In praise of short hockey people

-
I am getting a little tired of people attacking David Deharnais because he is vertically challenged. Should I remind people how many great athletes have been short. Anyone heard of Diego Maradona? What about this year's MLS MVP Sebastian Giovinco. Fine you say these are not hockey players. Well Martin St Louis was real short. In the past there was Lou Angotti and Bobby Sheehan who were as tall as DD. Denis Savard was not that tall and that was one of the main reasons the habs took Doug Wickenheiser instead as their first pick in the NHL draft. Slightly taller than DD are the likes of Patrick Kane, Johnny Gaudreau, Brendan Gallagher, Brad Marchand and  even Sid the kid.



I think DD is having a real good year and has been probably the most consistent hab forward. I was dismayed when I heard the same negative ranting recently against DD on morning radio. He is not a number one center, the team would be much better if Galchenyuk played all the time blah blah blah. Are these people actually watching the games?  Twitter is not much better when it comes to DD. Since it is twitter the tweets are much nastier where DD is ridiculed as a runt who gets pushed around by real men that are tall and built. Another example of someone who was carelessly waived because of his height is Paul Byron. He has added a much needed energy burst on the fourth line and on the pk.

The habs have been vertically challenged for a long time. In the 60's the habs won 4 cups with smurf forwards  like Dick Duff, Yvan Cournoyer, Ralph Backstrom, and Gilles Tremblay. In the 70's the habs had small players like Pierre Mondou, Doug Riseborough and Rejean Houle. Anyone remember Saku Koivu? 




Going back to Sebastian Giovinco he fled Italy because he was benched terminally by Juventus. He had been loaned to another Italian team several years back and scored consistently. Juventus took him back and decided to play him 5 minutes a game or just keep him benched. I could only assume that his height had something to do with it. He was given a chance to play in MLS this year and his talent was unleashed for all to see. 

I think the issue has been in the past that there were too many small forwards with the habs. This is not the case with the present day habs. They have a good mixture of big and small players. Quit picking on DD's height.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The week that wasn’t for habs fans

-
Image
What were habs management thinking? Habs fans were expecting a big splash this week after two years of misery. They listened when PLD said it was the habs or bust, the invisible enigma Michkov finally appeared and Hughes actually met him. Habs fans were salivating and had hope. Maybe the habs could finally compete goal for goal with the elite teams and elite players in the league. Well, Hughes and Gorton sure put the breaks on the fans delirium. No no no they were slowly building the back-end. What they forgot is sports is an entertainment industry and fans want to be excited and dream of the future even if some of the expectations will never happen.  The week that wasn’t started with the PLD theatrics. The sports pundits hammed it up as they proclaimed a bidding war between the kings and habs for the services of the quebecois. In the end the big winners were the Jets and PLD. The Jets squeezed the most out of the kings being put in an impossible negotiating position. PLD got the money
Read more

60 years later

-
Image
The new cottage industry for journalists is writing books about Trump. These so called expose and politically sanctimonious books become a surefire bestseller and a profitable venture. Previous to this but still viable as a money maker are the so-called researchers who have come up with a myriad of conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination.  How many thousands of books have been written about the whodunit  JFK assassination and the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Does anyone really care about this after 60 years to write a new book without a profit motive being involved. Athletes sell their memorabilia to leave to their grandkids, witnesses and researchers of the JFK assassination seem to write books to pad their retirement account. Which brings us to Paul Landis and his new revelations after 60 years. Seriously. 60 years. One unique thing about Landis is that he did quit the Secret Service 6 months after the assassination so he did not follow the path of others who stayed lo
Read more

Statement Game

-
Image
Statement games are important. The Canadiens victory over the Bruins a few weeks ago was just that. It was a tooth and nail game where the habs did not give an inch. Unlike the recent past,  Deslauriers fought Miller to a draw in a lively fight. Finally, even though the habs gave up a late goal due to a brain-dead penalty, they came back in overtime. This victory let the habs get back in the playoff picture. This habs team has confidence or attitude or whatever way you want to define it. It reminded me a lot of the 83-84 habs. That year, the habs had a subpar year barely making the playoffs. They had poor goaltending with the likes of Richard Sevigny and Rick Wamsley. There was a changing of the guard as Guy Carbonneau, Mats Naslund, Bobby Smith, and Chris Chelios began to take up leadership roles. The habs had also their version of Andrew Hammond as Steve Penney joined the team late in the season. Even though the team had a poor season, late in the year they played the bruins an
Read more