Canadiens

oil king

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Wayne To Go: The 2024 Edmonton Oilers take to the ice tonight seeking to wrap up their first-round playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings, which is reason enough to visit with Wayne Gretzky in February of 1983 when Edmonton stopped at the Montreal Forum to play the Canadiens. Edmonton lost by a score of 2-4 that night, sorry to say, with Gretzky scoring both of his team’s goals, as confirmed by referee Bryan Lewis. Rick Wamsley was Montreal’s goaltender that night; the goals were  Gretzky’s 47th and 48th goals of the year. He finished with 71 in the regular season, scoring another 12 in the playoffs as the Oilers made it to the Finals, where they succumbed to the New York Islanders. (Image: Denis Courville, Fonds La Presse, BAnQ Vieux-Montréal)

stickside

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Et Le But: Vancouver Canucks goaltender Gary Smith can’t do it all on his own on the Thursday night of February 21, 1974 at the Forum, and so that’s Canadiens’ Murray Wilson scoring his team’s final goal in a game that ended 5-2 for Montreal: you can see the puck, just, behind the butt of Smith’s stick. Marooned behind the net, that’s Vancouver defenceman Bob Dailey, while Montreal’s Frank Mahovlich circles in the corner. The referee is Bob Kilger. (Image: René Picard, Fonds La Presse, BAnQ Vieux-Montréal)

montreal’s finest

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On The Beat: Yes, true, Pat Burns also coached the Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, and New Jersey Devils, but his first NHL job was with Montreal, who hired the former Gatineau police officer to steer the team in 1988. His Canadiens lost in the Stanley Cup final to the Calgary Flames that year; Burns did win a Cup with the Devils in 2003. Born on a Friday of yesterday’s date in Montreal in 1952, he’s the only coach in NHL history to have won the Jack Adams Trophy three times. He was elevated to the Hall of Fame in 2014. Pat Burns died at the age of 58 in 2010. (Image: Watercolour and graphite on paper by Serge Chapleau, 1990, McCord Museum)

rolling with the punches

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Some Three: Montreal’s mighty Punch Line featured Elmer Lach centring, as he is here, Maurice Richard and Toe Blake. The trio led the Canadiens to Stanley Cup championships in 1944 and 1946. In 1944-45, they topped the NHL regular-season scoring charts, with Lach (80 points) leading the way, followed by Richard (73) and Blake (67). Elmer Lach died on a Saturday of today’s date in 2015 at the age of 97.

on the fence

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Boards Meeting: Born on a Friday of this date in 1914 in Galt, Ontario — that’s Cambridge, today — Ray Getliffe was a steadfast winger in the NHL for a decade in the 1930s and ’40s, starting with the Boston Bruins, who subsequently sold him to the Montreal Canadiens in 1939. He won a Stanley Cup that year with Boston, then another with Montreal in ’44. This is a scene from March of 1945, when the Canadiens took on the Leafs in the playoffs. That’s a 30-year-old Getliffe pursuing the puck here, with Leaf (I think) Bob Davidson chasing him. The official on the boards is a linesman, I’m guessing, either Joe Springer or Stephen Meuris. Toronto went on to win the Cup, but on this night at Maple Leaf Gardens, Canadiens beat them 4-1. Funny story, though maybe not so much for Getliffe: Canadiens goaltender Bill Durnan had a shutout going before Getliffe tipped a shot from Toronto’s Babe Pratt into his own net while trying to hook Davidson’s stick. Davidson was credited with the goal. (Image: City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mail Fonds 1266, Item 95420)

there will be claret

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A birthday today for erstwhile battling Hall-of-Fame defenceman Ken Reardon, who was born in Winnipeg on a Friday of today’s prankish date in 1921. It was in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs in October of 1949 that he suffered the damage shown here. Leafs won the game 2-0, with Toronto centre Fleming Mackell stealing the puck from Reardon to score the winning goal in the third period. Previous to that, Reardon had incurred a five-minute first-period major for high-sticking Leaf defenceman Bill Juzda, drawing blood — or as the Montreal Star’s report classed it, “claret.” Later, when Toronto captain Ted Kennedy clubbed Reardon, cutting him and knocking a tooth free — no penalty. Star columnist Baz O’Meara had some thoughts on that, and the referee:

George Gravel is a personal friend of ours, but we never saw him clog up a game as much as he did last night. He was impartial with both sides in getting in the way of attacks. He missed out on the incident when Reardon lost a tooth and was nicked in the face. Kennedy, who is a bit careless with his butt ends, got away with that one. Kennedy gets away with a lot of things and he is one of the great lawyers of hockey. He never stops riding referees and Gravel took plenty from him.

We sat on the promenade last night and heard a lot of comment out on the ice. [Referee Bill] Chadwick would have given a few misconduct penalties to straighten things out, let the boys know there was a strong hand at the helm.

