Inside/Out HOCKEY Erik Cole, the refs and RDS gear up for NHL season’s start.
HABS VETERAN looks ahead to shortened season while trying to gargle away the bad taste of 113-day lockout
Erik Cole, and the rest of the hockey world, have had a few days to digest a very bad meal, a half-baked National Hockey League lockout that killed 113 days and 655 games of the 2012-13 season.
And as the Canadiens veteran contemplates what’s gone down since the league snapped the padlocks shut on Sept. 16, he realizes he’s of several minds in trying to process it all.
“The initial feeling on Sunday (when the tentative agreement was reached) was more relief than anything,” Cole said in a wide-ranging talk this week, preparing to take a solitary skate at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard.
“But at the same time, there was little bit of, ‘(Expletive), why did it take this long? Why did we even have to go through that?’ You run the gamut of emotions when you look at what this all finished off at and, realistically, you can say, ‘Man, if (owners) had come to us and had an honest discussion with us, this probably wouldn’t have lasted half as long as it did.’ ”
This was Cole’s second NHL lockout. He was with Carolina, age 26 and three years into his big-league career, just coming out of his entry-level contract, when the entire 2004-05 season was buried, sending him to Germany for 39 games in Berlin.
There was no consideration of going to Europe this time, not with two school-age children, not with this season and two more rich years of contract still ahead, not with his need to rehab a lower-body injury that lingered and required treatment from late April through mid-October.
(He is fully healthy and will hit training camp in high gear.)
Now, out of this season’s lockout, the aftershocks of it likely to be felt for the rest of his career, Cole eagerly looks ahead to a shortened season while trying to gargle away the bad taste of the past four months.
The 34-year-old native of Oswego, N.Y., tunes himself to labour issues more finely than most players, having long had an interest in them; he serves as the Canadiens alternate NHLPA representative, alongside lead rep Josh Gorges.
There might not have been a member of this team looking forward to this season more than Cole, whose first year in Montreal was one of soaring personal achievement on a rudderless team whose CH stood for crappy hockey.
Cole led the Canadiens in 2011-12 with a career-high 35 goals, five more than his 200607 total the year after he’d won the Stanley Cup with Carolina, and equalled his career best of 61 points.
He built excellent chemistry last season with centre David Desharnais and winger Max Pacioretty, a line he hopes will remain intact at least to start this abbreviated campaign.
But his personal statistics meant nothing to him with the Canadiens finishing 28th overall, dead last in the Eastern Conference.
Asked if there were any surprises during his first season in Montreal, Cole memorably replied through gritted teeth, “The lack of winning was a little surprising, yeah.”
Of the lockout, he was equally blunt this week:
“Personally, it was disappointing. And it just pissed off so many people, made everyone so upset, made them grow sick of the entire process. It just did so much more damage to the game than anyone would have wanted or thought would have happened. It’s something where you’re glad it’s over but you’re still pretty bitter that it ever happened in the first place.”
The degree of damage, Cole believes, won’t be known in the first blush of the NHL’s return.
“We won’t know until you open the doors and drop the puck, until you see what your numbers are, who comes back and who doesn’t,” he said. “And unfortunately, it might be years before we get a sense of how much damage has been done and how much the game will suffer because of it.”
It took Cole a while to join his teammates in autumn workouts, rehabbing with the Canadiens medical staff until, as strange as it sounds, he was practically begging to be locked out. The team took away his key, figuratively, a month after the lockout began when it declared him fit to play.
And it wasn’t long before Cole’s passion was pouring from him in ways that didn’t sit well with everyone.
In mid-November, he had baseball hats produced for handout to players who wanted them, jabbing a sharp stick at the NHL commissioner — “Puck Bettman,” the caps read.
And a short time later, he took umbrage at the comments of veteran defenceman Roman Hamrlik, who in an interview with a Czech Republic newspaper wondered aloud whether the players shouldn’t just vote on the owners’ most recent offer.
In fact, Cole was so incensed by Hamrlik’s remarks that he didn’t wait to be reached for his reaction to them; he saved me the longdistance call, phoning me to carve the 38-year-old former Canadien, now playing for Washington.
Cole wasn’t apologizing this week for either the hat or his words, offering instead a little context:
“About the hats, I mean, have a sense of humour,” he said. “There was so much anger built up in the guys. It was really, really frustrating for the players at times, especially (in mid-October) when (owners) came out with the 82-game schedule, saying, ‘Here we go, let’s play a full season,’ and we gave them three different options to talk about and they took 10 minutes and told us to beat it.
“The guys were so mad. They wanted Don (NHLPA head Donald Fehr) to be more abrasive with the league, with everything. For me, the hats were more about needing to have a sense of humour and be able laugh at some things. I think it worked. The guys had a good giggle and that was it.
“And it’s not like they were worn all the time. I’m probably the only guy who wears one from time to time.”
If Cole’s hats were criticized by some as being a little grade-school, his remarks about Hamrlik drew him more heat, especially given that it was a seasoned veteran freely speaking his mind while owners were being legislated into silence.
The Capitals defenceman spoke while in danger of the second year of his two-year contract — perhaps his last in the NHL — evaporating had the season died, while the Canadiens forward is signed through 2014-15.
“I spoke with you that night and man, I was was sour at (Hamrlik),” Cole said. “What I didn’t express that night was that he wasn’t on our conference calls making those comments. When you’re not involved, I don’t think that being critical of everyone else is all that productive.
“I understand speaking your mind, but do it behind closed doors or to your teammates. That was more where my frustration level was.”
Cole said he later textmessaged Hamrlik but got no reply. On Wednesday in Brossard, the two shared practice ice and punches were not exchanged. As feuds go, this one isn’t exactly John Ferguson and Eddie Shack.
The intensity of a oneweek training camp is going to place remarkable demands on players’ physical and mental conditioning; this won’t be a conventional camp with exhibition games to get up to speed, and incoming head coach Michel Therrien must implement his own system of play while getting to learn the strengths, weaknesses and personalities on his roster.
So much to do in so little time, it was suggested to Cole, could be a recipe for disaster.
“I wouldn’t classify it as that. But I do think that it is a very, very small window to bring guys together and be able to teach a new system and get everyone on the same page, sharing ideas and thoughts and questions.
“It’s going to be a tough task, for sure, because at the same time we need to have some pace, get guys up and down the ice, working together on the ice because there hasn’t been a whole heck of a lot of that around here the last several months.
“It’s going to be tough,” Cole admitted, “but everyone’s in the same boat. Maybe some teams have more on their plate in terms of new coaching staff, new systems, or they might be dealing with a guy who suffered an injury playing overseas.
“In that way, it’s going to be different for everybody, but everybody’s going to struggle or at least have their speed bumps. You’re just going to have to be resilient about it — show up every day and do your work, go home, get your rest then come back and do it again the next day.”
There will be no grace period this season, one losing streak perhaps the difference between making the playoffs and an early spring.
Heading into his 11th NHL season, Cole has been around long enough to realize that the polluted waters of the lockout have already flowed beneath the bridge. A clearer stream is running now.
“As much as people have probably forgotten, it’s the beginning of a new era in Montreal — a new general manager and a new coaching staff,” he said. “The good feelings that people had this summer should be coming back.
“With all this mess that’s been going on, those feelings may have been put to the back burner. Hopefully, they come to the forefront again. This is the start of something new here, and it’s something that everyone can get excited about.”