not a safe league for players. Former Bruins forward Marc Savard suffered a concussion when Matt Cooke of the Pittsburgh Penguins hit him with a blind-side shoulder-to-head hit on March 7, 2010. Cooke was not suspended, while Savard missed the rest of the regular season and 23 games to start the 2010-11 season. Savard’s career ended when he suffered another concussion in January 2011.

Also in January 2011, superstar Sidney Crosby was a victim of a shoulder-to-head hit from David Steckel. Four days later, he received a hit-from-behind from Victor Hedman. Crosby missed the remaining 41 games of the season, and only played 22 games the following season.

The reaction to the Pacioretty-Chara incident was a culmination of multiple serious head injuries in the NHL. Fans and league sponsors had seen enough. According to the Toronto Star, Air Canada wrote a letter threatening to remove sponsorship, “unless the NHL takes immediate action with serious suspension to the players in question to curtail these life-threatening injuries.”

Montreal Canadiens owner Geoff Molson was the first executive in the NHL who tried to implement action.

“Our organization believes that the players’ safety in hockey has become a major concern, and that this situation has reached a point of urgency,” Molson wrote in an open letter to fans on March 10, 2011. “Players’ safety in hockey must become the ultimate priority and the situation must be addressed immediately.”

Molson and the NHL implemented change soon after. Before the 2011-12 season, every arena in the league installed rounded glass near the benches, removing all stanchions like the one Pacioretty hit. At the Bell Centre, there used to be a pane of glass separating the benches, connected to glass on top of the boards. The corner of the two panes of glass was where Pacioretty got hit, and both panes were removed at the end of the season.

The NHL’s department of player safety started giving stricter suspensions for hits to the head, with 13 illegal head contact suspensions ranging from three to 25 games in the 2011-12 season. In the 2013-14 season, there were 14 head contact suspensions lasting between two and 10 games, with nine in 2014-15, seven in 2015-16 and five last season.

In October 2016, the NHL also implemented a concussion protocol. An independent spotter watches games and notifies the officials if a player is showing concussion-like symptoms. The player is then removed from the game to undergo an evaluation, and cannot return to play unless he passes the evaluation.

In the seven years since the Chara hit on Pacioretty, player safety in the NHL has changed quite a bit, and for the better. Sometimes, there has to be some bad before the good.

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth.

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Previewing the 2017-18 Montreal Canadiens season

Even with a number-one centre in Jonathan Drouin, Habs still face plenty of problems

After a disappointing first-round loss in the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens fans are hoping the team will redeem itself this season. The Habs start the 2017-18 season on Oct. 5 against the Buffalo Sabres. The Concordian previews the good, the bad and the unknown of the Montreal Canadiens 2017-18 season.

The Good: Jonathan Drouin. The Canadiens acquired the 22-year-old centre from the Tampa Bay Lightning in a trade in June. General manager Marc Bergevin acquired Drouin to have a number-one centre and to add strong offensive scoring, two of the team’s weaknesses from last season. Drouin scored 53 points last season, and will add offensive firepower to the Canadiens as the first-line centre.

Drouin will almost certainly become a fan-favourite in Montreal. The Ste-Agathe, Que., native has said it was always his dream to wear the bleu-blanc-rouge. His agent, Allan Walsh, tweeted a picture of a Canadiens cap on which Drouin wrote: “There’s no place like home.”

The Bad: The Canadiens defence. In the off-season, the Canadiens lost Andrei Markov and Alexei Emelin, two of their best defencemen from the past few seasons. They replaced Emelin with Karl Alzner, but Montreal still hasn’t found a replacement for Markov to play alongside Shea Weber.

The Canadiens will have a hard time replacing Markov’s crisp vision and accurate passing. In the preseason, 19-year-old Victor Mete played with Weber. Although Mete’s strong skating and smart passing is much like Markov’s, should the teenager make the team, he won’t be able to fill Markov’s skates. Even though Mete impressed coaches and fans with his play in the preseason, Mete just lacks the intelligence and experience the 38-year-old Markov had. Having no seasoned top-pairing defenceman to play with Weber will hurt the Canadiens this season.

The Unknown: Depth scoring. The Canadiens’ lack of scoring is what put the final nail in their coffin last year. They just couldn’t score in the playoffs—when it mattered most. Even with Drouin, the Canadiens still have very little offensive firepower.

They lost right winger Alex Radulov, who had 54 points last year, and replaced him with veteran Ales Hemsky, who had seven points in 15 games last season. Wingers Brendan Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk had 29 and 44 points respectively, and will need to increase their point totals this year. Who will provide the depth scoring? We will have to wait and see.

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

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Exploring the Habs Stanley Cup chances

Graphic by Thom Bell

With the post-season approaching, now is the time to see if the Montreal Canadiens can win a cup

The NHL regular season is almost finished, which means playoffs are just a few weeks away. Sixteen teams will make it to the post-season, but only one team will come away with the Stanley Cup. Of course, since we are in Montreal, now is a great time to look at our beloved bleu, blanc et rouge’s chances at a championship.

Thanks to goaltender Carey Price, captain Max Pacioretty and new forward Alex Radulov, the Habs have led the Atlantic division all season long. In the past few weeks, the Ottawa Senators have come close to taking the lead, but the Habs were able to increase their division lead by beating the Senators in three straight games. With only a few games left, the Habs have a comfortable division lead and will most likely win it.

This means in the first round of the playoffs, the Canadiens will play against the New York Rangers. Since the Rangers are in a strong Metropolitan division, they got stuck as a wild card team, despite having more points than the Canadiens for most of the season. In the first round, the Habs will have a home-ice advantage.

The Rangers are a fairly young team with players like forwards J.T Miller and Mika Zibanejad. This season, they were a high-scoring team, however, the Rangers struggled on defence with veteran goaltender Henrik Lundqvist letting in more goals than usual.

They’re a good team, but the Habs have enjoyed quite a bit of success against them this season. The Habs won the last two meetings of the season against them, and Lundqvist is notorious for playing poorly at the Bell Centre.

While there are no guarantees, the Rangers are definitely a beatable team and, with the Habs on the upswing after hiring head coach Claude Julien, they should be able to advance. As long as Carey Price stays healthy, I see the Habs winning the first round in six games.

Once the team moves to the second round, they will play the winner of the other Atlantic division series. While the playoff picture has not been ironed out yet, the other round will either be Ottawa against Toronto or Ottawa against Boston. Either way, the Senators are the superior team in each situation as their goaltending, offence and defence have all been clicking this year.

In a seven-game series with the Habs, once again, I see the Habs taking this in six. Ottawa has been good, but the Habs won the last three match-ups of the season against the Sens and, at this point, they are in their heads. I predict Price would win the goalie duel against Anderson and the Habs would frustrate the Sens with their speed. It would be a good series, but the Habs would take it.

With two playoff series won, the Habs would play in the Eastern Conference final. The favourites to make it there out of the Metropolitan division are the Pittsburgh Penguins or the Washington Capitals.

Regardless of which team makes it, that is where the Habs season will come to an end. The Penguins and the Capitals have been two of the best teams in the NHL all season, and the Habs haven’t shown they can beat them. Trying to beat either team four times in seven games is a feat I just don’t see the Habs doing. Their offence isn’t good enough and, while Price is one of the best goalie in the NHL, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin are too powerful to stop, even for an elite-calibre goalie.

Maybe next year Montreal.

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Radulov poised to do well with the Habs

Graphic by Thom Bell

The Montreal Canadiens biggest free agent signing is better than you may think

When the Montreal Canadiens signed Alexander Radulov this summer, fans on Twitter immediately started to grumble about “the annual right-winger experiment.” Many Montrealers saw Radulov as just another Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau or Alexander Semin. They jumped to the conclusion that he will be a disappointment from the start. A more appropriate reaction to signing a superstar who has dominated his league for years, would be elation.