 

(Image: Fonds La Presse, BAnQ Vieux-Montréal)

battleground quebec

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Finish For A Forum Fracas: Montreal goaltender Steve Penney shakes on it with Quebec’s Dan Bouchard after the Canadiens eliminated the Nordiques from the playoff in a fight-filled game on Friday, April 20, 1984. (Image: Fonds La Presse, BAnQ Vieux-Montréal)

It was on Good Friday in 1984 that the Montreal Canadiens ousted the Quebec Nordiques from the Stanley Cup playoffs in the decisive game of their Adams Division final with a 5-3 Montreal win that sealed the series 4-2. But no-one was talking hockey by the time that brawl-bent game was over. There were fights upon fights that night in a game that’s remembered as the Good Friday Massacre, blood and injuries — in the case of Montreal defenceman Jean Hamel, an eye injury that marked the beginning of the end of his career, suffered when Quebec winger Louis Sleigher punched him in the eye, knocking him unconscious. Roundly criticized for losing control of the game, referee Bruce Hood called 252 minutes in penalties and ejected ten players on the night.

“Shame,” Gazette columnist Michael Farber wrote the next day, sparing neither team when it came to laying blame for the violence. “There are two sides to the tale but only one conclusion: the sport was desecrated by players all too willing to reduce it to its lowest common denominator. They took the national sport and trashed it.”

bobby schmautz, 1978: that’s the fourth biggest thing that’s happened in my life

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On the Saturday night, Boston right winger Bobby Schmautz punched Montreal’s Larry Robinson at the Forum, and was punched. Sunday, Schmautz scored a hattrick against the Detroit Red Wings in a 7-3 Bruins win at the Boston Garden.

“Maybe that beating I took from Robby did some good,” Schmautz told reporters, asked about the link between the scoring and the fighting. “Maybe it knocked the cobwebs out of my system.”

Schmautz, who played 16 seasons in the NHL, was born in Saskatoon on a Wednesday of today’s date in 1945. He died on his birthday in 2021, which was a Sunday. He was 76.

He was mostly a Boston Bruin, for whom he was pugnacious and productive, racking up five consecutive 20-goal seasons. His best offensive year, however, was with the Vancouver Canucks, in 1972-73, when he scored 38 goals and 71 points.

The night Schmautz tangled with Montreal’s Larry Robinson, above, was in October of 1975. Canadiens won the game at the Forum by a score of 6-2. This third-period fight sparked a bench-clearing brawl. “It was an unfortunate incident,” Tom Fitzgerald wrote in the Boston Globe, “that did nothing to erase the image of Neanderthal shenanigans the NHL is offering over television as well as to the rinkside crowds.” NHL President Clarence Campbell was at the game and was seen to be taking notes. “Approached near the dressing area,” Fitzgerald reported, “Campbell declined any detailed comment, responding, ‘Yes, there have been too many of these things this year.’”

Three-and-a-half years later, in May of 1978, Boston and Montreal met in the Stanley Cup Final. Montreal prevailed, in six games, but Schmautz did have a memorable night before it was all over, scoring the overtime goal in Game Four at the Boston Garden that sealed a 4-3 Bruin win and kept the team’s hopes alive. Larry Robinson was coming for him, as it happens, as Schmautz took a pass from Gregg Sheppard and beat Montreal goaltender Ken Dryden.

“The fourth biggest thing that’s happened in my life,” Schmautz, then 33, rated the goal in the aftermath. “I mean, I married my wife, that’s one. I had my two children, that’s two and three. I mean my wife had my two children. I mean … you know what I mean. That’s the fourth biggest thing that’s happened in my life.”

 

(Image: Fonds La Presse, BAnQ Vieux-Montréal)

paul masnick, 1931—2024

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The farm system seeded by Canadiens GM Frank Selke in the later 1940s began to bear fruit in the early 1950s. In 1953, it yielded a Stanley Cup, the first of six he’d win with Montreal. Today’s sad news is that the last surviving member of that ’53 Montreal team died earlier this week: the former centre Paul Masnick, pictured above on the left, was 92.

Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1931, he played junior for his hometown Pats before joining Montreal in 1950. That’s Selke pictured here, above, sitting in a grove of his recruits in a photograph dating to (at a reasonable guess) the start of that championship ’52-’53 season, which would put all four players at 21 or 22. Arrayed here with Masnick are fellow centremen Reg Abbott and Jean Béliveau with left winger Dickie Moore rounding out the group. Selke, Masnick and Moore got their names etched on the Cup that year; Abbott and Béliveau weren’t so fortunate. Each of those two skated in three regular-season games but neither one saw any ice in the playoffs. Abbott’s statistics were and remain blanks — he failed register a goal or assist, incurred no penalty minutes — and he never played another NHL game. For his part, Béliveau, scored five goals in his three games, launching a career that nobody has to be reminded to celebrate. Masnick played in half of Montreal’s 12 playoff games that year, scoring a single goal against the Boston Bruins in game three of the Final, a 3-0 Montreal win.

