Mike Boone returns with live game blog on HIO
Joins Gazette team to detail Habs’ year
“It’s time again for my annual farewell column — and this time I mean it,” Mike Boone wrote when he retired from The Gazette in September.
“A year ago, I was leaving The Gazette’s city department to begin writing a sports column. Now, I’m bringing the curtain down on 38 years in print journalism.
“If profligate use of the first-person singular hasn’t stopped you reading this already, I should explain there’s an asterisk beside my ‘retirement.’ I will continue to write a live game blog and About Last Night wrap-ups for The Gazette’s Hockey Inside/Out website. I’ll still be tapping away with two fingers 82 times during the Canadiens’ season, plus exhibitions and, inshallah, playoffs.”
So much for the 82 times ... but with the National Hockey League lockout finally over and the puck set to drop Saturday night when the Canadiens open the season against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Bell Centre, Boone will be blogging live again for at least 48 regular-season games and, possibly, the playoffs.
Canadiens fans seem to think the Canadiens will continue playing after the regular season wraps up on April 27.
In a recent hockeyinsideout.com poll, we asked fans: Do you think the Canadiens will make the playoffs this season? Seventy-per-cent responded yes.
Our latest poll asks: How many goals do you think Habs rookie Alex Galchenyuk can score if he plays in all 48 games? You can cast your vote (0-10, 11-20, 21-30, more than 30) at hockeyinsideout.com.
After Boone announced he was going into semi-retirement last fall, I received the following email from Ian Cobb of Belleville, Ont., who has been organizing the annual Hockey Inside/Out Summit in Montreal since 2007, bringing together fans from across North America and beyond who follow the Canadiens through The Gazette’s website.
“You have no idea what Mike Boone has done for me over the past eight years,” wrote Cobb, a lifelong Canadiens fan who grew up in StLambert. “I started out years ago trying to gain a somewhat decent vocabulary by listening to Danny Gallivan, Harvey Kirk and Lloyd Robertson. Being dyslectic and never able to read and write, I sure did not want to be found out illiterate so I needed a better vocabulary to cover.
“After Andrée ( my girlfriend) purchased my first computer at age 60, I stumbled across Mike’s pictures and words on hockeyinsideout.com eight years ago. I have had a profound love of hockey and our Habs all my life, so when I saw pictures of our Habs on HIO I tried very hard to read Mike’s words with the help of Andrée. It took hours every day, trying to pronounce and somewhat understand what each of his string of words put into sentence form meant.
“I knew when Andrée would read Mike’s sentences to me that he had a great passion for my game and he motivated me to keep working at reading them. I will never forget the thrill for me hitting the comment button on HIO with the very first written words of my life. I read Mike’s stories and posted every day. I am sure some did not make much sense, but many HIO members helped me daily with spelling and how to work on a computer without feeling too embarrassed. Mike’s words were put together each day in a way that I could extract the information at my level of comprehension.
“Every time he used a new word, I would grab my Webster and then I would try to use it in my next post on HIO. Often it did not fit and I was corrected by members. I do owe Mike for this wonderful gift he has given me of being able to communicate without my shyness being vivid. He is one hell of a writer who can with words paint the most wonderful pictures for readers, and I try to do the same. I am very pleased that Mike will be continuing on HIO with his live game blogs. He is a special man with a special gift. Thank you very kindly!”
Boone will be in the press box Saturday when the puck drops on a new season — along with The Gazette’s Dave Stubbs, Pat Hickey and Brenda Branswell — and you can follow his live game blog at hockeyinsideout.com.