Right off the bat, Radulov blows every free agent signing the Canadiens have made over the last few years out of the water. He is an outstandingly skilled player who has proven himself in the NHL before with the Nashville Predators, and demonstrated an elite talent level overseas in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). In terms of talent, the KHL is second only to the NHL. Just look at NHL stars like Artemi Panarin and Vladimir Tarasenko and you will see successful KHL alumni.

Radulov won the KHL’s MVP award four out of the eight times it has ever been awarded, according to CBS Sports. His statistical dominance has put him in the books as the KHL’s second all-time leading scorer and the player with the most assists in the league’s history. Had he not begun playing in the NHL, Radulov would likely have continued to dominate in the KHL record books.

Some seem content to simply argue that “the KHL is not the NHL.” While that is true, just because the KHL is not the same as the NHL, does not mean Radulov lacks value. There is a widely respected conversion system for point totals between the NHL and most other leagues in the world. It’s used to predict the success that players coming from Sweden or the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), for example, might experience in other leagues.

According to behindthenet.ca, this system is called the National Hockey League Equivalency (NHLE) and uses a player’s points-per-game rate to predict what rate they would score in the NHL. The rate for KHL to NHL is 0.8 or 80 per cent. If we were to use the NHLE, it shows that if Radulov were to play a full season, he would score 80 points. For context, only five players broke the 80 points mark in the NHL last year, according to nhl.com.

Looking at all of this, Radulov seems to be an elite talent with the potential to have a huge impact on the league this year. A combination of excellent vision, incredible hands and great hockey IQ makes Radulov a gifted passer. He has the ability to score goals at an incredible rate with his first class shot. Expect great things from Radulov for the 2016-2017 season—you will not be disappointed.

Graphic by Thom Bell

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P.K. Subban: Not a legend just yet

Image via Flickr
Image via Flickr

“It doesn’t matter how many times I step on the ice at the Bell Centre, I have the same feeling every time: my head’s ready to explode, I want to kill somebody cutting across the blue line and I want to score the goal and celebrate. And I’ll do it by any means possible to win a hockey game. That’s how I feel playing there. I’m not sure I’d have that feeling anywhere else.”

This is how P.K. Subban described playing in Montreal in an interview with Dave Stubbs from The Gazette. It’s magical, seeing him dressed in the red, white and blue of the Montreal Canadiens. The way he moves the puck, the way he swiftly avoids players as if they weren’t there. He’s electrifying. One of the greatest prospects for the years to come.

But that’s all Subban is for now – a prospect. A great one, at that, one the Montreal Canadiens should strive to keep. Nevertheless, he still has a lot to prove. Therefore, signing a two-year, $5.75 million contract on Monday was definitely the right move for Subban.

But he had us on the edge of our seats for quite a while. For months, Subban and his agent struggled to agree to terms with Marc Bergevin, the Canadiens’ general manager, for a deal that would see Subban sign with Montreal. To break it down simply, Subban was looking for a long-term, expensive deal, in the likes of what his teammate Carey Price secured, and the Montreal Canadiens wanted to give him a shorter contract, so that he could prove himself worthy.

“I want to be paid what I think I deserve,” he would say in interviews. It seemed like the deal would never come.

It’s no secret that Montreal is enamoured by the thought of Subban. Some may argue that we even have a serious, although not deadly, dose of P.K. fever. We love him, on and off the ice, and he’s charmed us all into a trance. That’s why we have to admire Marc Bergevin’s persistence and tenacity for insisting on a short-term deal. It was the right thing to do. Previous Montreal GMs, such as Gainey and Gauthier, would have probably cracked under the pressure and signed Subban to a ridiculous six or seven-year contract worth tens of millions of dollars. It would be way too risky at this stage in Subban’s career to do this. But knowing their characters and the pressure caused by famously impatient Montreal fans, it would’ve been the case.