Masnick played in parts of five seasons for Montreal. His best offensive numbers came in the regular season of 1953-54, when he scored five goals and 26 points, which was one more than Elmer Lach got that year, and eight behind Béliveau. Masnick went on to play for the Chicago Black Hawks and Toronto Maple Leafs. After playing his last NHL game in 1958, he continued on in the WHL and IHL, skating for the Saskatoon Quakers, Victoria Cougars, and St. Paul Fighting Saints, among other teams.

(Image: Weekend Magazine/ Louis Jaques/ Library and Archives Canada/ e002505710)

tale of the tigers

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Eyes On The Tigers: The challengers from Calgary endure the Montreal snow in March of 1924. They are, in the back row, from left to right,  Lloyd Turner (owner and coach), Rosie Helmer (trainer). Middle:  Bobby Benson, Bernie Morris, Rusty Crawford, Charlie Reid, Herb Gardiner. Front: Ernie Anderson, Red Dutton, Cully Wilson, Harry Oliver, Eddie Oatman.

“Canadiens Now World Champions In All Reality,” the headline in the Montreal Daily Star read, and it was true, and real: a century ago, on a Tuesday of this date in 1924, the Montreal Canadiens did claim the club’s second Stanley Cup championship, their first of the NHL era. They did so with a potent roster that included Howie Morenz, Georges Vézina, and the Cleghorn brothers, Odie and Sprague.

Their opponents in the finals were the Calgary Tigers, champions of the WCHL, who iced an impressive line-up of their own. Owned and coached by Lloyd Turner, the team featured a defence anchored by Herb Gardiner, who’d soon enough end up a Canadien himself, and the redoubtable Red Dutton, the future (interim) president of the NHL. At forward they counted on Bernie Morris, the former Seattle Met who missed the foreshortened 1919 Stanley Cup finals due to having been jailed at Alcatraz by the U.S. Army for evading the draft, and Harry Oliver, who was destined for the Boston Bruins. They also counted on veterans Rusty Crawford, Cully Wilson, and Eddie Oatman, Cup-winners all. Spare defenceman Bobby Benson had won a gold medal at the 1920 Olympics as a member of the Winnipeg Falcons.

Cup Champions: The 1924 Canadiens lined up (from left) captain Sprague Cleghorn, Sylvio Mantha, Aurèle Joliat, Leo Dandurand (manager), Howie Morenz, Eddie Dufour (trainer), Billy Boucher, Billy Coutu, Odie Cleghorn, Georges Vézina. Malone retired midway through the season and didn’t participate in the playoffs or championship final; his name was not engraved on the Cup.

Canadiens finished second to the Ottawa Senators in the final NHL standings that year, but then beat Ottawa in a two-game series to move on. They next had to deal with the PCHA Vancouver Maroons, who featured Frank Boucher, Helge Bostrom, and Hughie Lehman in their line-up. Having beaten them in a two-game series in Montreal, the Canadiens went on to dispense with the Tigers in a two-game sweep, beating them 6-1 at the Mount Royal Arena on March 22 and then wrapping up the Cup with a 3-0 win three days later.

The decisive game was actually played in Ottawa, at the Auditorium, due to the softening of the ice in Montreal. Art Ross was the referee on the night, and Morenz distinguished himself by scoring the game’s winning goal. He also got into a bad collision with Red Dutton, which sent him to hospital in the second period with an injured chest and torn ligaments in his shoulder.

“We are naturally disappointed in losing out in the final series,” Turner said, “but we have no complaints to make. Canadiens have a fine team. We hope in time that we will gather together a team which will come down east and lift the Stanley Cup. We’ll do it eventually. We’re not going to lose heart because of the setbacks we have received.”

The Tigers caught a train headed west, though they got off in Winnipeg on the way home, stopping off to cheer on the junior Calgary Canadians as they played the Owen Sound Greys for the Memorial Cup. Like the Tigers, the Canadians fell at the finish, losing their two-game series to the team from Ontario.

The two vanquished teams stepped off the train in Calgary on the evening of Sunday, March 30, where they were met (as the Calgary Herald noted) “a great mass of enthusiastic sport fans who appeared in a highly excited mood.”

The Herald thought the Tigers should have beaten the Habs but allowed that the Montrealers were a game bunch who showed “indomitable spirit” in their victory. In the youngsters Morenz and Joliat, the western paper added, Canadiens had two rising stars. That’s not to say that the Herald didn’t have a finger to wag. Several fingers, actually:

While Morenz displayed a flashier style in dashing speed and clever stick-work, Joliat proved to the hockey world that he is a youth of wonderful hockey brain power, supported by a wealth of speed, clever stick play, and an accurate shot. He is the ideal looking hockey performer, probably a trifle too “cocky” and somewhat disposed to “grandstand” his stuff.

Morenz and Joliat are both too eager to create trouble with small, scrappy tactics that spoilt herm as finished products. It may be that this habit has grown on them in their ambitious spurt to prominence in Montreal hockey circles. Experience will modify their conduct, no doubt, and when purged of these habits they should blossom forth as great lights in the hockey orbit.

 

 

(Images, top and bottom: Courtesy of Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary)