Montreal Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens (French: Les Canadiens de Montréal) are a professional men's ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The club is officially known as Le Club de Hockey Canadien. French nicknames for the team include Les Canadiens, Le Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, La Sainte-Flanelle, Le Tricolore, Les Glorieux, Les Habitants and Le Grand Club. In English, the main nickname is the Habs (coming from "Les Habitants").
The Canadiens are one of the 'Original Six' teams – that is, the teams of the NHL just prior to the expansion of the league in 1967. They have won more Stanley Cups (24, the first in 1916, before the NHL existed, and the last in 1993) than any other NHL team. On a percentage basis, as of 2006 this made them historically the third most successful major professional sports team in North America, having won 25% of all NHL/NHA Stanley Cup championships. Only the Boston Celtics of the NBA (26.2%) and the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (25.2%) have higher success rates.
The Canadiens play their home games at the Bell Centre, which was previously named the Molson Centre up until 2003. Former homes of the team include Jubilee Rink, Montreal Westmount Arena, Mount Royal Arena and the famous Montreal Forum. The Forum was considered a veritable shrine to hockey fans everywhere, and housed the team for seven decades and all but two of their Stanley Cup championships.
The team's Championship season in 1992-93 still marks the last time that a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup, in a current span of thirteen seasons (fourteen years, due to the NHL lockout season):

Franchise history

Founded in 1909, eight years before the founding of the NHL, the Canadiens are the oldest continuously operating club in the league

1910-17: Before the National Hockey League
Before there was an NHL, there was a Montreal Canadiens team. They were founded on December 4, 1909 as a charter member of the league's forerunner, the National Hockey Association (NHA). The league's founder, Renfrew mining tycoon Ambrose O'Brien had his Renfrew ice hockey team turned down for membership in the new CHA along with the Montreal Wanderers, run by Jimmy Gardner. Together they conceived the idea of forming a new league, the NHA. Mr. Gardner sold Mr. O'Brien on the idea of a team of French-Canadian players to create a natural rivalry with the Montreal Shamrocks and the Wanderers. Mr. Gardiner suggested that Mr. O'Brien name the team the 'Canadiens'. Les Canadiens played their first game on January 5, 1910, coached by Jack Laviolette.
After that first season, George Kennedy, owner of the "Club Athlétique Canadien" founded a year earlier, claimed rights to the Canadiens name. To settle the dispute, a complex deal was worked out in the spring of 1910. Les Canadiens suspended operations for the 1910-11 NHA season (the franchise rights were taken over a year later by the Toronto Blueshirts), while Kennedy's team joined the NHA as its second Montreal franchise and assumed the Montreal Canadiens name (the Shamrocks had folded after the season). Kennedy took over the franchise rights of the Haileybury Hockey Club. The Haileybury team had also been owned by O'Brien, but folded after the season when it became obvious that the mining town was too small to support a big-league hockey team; the remains of the club were sold to Kennedy as part of the deal with O'Brien. To this day, however, the Canadiens claim descent from the original "Les Canadiens" franchise.
The 1914-15 NHA season was the Canadiens' first in their famous red sweaters with a blue stripe across the middle and a red "C" inside the stripe. The only difference between these uniforms and today's was that the "C" was interlocked with an "A." However, the team had been wearing red sweaters since the 1910-11 season. In 1916 the Canadiens beat the Portland Rosebuds of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association to win their first Stanley Cup, and they returned to the finals the following season, only to lose to the Seattle Metropolitans. The next year, the Canadiens changed their corporate name to the present "Club de Hockey Canadien", and adopted the first version of their current logo (which stands for "Club de Hockey").

1917-32: The Early National Hockey League
The Canadiens and four other NHA teams pulled out of the NHA to form the NHL in 1917. This stemmed from a long-running dispute with Toronto Blueshirts owner Eddie Livingstone. Kennedy and his allies had the votes to throw Livingstone out of the league, but rather than risk a long court battle, they simply created a new league and left Livingstone in the NHA all by himself. Kennedy was the dominant force in the new NHL; he not only controlled the Canadiens but had loaned Tommy Gorman the money he needed to purchase the then-troubled Ottawa Senators. They moved out of the Jubilee Rink to share the Montreal Arena with the Wanderers, only to return to Jubilee after the Montreal Arena burned down in January 1918. During this season, Joe Malone scored 44 goals--a record that would last for 27 years. Longtime goaltender Georges Vezina notched the league's first shutout, blanking Toronto 9-0 on February 18, 1918. They won the first half of the regular season, qualifying for the playoffs against Toronto, but lost the playoff in what would be the first of many playoff battles with the team that would later become the Maple Leafs.
The next year, they once again faced Seattle for the Stanley Cup, but tragedy struck with the series tied at two games apiece. Seattle was struck by the worldwide Spanish flu pandemic, and many players on both teams fell sick. On the day of the deciding fifth game, nearly every player on the Canadiens was either hospitalized or confined to bed. With most of his other players either overseas or frozen in critical jobs due to World War I, Kennedy could not find any replacements
PCHA president Frank Patrick vetoed a request to use players from the Victoria Cougars. The last game was canceled, and Kennedy then offered to forfeit the series--and the Cup--to the Metropolitans. However, Seattle coach Pete Muldoon felt it wouldn't be fair to accept the victory under the circumstances. As a result, the 1919 series is officially listed as a no-decision. The Canadiens went through a series of troubles after the series. Player-coach Newsy Lalonde was sick for over a month after the series, and star forward Joe Hall died five days after the series was abandoned. In the Summer of 1919, the Canadiens' home Jubilee Rink burned down, and they had to build Mount Royal Arena as a replacement. The team also lost their star player Malone, who had been on loan from the dormant Quebec Bulldogs. That team returned to the ice in 1919-20. Kennedy died in 1921; he had never recovered from the 1919 flu bug. His widow sold the team to Leo Dandurand, former player Joseph Cattarinich and Louis A. Letourneau.
With rookie Howie Morenz completing a line between Aurel Joliat and Billy Boucher, the Canadiens once again reached the top in 1924, defeating both the Calgary Tigers (of the Western Canada Hockey League) and the Vancouver Maroons (of the PCHA) in a convoluted playoff format. In 1925, the Habs lost to the Victoria Cougars (now the Detroit Red Wings) in the last year of the old Western Hockey League challenging for the Stanley Cup. The Canadiens lost Vezina to tuberculosis in late 1925, and finished last in the league. The following season, the Canadiens signed a suitable replacement in George Hainsworth, who would win the newly created Vezina Trophy, which was awarded to the goalie who allowed the fewest goals scored. Hainsworth would be the winner of that prize for the next few years.
The 1926-27 season was the Canadiens' first in the Montreal Forum. They moved there full-time due to constant problems getting acceptable ice at the Mount Royal Arena.
Generally, however, the Habs stumbled in the playoffs until they won their third Stanley Cup in 1930, defeating the seemingly invincible Boston Bruins (who had lost a mere six games in a 44-game schedule). The "Flying Frenchmen" once again beat the regular-season champion Bruins in the 1931 playoffs, then beat the Ottawa Senators and Chicago Black Hawks to win their fourth Cup.