Deals like the one you were asking for, Subban, don’t happen at your age unless you’re Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin. Yes, you’re a world class defenceman, and yes, we’re lucky to have you, but like everyone else, like your teammates before you, you need to pay your dues on your way to ultimate stardom.

“For my style of game and for what I do for the team, the amount of minutes I play and for what I bring to the table, I have to be fairly compensated,” Subban told The Gazette in an interview before he was signed.

It was last Monday that Subban realized that the Canadiens weren’t budging, and their surprisingly good start to the season without one of their top defenceman probably pushed the blue-liner to seriously reconsider his position. As veteran Gazette reporter Pat Hickey put it, “the Canadiens could be a better team with Subban filling one of the top four defence spots. But there’s no guarantee and Subban’s position becomes more difficult with each day he remains unsigned.”

We all know he has the drive and the ability to become a top defenceman in the National Hockey League. However, the fame he acquired in just two years in Montreal spread like wildfire, and, as is common in Montreal, spread through to his head as well. Luckily, Subban is much smarter and more mature than others who have walked in his path, and he took the higher road. For that, I congratulate him, and I look forward to seeing him in the bleu-blanc-rouge of the greatest team in the NHL for years to come, and hopefully lift the franchise’s 25th cup along with the rest of his teammates.

Welcome back P.K., we all hope you’re here to stay.

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Montreal in a lockout

Canadians are a fairly simple people. We enjoy the small things in life, and most of us have a particular set of common interests that almost never change.

For example, many of us enjoy coming home after an arduous day at work, slumping on the couch, opening a good old Canadian beer, and watching Les Habitants face off one of the other 29 teams in the National Hockey League.

Not this year, Canada.

As of last Tuesday evening, the NHL has announced their fourth lockout since 1992. Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner, has arguably become one of the most hated people by serious hockey fans, ever.

The disappointment will be most evident in the coming month when the first games were supposed to start, and fans will be forced to entertain themselves by some means other than hockey.

However, in Montreal, there may be a set of people that will be even more on edge than the average fan. Those people are restaurant and bar owners. For the fourth time, they’ll have to feel the economic strain of not having people’s favourite sport playing on every TV in their establishment; a pain that will be felt throughout the hockey year.

“Obviously, it sucks for business,” said Andrew Mackay to the Montreal Gazette. Mackay is a bartender at Ye Olde Orchard Pub & Grill on Mountain St., located a block away from the Bell Centre.

“With hockey we can guarantee that we’re going to be packed. Every night there’s a game, we’re [busy] from start to finish – 4 p.m. until the game’s done, and then there’s the after-rush.”

“We’re usually jam-packed before every home game,” said John Bobotsis, head manager at the Baton Rouge across the street from the Bell Centre. “That’s an income were going to miss as long as this lockout is still around.”

Restaurants won’t be the only ones feeling the economic slump of an NHL lockout. Many merchants in the Montreal area, that usually pre-order a large amount of Montreal Canadiens sports apparel and memorabilia before the end of the season, are mostly sticking with the inventory they currently have.

“I pre-ordered a big zero,” said Phil Morganstein, owner of Édition Limitée Morgan in the Eaton Centre. “I just want to be sure that they’re going to play.”

Montreal is different than most cities when it comes to sports. It doesn’t have other major sports teams that can fill bars and restaurants when the NHL is in a lockout. Most cities will be busying themselves with football, basketball, and baseball. Montreal will, therefore, feel the economic slump to a new level compared to other cities. Although Montreal is bustling with a variety of different entertainment establishments, many individual merchants will feel this strain, and that’s just unfair.

“Individually it might make a huge difference for certain retail stores, restaurants, and the like,” said Michel Leblanc, president and CEO of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal. “It may result in winners elsewhere, but some will lose out.”

There is only one answer then: Merchants need to ignore the Canadiens for the time being and focus on finding new and innovating ways to give people a reason to leave their homes in the middle of the winter and come downtown. Many business owners are already on the right track.

