Lister100

You never know with him, he'll hide it if he is hurt

They said he's back on the bench, hopefully he's alright

Begins back

Thats true, I guess some of those hits were charging calls.

Atlanta is finishing their hits and we're not. Hope we shake this off soon.

This is bad news

"doctors like to call this the 'steroid period' " Hahaha, Julian's got to start spiking that water bottle! Nothing says team commitment like steroid soup.

Contracts aside, Inconsistency, on a small scale, is present in practically all of our players. The only ones that play the same game every night are the little guys. But the reason we have to pay so much for inconsistent superstars is because the Montreal fanbase is too fickle for most elite players' tastes. The time to gripe on Theodore is before he signs a contract, after you're only hurting yourself. I mean look at Brisebois, yeah he was overpaid, but he could have done a lot more for us with our support. Instead we gave him a nervous breakdown and created a monster on defence. Agreed, Theo is probably overpaid and this long contract is also crazy, but he's not allowed to know what we think of him until next contract. Maybe he'll prove himself in between.

Dagenais doesn't have the weight for his size. I hope he has a year where he gains like 30 pounds of muscle. I was at the Ottawa preseason game where Ivanans took on McGratton. If he can take him on he'll take Chara on too. Ivanans threw some good punches and there is no way McGratton could claim a victory. It was a good draw. Chara got lucky in my opinion he connected the only hard punch in a very short fight and then fell over. If Ivanans had been more aggressive he could have landed more punches while Chara was lying on his back, but he tried to be honourable and the refs lifted Chara up into an excellent position to blast a second shot in Ivanans eye. This is where he got the eye injury, the first and only legitimate punch was to the mouth. Someone said this earlier and could see it being true and that is he lacks the killer instinct. In both the McGratton and Chara fight he looked like he was holding back and fighting for a draw. It worked with McGratton but usually it doesn't as was the case with Chara. Hopefully he will get angry soon, we have to train him to be angry. Good goons take time to be made. Look at Brashear, that guy was a pussy when he started but there aren't many that would fight him now. [Edited on 2005/10/12 by Lister100]

People get worked up so quickly. The third period was brutal for us. We came on the ice tired, probably because the penalties taken before. That tiredness cost us more penalties and the game. Chara's cutting Ivanans I think deflated us too even though in my opinion that fight isn't over. Chara has a reputation and Ivanans looked nervous and that gave the first punch to Chara. Now Ivanans knows that Chara has bad balance and is the kind of cheap loser to hit a guy being held on the groud by a referee. Next time Chara goes down! (ed) Theo is awesome and only needs a bit of time like all the vets. Were going to have to be patient with Souray, Bonk, Theo, Ribeiro and maybe even Ryder. Ryder has done well in the scoring but he's been out of position a few times. All of these guys will pick up their game in one to two months time. [Edited on 2005/10/12 by Lister100]

Not much to say about that. Its was a good game as hard as that is to say under the circumstances.

we outplayed them in this period

That was a nice goal, damn Alf.

Props to Ivanans for taking on Chara. He must have been nervous that guy is probably one of the toughest players in the league and Ivanans is just new. Refs shouldn't have given Chara that punch

what a save! Theo!!!

what a goal!!!!

Did anyone see that BBC undercover cop where he uncovers all the prejudice in London's police department? I wish somebody would do that with the refs in the NHL

You got to love Begin's fire. The guy has brains in the style plays.

These refs are garbage, not even getting a break on the icings let alone the one sided penalty calls. [Edited on 2005/10/12 by Lister100]

"And his best leadership plays weren't even with the puck. Behind the Habs net, after they fell down a goal, he hammered some poor Leaf. Firing up the boys. THAT is leadership" I'm pretty sure that poor Leaf was Domi too! hahaha

"The interesting thing about him, joke or not, when the CBC was in the process of having him dumped a couple of years ago, the public outcry was quite strong. It wasn't as strong as when the CBC was in the process of dumping Ron Maclean but it was very much there. " I once got really angry at some people making anti-French remarks in Toronto. This was at the Uof T where people should know better. They were amazed that their attitudes were considered racist or prejudiced. They really didn't like it when I called them ignorant rednecks. The Toronto crowd has been so anti-French for so many generations that it is almost a cultural thing for them. They don't even examine it, many of them are even very politically correct when dealing in other issues of racism by colour, feminism, environmentalism etc. They're just not in touch with Canada. In this light Don Cherry represents them very well and they will defend him as one of their own because he is. The Toronto non-hockey fans might be quicker to be offended by him, but their views are dismissed as outsiders of hockey [Edited on 2005/10/10 by Lister100]

Don Cherry is not a Canadian! His Canada doesn't include French Canadians so it doesn't exist and therefore he is a patriot of nothing. I always thought his views are American, the team he coached and cheers for is even American. Toronto is his bread and butter, but Boston is where his heart is. He likes to praise the British lording up his imperial ties to English culture, but he lacks the class of that country to be considered any part of it. He's an American redneck, personnifying the worst of a country he doesn't even belong to and Torontonians eat it up because they're not so different. I would say he's old and will be gone soon, but there are more redneck Torontonians to take his place. For Leaf fans the battle between Habs/Leafs is French vs English more so than for Habs fans. How many French Canadians cheer for the Leafs? And look how many English Habs fans there are. The problem is that Toronto is completely isolated from French Canada and American influence is very strong. Its a big problem for Canada. Rednecks there are afraid of making fun of Chinese, Russians or Pakistanis because those people are neighbours and the community wouldn't stand for it. Insult the French and nothing happens.

Dagenais has his uses, he's massive and not that slow. Big players always look slower than they are. I don't remember if it was in pre-season or against Boston, but remember that break away goal he had. The other teams D. were chasing hard and he was still moving faster. Looks like a lumbering giant but he has skills. We shouldn't have all of our players exactly the same and he brings something different.

I agree about the bias in media. Its great to have a site to clear your head of the lousy Leaf fan propaganda. Not only are they threatened by our proud history but of the prospect of a resurrected Habs market. There are still lost habs fans that are bit by bit dawning the red white and blue again seeing new possibilities in this management and team. Leafers don't want anything to challenge their hold of the market so they spread lies far and wide even going to the trouble of writing articles in what should be Habs media. Their house of cards is tumbling down though. Over the last few years I was amazed to see the creation of the cynical Leaf fan(an ailment our fans have long suffered from). There are a growing number of Leaf fans that want results and are willing to voice their discontentedness with 'boos' and 'hisses'. Soon will be the day where they will have no more mindless masses willing to support a big market mediocrely performing team. Without the zombie support the Leafs are doomed. So the question is how long can the media keep the blinders on our fans and theres.

Why anyone would make a big deal about this is beyond me. Many celebrities have been caught off the record saying controvercial things or flipping the bird. If you have a kid that reads the kind of media that reports this than chances are they have seen much worse. I mean really, most of us accept fighting as part of the game. Who is going to say a middle finger is worse than someone getting their teeth knocked out? Your kid will know what's right and wrong by the standards you keep in your house not by what some player of the greatest hockey team ever did off the ice. Hockey is meant to appeal to many types of people, you can't expect it to cater to your tastes all the time. Personally I thought it was funny.