Even in death, Jean Béliveau has a lot to teach us
Sportswriters are hell on sinners. We don’t fare so well with saints. Maybe that’s because we get so little practice.
On a daily basis, we have to write about a rogue’s gallery from the world of sports: Jeffrey Loria, Lance Armstrong, Don King, Roger Goodell, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Donald Sterling — a list as long as the devil’s right arm. Line ’ em up and sharpen your typewriters.
The saints? I would personally vouch for Clara Hughes, Otis Grant, Saku Koivu, Anthony Calvillo, Ben Cahoon and the late Jean Béliveau. Beyond those few, I wouldn’t venture very far. There is no shortage of athletes out there who can throw a baseball 100 miles an hour, catch a slapshot in their teeth or dunk a basketball between their knees — but as human beings, well, you wouldn’t want your child to emulate any of them.
Just this weekend, the Nationals’ arrogant, abrasive young star Bryce Harper angered Washington fans when he failed to appear at an annual fan festival because he’s seeking to void the final season of the five- year, $ 9.9- million US contract he signed when he was drafted. Imagine Jean Béliveau in either part of that equation: stiffing the fans or seeking to void a contract he signed. Wouldn’t happen.
Part of it is the money, which has created a great gulf between players and fans. When you see a Maxim Lapierre ( think Bryce Harper, but with less talent) strutting around his mega- home for the cameras, you realize how far we’ve come since one of the greatest players in the game was content to live in a modest home in Longueuil, where he would spend most of his life.
Béliveau, obviously, was different, even in his own time. The degree to which he differed from your average athlete was so vast that we quickly run out of adjectives attempting to explain it. In the wake of his death, you could sense journalists straining to live up to the man. There was some good writing, and some utter twaddle, and much that was somewhere in between. But by the time of his beautiful, moving funeral, it had reached the point where I was hoping for a little silence, so that we could contemplate the man — what he was, what he accomplished, what his legacy should be.
For the Canadiens as an organization, that legacy is obvious. Under Geoff Molson’s leadership, it is being fulfilled, for the most part. It’s thrilling to see Brendan Gallagher, Alex Galchenyuk, Sven Andrighetto and Jiri Sekac, not one of them over 22 years of age, pick up the torch — but it’s off the ice that the club really excels, taking seriously the organization’s unparalleled role in the community and doing its best to fulfill that role.
In a very real way, the Canadiens are a sacred trust. They mean more to this city than any other hockey team in any other city. There was a time in the mid1970s when the Canadiens were one of the very slender threads holding this country together. No matter which side we were on in the neverendum, we could always agree on the Canadiens. The guy sitting behind you in the stands at the Forum might bellow “envoyez, mon ti- Guy” while you shout “c’mon Guy, let’s go!” He might vote “oui,” while you said “no,” but you both wanted Guy Lafleur to work his magic. It might be impossible to quantify the team’s impact on the ballot box, but bonding over the Canadiens is part of our culture and part of our history.
The sacred trust is not for the club alone.
It also requires a certain level of behaviour from the fans and the media. Yes, that means we in the media — sportswriters, broadcasters, web jockeys — also need to fulfil our roles when it comes to covering this team. That does not mean uncritical, fawning coverage. There are only so many ways you can use words like “magnificent,” “awesome” and “unbelievable” before you lose all credibility.
For decades, the fans and media of this city have held the Canadiens to a higher standard. It’s part of the reason the Habs are not the Maple Leafs, part of the reason they have won 10 Stanley Cups ( as many as Béliveau won in his career) since Toronto held its last parade — but there are limits to the necessary scrutiny of this team.
Through the full week of Béliveau mourning, when we were all asking “what would Jean do?” in certain situations, I had to ask myself if I would approach the job as I did in the beginning, if I had it to do over again. The answer is no. Not that I wouldn’t have been critical when it was necessary — but I would have been more cautious, and perhaps more measured in the way I wrote certain columns or approached certain players. When it comes to scalawags and dope cheats ( Loria and Armstrong) the gloves have to come off. When it’s a player who is underperforming ( think Patrice Brisebois or Scott Gomez) or a coach who can’t get the job done ( Mario Tremblay) it’s probably better to use a dull scalpel.
If I had it to do over again, I would have sat down with Béliveau 20 years ago, before I began writing columns, and asked for his advice and I would have asked it again when the Canadiens were going through a rough patch and criticism was unavoidable. At the time, I would have worried that such a conversation would compromise my independence. Now, I think it would simply have given me a broader perspective and a way to point out weaknesses without going overboard.
Because that conversation is no longer possible, we will all have to ask ourselves the questions Béliveau might have asked. If we in the media need to take a hard look at ourselves, that is also true of the fans, from the Twitter trolls who pile on if you dare to disagree, to the hysterics who call for Michel Therrien’s head in the midst of a six- game winning streak, to the cretins who trash Ste- Catherine St. after a playoff series, win or lose. I can’t imagine the pain that must have caused Béliveau, to see his beloved Habs taken as an excuse to behave like a pillaging army.
We have to do better. We have to be better. For openers, in a dozen situations a day, large and small, we have to stop and ask ourselves the question that has resonated since the day a good man died: “What would Jean Béliveau do?”
It’s a question that, if it were asked often enough and in the right spirit, could transform a city.