What happened?

We are almost at the halfway point in the season and you know what that means... Time to review my beginning of the season predictions and gloat. Do I know my hockey or what: 1) Nathan MacKinnon will win the scoring championship if he stays healthy. In the top ten I expect to see Tavares, Stamkos, Mcdavid, Marner, Barzal, and Drouin. Is this the year somebody reaches 130 points again? Pretty sure by the end of the season Nate the great will win it all. Stammer got off to a slow start but he might be in the top ten soon. As for Barzal and Drouin they are prone to inconsistent play but they have had their moments. 2) I am not confident about the Norris. The wild card is Karlsson and how he fits in with San Jose and Brent Burns. One of them might win it. Subban and Hedman have a shot at it depending how their teams do. And then there is Rasmus Dahlin... I was right not to be confident and may be off on this one due to injuries. Subban and Hedman have been long term injured so they may not

Soon it will be October,  autumn has mysteriously crept upon us and of course this means the start of a brand new NHL Season. Here are my fourth annual absurd and bizarre but fundamentally insincere predictions for the 2018-2019 nhl season: 1) Nathan MacKinnon will win the scoring championship if he stays healthy. In the top ten I expect to see Tavares, Stamkos, Mcdavid, Marner, Barzal, and Drouin. Is this the year somebody reaches 130 points again? 2) I am not confident about the Norris. The wild card is Karlsson and how he fits in with San Jose and Brent Burns. One of them might win it. Subban and Hedman have a shot at it depending how their teams do. And then there is Rasmus Dahlin... 3) The Maurice Richard trophy will go either to Patrick Laine or John Tavares. Tavares is an underrated goal scorer and Marner may set him up on a constant basis. Laine is a natural and sooner or later gets on fire. Don’t be surprised if Pacioretty is in the top ten if not in the running. Kuc

I used to love going on business trips because my clients usually could afford to send me to a nice hotel. Well in the summer of 2001 I was making plans to visit a client in New York. Normally, I would spend a week visiting the client. We had decided that the best time was in early September probably the week after labor day since we would have a full work week. However, a few weeks later another client proposed we should visit them in Paris in early September. Since I had been to New York several times and never to Paris, my choice was made. Our Paris trip was planned for September 13. On September 11th, I was in Montreal walking down Mcgill College street going to the client to get my plane tickets to Paris. I went into the Indigo bookstore to have a coffee since I was early for the meeting. I heard people murmuring like did you see what happened but most other things did not register. I went for a walk outside and saw a crowd of people looking at tv sets inside the Planet Hollywood

It seems to me that virtually everyone wanted Max Pacioretty traded at the end of last season. This off-season there seems to be a rehabilitation of Max’s image and now it appears very few people want him traded. What has happened to change popular opinion especially since no games have been played? This change of direction could be attributed to several things. First, the trading of Alex Galchenyuk means that the only pure natural sniper left on the team is Pacioretty. Second, the long term injury of Shea Weber means there is a lack of veteran leadership on the team other than Price and Pacioretty. Third, Pacioretty changed agent and Allan Walsh knows the PR game inside-out. The fact that Walsh is the agent  for Jonathan Drouin means that the trading of Pacioretty could result in more team dissension. Fourth, the media maybe helped by Walsh has begun to sing the praises of Max. During the last season, Pacioretty’s anemic production, his lack of chemistry with Drouin, and his perimet

Well I have had a great summer except when I think of the miserable state of the habs franchise. At least my memories have not faded of better times like the spring of 1971. As the 1970 -1971 hockey playoffs got under way, people were grudgingly accepting the Beatles had really broken up (but for how long), Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were already dead, and Jim Morrison had a few months to live. In Quebec, the October 1970 crisis was over, James Cross survived but Pierre Laporte had been assassinated. Pierre Trudeau, Robert Bourassa and Jean Drapeau were our political leaders. Richard Nixon was waging secret bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia to bring about his peace with honor. Filming of the Godfather had begun and George C Scott had refused the Oscar for best actor for Patton the best movie that year.  Roberto Clemente was leading the Pirates to the World Series and he would be dead a year later. Kareem Abdul Jabbar was centering the Milwaukee Bucks to the NBA championship. Muham

                                                          Can you believe the rallying cry from supposed Habs fans and Bergevin loyalists is let’s be positive. As for whether the habs are transparent or not I have zero interest in this non-issue. I have even less interest in whether the players have a good or bad attitude. These are internal matters or media related matters that the casual fan doesn’t give a hoot about. If the team has a terrible season, it seems obvious to me that both media and fans will not be positive and want and expect improvements and change. Basta!  Seriously my beloved habs are in the dumpster and we should be positive? It’s like saying let’s be positive about a warm winter in Montreal, or coal making a comeback as a fossil fuel, or Trump negotiating free trade agreements.  No I am sad and really bloody enraged about the team I followed since I was a little kid. So please stop with this positive crap.  As other historic sports dynasties replenish like the Yank

I was expecting Galchenyuk to be traded last year. My assumption and of many others was that the habs were offered nothing of substance that could interest them. Likely what was offered was a second or third round pick like the habs got for Beaulieu. Anything better the habs would probably have jumped at the offer. Instead Bergevin signed him for three years, and obviously nowhere was there discussion of a no trade or no movement clause. I have never seen a more reluctant offer being made by the habs since the Subban debacle. So why did this third pick overall never pan out? His development or lack of development reminded me of another prospect of the habs that flamed out Guillaume Latendresse. The similarities were that the habs needed both of them to succeed at an accelerated pace. Latendresse was brought in as a scoring power forward and a francophone to boot. He never played a game in the AHL. Instead of a steady development and improvement in the NHL, Latendresse regressed seaso

I wrote my predictions for the NHL season last September. I decided not to use a crystal ball this season. Next year I will. However, I was dead on for a few. 1) Connor Mcdavid, Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon, and Jonathan Drouin will challenge for the Art Ross. Will they get 100 points? Every year I expect a 120 point season and it just doesn't happen. Well doggy I almost got it right. It was a hell of a scoring race and Kucherov and Giroux surprised. Mcdavid wins it again but MacKinnon should have probably won it if not for his late-season injury. Matthews was injured for too long a period to compete. As for Drouin I may have jumped the gun a little so as the Brooklyn Dodgers fans  would say 'Wait till next year'. By the way all my habs predictions were wrong. 2) I predict a 3 way fight for the Norris. My choices from last year are back in PK Subban and Victor Hedman. My surprise choice as the 3rd challenger is Shea Weber. PK might win it this time because Ellis wi

For Montrealers June 29th, 2016 will be fondly remembered  or utterly reviled by other fans as the day they traded PK. As another habs season sputters down to an embarrasing end,  maybe we should look at the trade from another perspective. What Montrealers probably forgot but Oilers fans surely remember was June 29th was the same day they traded Taylor Hall. In fact Subban and Hall were traded minutes apart. I want to try and look at this from another angle and wonder what if they had...traded PK for Taylor. I have to admit that other players would probably have been included in this scenario. For example, I could see Klefbom or Nurse added in the trade as the habs would need a defenceman after the loss of Subban. The Oilers may have asked for a draft choice or maybe a defensive minded defenceman like Emelin. Since their trades, Subban and Hall had a mediocre 2016-2017 regular season because of injury. Hall missed ten games and it took him awhile to get going on a team with few stars