1932-67: The end of Morenz and the Original Six
The Canadiens' stars (Morenz and Joliat) faded out in the early 1930s, and they had the worst record in the league by the 1935-36 NHL season. Stunned by such a horrible performance, the NHL gave the Habs rights to all French Canadian players for two years. They had the second-best record in the NHL in 1936-37, but were stunned by the death of Morenz on March 8, 1937 at the age of only 34. On January 28, 1937 Morenz suffered multiple fractures of his leg from a hit by Earl Seibert of the Blackhawks, and developed blood clots in his fractured leg which led to a stroke.
The Canadiens were once again mired in mediocrity for several more seasons. The low point came in 1939-40, with a horrendous 10-win season--still the worst in franchise history. This led to talk that the Canadiens might fold. An unlikely saviour arrived in the form of Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe. The Depression had already claimed several teams, and Smythe felt that the league might not have been able to survive the loss of its oldest franchise. He persuaded the Canadian Arena Company, which had bought the Canadiens in 1935, to hire Leafs coach Dick Irvin, who had taken the Leafs to the finals six times in eight years.
Irvin didn't take long to turn the Canadiens around. His efforts bore fruit when, led by the "Punch Line" of Maurice "Rocket" Richard, Toe Blake and Elmer Lach, the Habs lifted the Cup again in 1944 after losing only five games in the regular season. The sophomore Richard proved he was not "small, fragile and too brittle for the National Hockey League", as GM Tommy Gorman, after Richard's rookie year, concernedly voiced. If anything, he was Morenz's successor as one of hockey's preeminent superstars. Like Morenz, Richard was a great goal-scoring forward — and both Richard and Morenz were quite physical. Richard, in fact, became the first NHL player to hit 1000 career penalty minutes.
In 1945, Richard made NHL history by becoming the first player to score 50 goals in one season, reaching the mark on the final night of the season — 50 goals in 50 games. Despite their power, the Habs lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the semi-finals. The team was to be invigorated in the 1946 playoffs, winning their sixth Stanley Cup. But in 1947, despite Rocket Richard winning the Hart Memorial Trophy as NHL Most Valuable Player, the Habs lost in the Stanley Cup Final against the nemesis Maple Leafs.
In 1957, brothers Tom and Hartland Molson, owners of the Molson brewery, purchased the team. The 1950s were by far the most successful decade for the Canadiens, and it is believed by many that the Habs of this era were the best team in NHL history. Between 1951 and 1960, the Canadiens made the finals every year, winning six times (including a record five straight between 1956 and 1960). Toe Blake succeeded Irvin as coach in 1955, and they added more of the league's great players such as Jean Beliveau (nicknamed Le Gros Bill), Dickie "Digger" Moore, Doug Harvey, Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, goalie Jacques Plante (who, in 1959, became the first goalie to regularly wear a mask on November 1 in a 3-1 win at the New York Rangers, but not without some resistance, even from coach Toe Blake), "Rocket" Richard, and his younger brother, Henri, who became known as the "Pocket Rocket" — many thought the Habs were merely placating the elder Richard when his brother was signed.
Montreal fell into a state of unbridled love, if not obsession, with the Habs team. At no time was this more evident than when Rocket Richard was suspended for the rest of the season on March 13, 1955, for assaulting an official in the aftermath of a stick fight in a game against the Bruins. Montrealers rioted in the streets at the following game (on March 17, at home versus the Detroit Red Wings), causing millions of dollars in damage. The Canadiens had to forfeit the game, and went on to lose in the finals to the Red Wings. The previous year, the Habs had also fallen at the hands of the Red Wings, when Harvey (considered one of the best defencemen of all time) redirected a clearing attempt by the Red Wings' Tony Leswick into the Montreal net past Canadiens goalie Gerry McNeil. In 1956 the Canadiens established a "farm team" in Peterborough, Ontario, now the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League.
Despite Rocket Richard's retirement in 1960, the Canadiens looked ready to win yet another, a sixth straight Cup in 1961; but they were stunned in the playoffs by the Chicago Blackhawks (who eventually won the Stanley Cup behind the goal-producing genius of left-winger Bobby Hull) in the semi-finals. The Canadiens continued to suffer (relative) playoff frustration until they won the Cup again in 1965, in Yvan Cournoyer's rookie season, and repeated in 1966.