“We’re looking at ways to provide Montrealers with something else to look forward to,” said Mackay. “We’re coming up with different fun nights, different activity nights. We’ve just gotta come up with ways to work around [the lockout].”

This is precisely what Montreal needs; a nightly entertainment system that isn’t dependant on the ups and downs of a hockey season.

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Let’s give back to a man who has given us so much

Graphic by Katie Brioux

In Stan Fischler’s book Who’s Who in Hockey, he mentions an important goal scored by Jean Béliveau in 1967 with the help of his linemates, Claude Provost and John Ferguson. When the goal was announced and Ferguson was not given an assist on the play, Béliveau immediately complained to the referees and official scorer, asking them to make a correction.

This example of putting his teammates first is one of many which helped solidify Béliveau’s status as one of the best and most admired captains in the history of the game.

During Béliveau’s playing career, which spanned 20 seasons, he won an astonishing 10 Stanley Cups and remains tied with Saku Koivu for longest serving captain in the organization’s history, at 10 years.

Unfortunately, Béliveau’s health is ailing and he suffered a stroke on Feb. 27. He had heart problems in 1996 and was even diagnosed with throat cancer in 2000. Despite his numerous health problems, he has always made himself available to the media, fans and various charitable causes.

Red Fisher of The Gazette, who has been covering the Canadiens since the ‘50s, wrote a heartwarming tribute to Béliveau on Feb. 29. He said Béliveau’s impact off the ice was just as important as on the ice: “[He] was more than a captain: he was a father figure in many ways,” he said. “If there were personal problems that needed attention, he was available.”

Béliveau is most likely the city’s most important ambassador. Although he’s received a fair share of awards and honours, the Tremblay administration needs to make a significant gesture that will guarantee Béliveau’s name will be remembered a very long time beyond his death.

Retiring a player’s number and putting a statue of him in front of the Bell Centre simply isn’t enough. The outpouring of support and admiration for Béliveau, following his stroke, has been phenomenal. Dozens of sports journalists from The Gazette and other outlets have been sharing their personal stories of Béliveau, and they all share a common thread: class.

“He is the single classiest person I have ever known,” said Jack Todd, sports columnist for The Gazette since 1986. “He would never pass by without stopping to shake hands and ask how I was doing. He would always give you a thoughtful and articulate answer to any question.”

Todd even goes as far as saying that Béliveau is the greatest living Quebecer, and perhaps the greatest living Canadian, too. A case can easily be made for both statements, and that’s why the city needs to recognize that now, instead of waiting for Béliveau’s death. Re-naming a street, a building, a day: whatever it takes to let him know that the 60 years he has spent as ambassador to the team and city were truly appreciated.

The trend has been to carry these changes out following a person’s death, but that has to change. Why not show our appreciation now, while he’s still alive? The man who has brought so much joy to so many people, on and off the ice, needs to witness just how meaningful his contributions were.

When Gary Carter died last month, it prompted officials to create a section on the city’s website to take suggestions as to how he should be honoured. The president of the Olympic Park, David Heurtel, told The Gazette that Carter’s memory would be honoured somewhere within the Olympic Stadium complex. The same procedures need to take place now, so that the city and the Canadiens can find a suitable way to preserve Béliveau’s legacy.

Todd van der Heyden, news anchor for CTV News Channel and long-time journalist in Montreal, speaks very highly of his interactions with Béliveau. “He represents a rare and probably dying breed — one part aristocrat, one part athlete ― and together it made him a class act who used his position in Quebec society for a greater good, as opposed to his own personal gain,” he said.

For more than half a century, Béliveau has served as the face of the Montreal Canadiens organization, which, despite its awful season, remains the team with the most tradition in success in professional sports, along with the New York Yankees.

“You know, when people are good, it makes me feel good to give back,” Béliveau would tell people, according to Fisher. “People have always been good to me.”

Now, it’s our time to be good to him.

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