INSIDE HOCKEY

A prototype for the data-digesting coaches of today, Dick Irvin was dedicated, meticulous and analytical, traits that enabled him to guide fifteen NHL teams to the Stanley Cup Finals. Also a keen observer of other major North American sports, he offered a bit of then-radical advice to the guardian of what was still America’s Pastime.

The first game played to benefit a fallen member of the Montreal Canadiens was not the 1937 match that raised $20 000 for the Morenz family, but  one that was held on January 31^st, 1936 with the proceeds going to rookie Nelson Crutchfield, who played his only NHL season with the Habs in 1935-36.

Those who missed out on their first chance to pick up Michael McKinley’s Hockey – A People’s History when it was originally published can now remedy the oversight. Mike Wyman takes a closer look at this seminal book...

There have been excellent biographies written on his contemporaries, Terry Sawchuck and Glen Hall, but until now, no outside look at the hockey life of Jacques Plante. Fifty years after he first donned the mask in NHL play, author Todd Denault’s first foray between hard covers remedies the situation.

Just as Maurice Richard, his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, was more than just another hockey player to the population of Quebec, the Montreal Canadiens are more than simply another hockey team.

“It’s gonna be big, it’s gonna be bad and it’s gonna be ugly. But we can’t tell you about it just yet,” was pretty much the way the biggest media tease in Quebec sports history went last night...

Nels Stewart, the first Montreal Maroons superstar to begin his NHL career with the team was a local boy by birth who moved to Toronto in his early childhood and learned his hockey on the natural outdoor surfaces in his adopted hometown.

Ultimately proving to be of no real use to the Habs on the ice, one hundred thousand flags begin disappearing from vehicles in Quebec today as the Montreal Canadiens start searching for their shaving cream.

In his latest column, Mike Wyman takes a look at the Canadiens-Flyers series, the raucous post-Round One victory celebration in Montreal, and also checks in with the Belorussian team as they prepare for the World Championships.

This week, Mike Wyman headed for Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, where he did my best to stay out of the way as over a dozen former NHLers, most from the 1940s through the 1960s, visited with some of the 500 military veterans who call it home.

Mike Wyman is following the Canadiens' run throughout the playoffs. In his latest entry, he takes a look at the way the Quebecois take to cultural phenomenons, and the viral excitement that's building over this year's edition of the Habs...

In the latest edition of his Canadiens playoff journal, Mike Wyman takes a look at the pre-playoff atmosphere in Montreal (is the excitement building to acceptable levels?) and Patrice Brisebois's reasonably successful return.

Noted hockey historian Mike Wyman weighs in on the Montreal Canadiens, who have exceeded all reasonable expectations in rising to first place in the East, with what will be a regular journal-style column down the stretch and throughout the playoffs.