1967-86: Expansion era

Canada's centennial year of 1967 was momentous for the country, and more importantly for the city of Montreal. A world's fair, Expo 67, was held in Montreal, and the Canadiens had promised to deliver the Stanley Cup to the Quebec Pavilion of the Canadian Showcase. The Stanley Cup final that year pitted the Canadiens against the Maple Leafs. Montreal was an overwhelming favorite, especially since Toronto featured two 30+-year-old goaltenders, Terry Sawchuk and Johnny Bower. However, the Leafs won in an upset, and instead of displaying the Cup in the Quebec Pavilion, the Habs had to watch the Leafs parade the Cup in downtown Toronto.
The Leafs have never been to the final since then, and with expansion in 1968, the Canadiens handily defeated the fledgling St. Louis Blues in the finals during each of the next two seasons. The Canadiens missed out on a playoff spot in 1970 on the final day of the regular season, thanks to a tiebreaker. Entering the final games of the season, the Canadiens held a two point lead over the New York Rangers, plus a 242-237 edge in goals scored. The Rangers played their last regular season game first, and beat the Detroit Red Wings 9-5 to pull even in points and take a 246-242 goal lead. This led to an unusual incident in which, since the Canadiens would make the playoffs if they scored five or more goals in their final game regardless of the outcome, Montreal coach Claude Ruel pulled his goaltender with eight minutes remaining against the Black Hawks with Chicago leading 5-2. Chicago tallied five empty net goals, but Montreal failed to score again. Since Toronto missed out as well, it meant both the only time in NHL history no Canadian teams made the playoffs, as well as the only time between 1948 and 1995 that Montreal missed the playoffs — an unprecedented stretch of nearly 50 seasons.
Quickly, though, the Habs got back to their winning ways in 1971, defeating the Black Hawks to capture yet another Stanley Cup in goalie Ken Dryden's rookie season (starting a career where he would average an astonishing two goals allowed per game), in addition to long-time Leafs' star Frank Mahovlich's first in a Canadiens uniform. After 1969-70, captain Jean Beliveau, who retired in 1971, had only stayed on for the one last season at the insistence of General Manager Sam Pollock, who knew there had to be a veteran leader in Montreal.
Dryden had only played six regular-season games in '70-'71, but Al MacNeil, who had replaced Ruel midway through the season, made what was considered a wise choice in sticking with Dryden -- who had had a perfect record in those six games and a 1.65 GAA -- as the Habs dispatched the mighty Bruins in the first round. Despite his Cup triumph, MacNeil resigned amidst accusations that he showed favourtism toward the Habs' English-speaking players, including an ongoing dispute with Henri Richard. He was replaced by St. Louis Blues coach and Montreal native Scotty Bowman.
After losing in the quarter-finals to the New York Rangers in 1972 (Guy Lafleur's rookie season as well as Dryden's official one), they would once again win the Cup over Chicago in 1973.
Dryden would sit out the season in a contract dispute, although the official line was that he was completing his law degree. The Canadiens were upset by the Rangers in the first round in 1974, and would lose out to the Buffalo Sabres in the semi-finals in 1975. Henri Richard retired after that season, ending 33 consecutive seasons of a Richard being on the Habs roster.
In 1976, under the leadership of head coach Scotty Bowman, they went on to win the Cup again, thwarting the Philadelphia Flyers' hopes for a third consecutive championship. The series was widely hailed as a victory for skilled play over the thuggish tactics of the "Broad Street Bullies". The team was led by Lafleur (who was in the midst of six straight 50-goal seasons, the league's first ever six-consecutive-time 50-goal and 100-point scorer), Cournoyer, Dryden, Frank Mahovlich's brother Pete, Steve Shutt, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe and Larry Robinson (the last three of whom a powerful triumvirate of All-Star defencemen dubbed "The Big Three"). In 1976-77 the Canadiens would set a modern-day record by only losing eight games in an 80-game season. The Canadiens would then go on to win three more consecutive Cups to close out the 1970s. Bowman left the team after the fourth consecutive Cup triumph. Earlier in the decade, he'd been promised the general manager's post when Sam Pollock retired, but the Molsons went back on their word.
The Canadiens nearly scuttled the deal between the NHL and World Hockey Association, in which four WHA teams--the Hartford Whalers (now the Carolina Hurricanes), Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques (now the Colorado Avalanche) and Winnipeg Jets (now Phoenix Coyotes)--were due to join the NHL. The Canadiens, along with the NHL's other two Canadian teams (the Leafs and Vancouver Canucks) were not pleased at the prospect of splitting television revenue with three new teams. However, when word got out that Molson was standing in the way of Edmonton, Quebec City and Winnipeg joining the NHL, consumers in those cities staged a massive boycott of Molson products. This forced the Habs to reverse themselves two weeks after the first vote and support the final deal.
Most of the Canadiens' best players were retired or traded by the early 1980s (the major exceptions being Bob Gainey, Robinson, and Lafleur). They would, however, pick up star Swedish left-winger Mats Naslund, as well as Guy Carbonneau in the early 1980s. By the 1985-86 NHL season, they once again had a top goalie in rookie Patrick Roy, and another All-Star in sophomore Chris Chelios, manning the blue line. Gainey, Carbonneau, Chelios, Naslund, Robinson and Roy would lead the Canadiens to their only Stanley Cup of the decade that season, defeating the Calgary Flames.

