New crop look to make mark on Habs
MONTREAL — The Canadiens’ 20-day training camp begins Thursday in Brossard, Que., with medicals and the ever-popular fitness tests.
It hits the ice Friday for the first day of practice, will continue with a fan-friendly scrimmage two days later at the Bell Centre, roll through seven preseason games in Montreal, Toronto, Quebec City and Ottawa, and conclude Oct. 6 probably with a Brossard skate before the team charters out for the Oct. 7 season-opener as visitors for the Maple Leafs.
During these 20 days, there will be sore muscles, hard management decisions, reassignment of players to their junior teams and to the American Hockey League’s St. John’s IceCaps and more questions than answers in some cases.
And, of course, there will be the annual wave of optimism greeting the end of summer that, in the modern National Hockey League, is not an off-season as much as a rude interruption of games.
I will dearly miss a talk this week with late Canadiens icon Jean Béliveau, a pre-camp custom that spanned maybe 15 years. Le Gros Bill always had a fresh, delightful training-camp story to relate, no matter how many he had previously shared with me.
Béliveau once recalled his first Canadiens camp in 1950, an 18-year-old centreman invited in from the junior Quebec Citadels.
“I was very nervous,” he said of that three-week stay. “It was quite an experience. Imagine what it was like to play alongside your heroes, men who were practically legends.”
Among coach Dick Irvin’s players that season were future Hall of Famers Maurice Richard, Elmer
BASEBALL:
Lach, Ken Reardon, Doug Harvey, Tom Johnson, Émile Bouchard and Bernard Geoffrion. Irvin, too, would go to the Hall of Fame, inducted in 1958 as a player.
After perhaps Quebec’s most famous courtship, Béliveau finally signed with the Canadiens on Oct. 3, 1953, skating directly into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
He recalled in one talk that, during his 18 NHL seasons, he often reported to camp 10 to 12 pounds above his 205-pound playing weight — something unthinkable today.
“There were other boys who would report heavier than that, but we were professionals and we were conscious of our responsibilities,” Béliveau said. “We had to determine what weight was best.
“And then,” he added with a laugh, “(coach) Toe Blake always had his charts to help us find that weight.”
Early sessions weren’t leisurely skates, even if camp was stretched out over a month and a few days. Irvin was known to stir a few dry-land surprises into his unscheduled morning and afternoon intra-squad games.
Something you won’t read during this month’s camp, as reported in the Oct. 5, 1949, Montreal Gazette:
“Irvin announced that Doug Harvey was top man in the examination he held last week at camp. It was a written test on hockey rules and some of the questions were not only tough, but tricky. Harvey received 80 marks of a possible 100. Hal Laycoe was second with 79 and Elmer Lach was third with 77. Harvey won a $10 prize for his effort.
“Irvin said many of the Frenchspeaking boys on the squad did well and had higher marks than some of the English-speaking fellows although the whole examination was conducted in English.”
I’ll also miss this week’s precamp talk with Lach, another Habs icon we sadly lost last season. Elegant Elmer was a bottomless pit of rich tales if you took the time to dig for them.
A native of Nokomis, Sask., Lach arrived in Montreal for training camp in October 1940 via two seasons of provincial-class hockey in Moose Jaw, having won a scoring title and advanced to a provincial final. It was with the Millers that Lach caught the eye of Paul Haynes, an injured Canadien who had been sent west on a scouting mission.
Millers owner Cliff Henderson urged Lach to go east, figuring his star would return in better shape with Moose Jaw lacking artificial ice and unable to skate until the local creek had frozen over.
But Lach, 22, would not be back, agreeing to a 1940 contract of $4,000, plus a $1,000 signing bonus, for his first season with the rebuilding Canadiens.
On that train with Lach would be Reardon, Jack Adams and Joe Benoit, who would be among nine rookies to make Montreal’s roster that fall.
Or nine more than will crack the lineup when camp breaks early next month.
Five Octobers ago, I sat with centreman Lars Eller, who was skating in his first Canadiens camp after having been acquired from St. Louis four months earlier for goaltender Jaroslav Halak.
Then 21, Eller was taking part in just his second NHL camp.
“Everything I’d heard about Montreal is true,” Eller said. “The activity around the team, the passion of the fans and the crowds for practices, scrimmages and exhibition games — it’s unbelievable.”
A wet-behind-the-ears teammate of Eller’s was also hoping to make a good impression that fall, arriving with two games of regular-season experience and a strong 14-game 2010 playoffs, called up from the farm as an injury replacement.
“If there is a spot (open), there’s 20 million offensive defencemen in this organization who are capable of playing, and ready to play,” this young defenceman said that camp, exaggerating perhaps a little.
“I haven’t even made the team yet, or played an exhibition or regular-season game. My focus is on coming to camp, getting better, getting to know my teammates better and contributing as much as I can. Then we’ll see.”
It seems that things have worked out for P.K. Subban.