1986-present — The Modern NHL
The Montreal Canadiens won their league-leading 24th (and, to date, last) Stanley Cup against the Los Angeles Kings in 1993, during the 100th anniversary of the Stanley Cup. That playoff season, the Canadiens won an NHL-record 10 consecutive overtime games. They also tied an NHL-record by winning 11 consecutive games in one playoff year (the record is shared by the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks - both teams won 11 in a row the previous year).
But in 1995, the Canadiens missed the playoffs for the first time in 25 years, and only the third time in 54 years. In December of that year, when the Canadiens lost 11-1 at home to the Detroit Red Wings, then-head coach Mario Tremblay refused to pull Patrick Roy from the net until after the ninth goal, despite the goalie's repeated pleas. After he was pulled, Roy, approached then team president Ronald Corey and told him, "This is my last game in a Montreal Canadiens uniform." He was traded to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Colorado Avalanche along with Mike Keane for Jocelyn Thibault, Andrei Kovalenko, and Martin Rucinsky.
On March 11, 1996, the Canadiens defeated the Dallas Stars, 4-1 in the final game at the historic Montreal Forum. The final goal at the Forum was scored by Andrei Kovalenko. The Stars were chosen as the final Forum opponent because their captain, Guy Carbonneau, and their general manager, Bob Gainey, were both former Canadien captains. Following the game, a moving closing ceremony was held, in which each living Canadiens captain, wearing an up-to-date version of the uniform with his old number on it, passed a torch, the older one to the younger one: Butch Bouchard to Maurice Richard to Jean Beliveau to Henri Richard to Yvan Cournoyer to Serge Savard to Gainey to Carbonneau to Pierre Turgeon, the then-captain. (Three living former captains were unavailable because they were still active with other teams: Mike Keane with the Avalanche, Kirk Muller with the New York Islanders, and Chris Chelios with the Chicago Blackhawks).
The team moved into the new Molson Centre (renamed Bell Centre for 2003-04) the following Saturday, defeating the New York Rangers, 4-2. However, the Canadiens missed the playoffs three straight seasons between 1999 and 2001. There was even brief talk of the team moving, especially after American investor George N. Gillett Jr. was the only interested buyer when the Molson family sold the team in 2001. After no acceptable offers came from Canadian interests, the NHL allowed Gillett to buy the team, provided that he promise to keep it in Montreal until 2021.
In the fall of 2001, it was revealed that centre Saku Koivu, who had been with the team since 1995, had cancer and would miss the season. However, he came back to win the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for perservance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey, register two assists in the last three games and, along with the surprising strong play of goalie Jose Theodore (who won the Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award, Hart Trophy and Vezina Trophy that season), inspired the team for a run to the 2002 playoffs as the final seed in the Eastern Conference. They upset the Boston Bruins in the first round, before bowing to the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round.
On November 22, 2003, the Canadiens participated in the Heritage Classic, the first outdoor hockey game in the history of the NHL. The Canadiens defeated the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 in front of more than 55,000 fans — an NHL attendance record — at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton. The team seemed to turn a corner at that point, and finished the season in the 7th playoff seed in the Eastern Conference. The team would again play the Bruins in the playoffs, for a record 30th time. Coming back from a 3-1 deficit, the Canadiens won the final three games to again upset the Bruins. The Canadiens were swept away in second round by the eventual Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay Lightning.
On January 13, 2006, Claude Julien was fired as coach, and replaced on an interim basis by Bob Gainey, the team's general manager. Later on in the season, Montreal starting goalie Jose Theodore was traded to the Colorado Avalanche after numerous disappointing starts, in return for goalie David Aebischer. The Canadiens narrowly made the playoffs, but lost in 6 games to the eventual champion Carolina Hurricanes.
In the 2006-07 NHL season, Guy Carbonneau took over as head coach of the team.
In December 2006, as the founder of the Montreal Canadiens, John Ambrose O'Brien was an inaugural inductee in the team's newly created 'Builders Row' in the Bell Centre. As well, the team inducted special advisor William Northey, former team president Donat Raymond and former owners Leo Dandurand, Joseph Cattarinich, Louis A. Letourneau and Senator Hartland de Montarville Molson.

The near future and beyond
A major announcement about the one hundred year anniversary of Les Habs was made on October 2, 2005. On October 15 of that year, to begin the Montreal Canadiens Centennial countdown, it was announced that three more jersey numbers would be retired — Dickie Moore's and Yvan Cournoyer's number 12 on November 12 before their game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the number 5 worn by Bernard "Boom Boom" Geoffrion on March 11, 2006 prior to their contest against the New York Rangers, the other team he played for after a two-year retirement — the first since moving from "The Forum" during a "Legends Night" ceremony, with one additional number to be hoisted to the rafters in each of the three following seasons. Sadly, Geoffrion would die on the very day his number was to be retired.
On September 23, 2006, the Montreal Canadiens announced the retirement of number 18 for Serge Savard, on November 18, 2006, and number 29 for Ken Dryden, on January 29, 2007. On September 5, 2007, the Canadiens announced the retirement of number 19 for Larry Robinson, on November 19, 2007, and number 23 for Bob Gainey, on February 23, 2008. The Canadiens also announced ambitious plans for their Centennial year of 2008-09, including plans to bid on hosting the World Junior Hockey Championships (which were since awarded to Ottawa), the NHL All-Star Game (which they were awarded) and the NHL Draft. On January 23, 2007, it was announced that the 2009 NHL All-Star Game would indeed be held in Montreal. The team's management has pledged to be a Stanley Cup contender in time for 2009.


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