Category Archives: Canadiens

| Canadiens, Media, Opinion

Kovalev is better than Ovechkin

At least that’s what NHL all-star ballot stuffers think. Because of rampant stuffing from Canadiens fans, and then counter-stuffing from Pittsburgh Penguins fans, the Eastern Conference starting lineup has four Canadiens players (Alex Kovalev, Andrei Markov, Carey Price and Mike Komisarek) and two Penguins players (Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin).

Though Habs and Penguins fans should be embarrassed by this, the fault lies in the National Hockey League, which setup a system of unverified voting for its all-star lineup and even encouraged people to vote as many times as they wanted.

Maybe it’s time to realize that online voting isn’t a proper way to poll the public on anything.

| Blogosphere, Canadiens, Media, Opinion

The Score unites really crappy sports blogs

The Score, that sports channel nobody gets because it doesn’t show anything, has launched what it calls the “thescore.com Sports Federation”, a network of independent sports blogs for the various Canadian NHL teams, the Jays and Raptors:

Toronto’s Score Media Inc. has launched theScore.com Sports Federation, connecting together a network of independent sports websites, and empowering them to reach a larger audience – with the help and support of a national multi-platform sports network.

Here are the blogs they list, not one of which (except maybe CISblog) I’d heard of before today:

Now, I don’t follow non-Montreal sports that closely, so I’m not in a position to judge most of these, but is Lions in Winter really the best Habs blog out there? Better than Fanatique, Habs Inside/Out or François Gagnon?

Yes, my three examples are blogs backed by Big Media, but that’s kind of the point. Without the access and resources of big media (whether conventional big-city newspapers like The Gazette or La Presse, or hip new media like Branchez-Vous), all you have is some guy talking out of his ass (with all due respect to my fellow ass-talkers).

Small, part-time do-it-for-the-fun sports blogs are much more likely to be successful covering niches that big media ignore: university sports, junior leagues, soccer/golf/tennis, etc. The audience is smaller, but it’s also much less fragmented.

UPDATE: Getting some awesome linkhate from Drunk Jays Fans and RaptorBlog, who I guess dilligently check their incoming links. I must admit, calling me “Guy Faguette” is a rock-solid argument and really shows me how much I erred in suggesting these blogs might not be the most professional.

| Canadiens, Media, Montreal, Opinion

I … must … have … the MEDALLIONS

Proving once again that Canadiens fans will buy anything, the Gazette and the Journal de Montréal got involved in this scheme marketing idea whereby Couche-Tard would sell medallions for each player and would need a corresponding coupon from the newspaper to get it (actually, requiring the purchase of a newspaper to get such a thing creates legal implications, so you can bypass the newspapers altogether, but they hope you won’t notice that).

Unfortunately,the people involved didn’t realize how truly gullible Canadiens fans really are, and the medallions sold out in record time. Reports of people getting up at 4am every day and still not having any luck. Those who are lucky enough to get them are now selling them on eBay for $20 a pop, a 669% profit on the original $2.99 purchase price.

The two papers are falling over themselves apologizing for the shortfall and have ordered new ones, but they will only come in December. Suckers readers are being asked to hold on to their coupons until then.

Perhaps they’ll use that extra time to rethink spending $72 on glorified Pogs.

…

I’m sorry, I’m being told this scheme is keeping me employed. Please disregard all of the above.

| Blogosphere, Canadiens, Media

Habs Inside/Out does guest blogging

The immensely popular Habs Inside/Out blog (run by my employer, who will be cutting me a cheque shortly for the plug) has introduced some guest blogging, bringing in devoted Canadiens fans to blog on the site in a section called The Other Wing. What I find interesting about this is that two of the four people are also blogers: Eric Engels writes about the Habs for HockeyBuzz.com and David Kellerman is one of the Four Habs Fans (you know, the one with boobies all over the place). They may not have all the access that a mainstream media outlet does, but they make up for that in enthusiasm.

In other Habs links (also from HIO):

| Canadiens, Opinion, TV, Video

Hockey Night is dead. Long live RDS

So there you go. CBC’s Hockey Anthem Challenge winner, out of almost 15,000 entries submitted, is Colin Oberst’s Canadian Gold. The one with the bagpipes. Hockey Night in Canada made a big thing about it, with loud congratulations from Don Cherry. And Oberst takes home a $100,000 cheque.

UPDATE: CBC has posted the announcement, new theme and a season intro montage in Quicktime format.

With the new theme comes new intro graphics as well. This season, rather than go the classic route of showing hits, goals and saves, CBC has gotten its computer graphics department on overdrive, recreating classic moves so they could look at them from impossible angles (even simulating Bobby Orr’s Stanley Cup-winning goal, which created the best sports photo of all time). Unfortunately, this kind of computer animation still has a long way to go, and it just ends up looking like they’re showing scenes from EA’s NHL 09 video game.

Meanwhile, on RDS, the original Hockey Theme reigns. They paid a lot more for it, and their re-recording doesn’t sound as good as the most recent CBC version, but it still sounds better. It’s still the one with that special place in our hearts.

Real Canadiens fans have been watching RDS for years now. Even Leafs fans have moved to TSN or Rogers SportsNet. Many people I know turn to CBC to watch the opening theme and switch to RDS for the play-by-play.

Now, with the hockey theme on RDS, does Hockey Night in Canada have any purpose anymore?

| Canadiens, Opinion

Was that supposed to be French?

To the public announcer at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto,

You should be fired. Like, immediately.

Or am I being too demanding in suggesting that someone who works as a public announcer at a hockey game should be able to speak both of Canada’s official languages?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that there were bilingual announcements tonight, but that mockery of the langue de Molière brings shame upon a city that you’d think couldn’t look worse in the eyes of the rest of the country.

P.S. For those watching tonight’s Habs/Leafs matchup, Mike Boone has his liveblog at Habs Inside/Out.

| Canadiens, Media

Pat’s back; the new RDS; Hockey special section

Gazette Habs beat writer Pat Hickey, who disappeared for a month to get his knee replaced, is back in time for the beginning of the regular season (this is how hardcore he is – he schedules major surgery around the Canadiens’ playing schedule). His first Standing Pat column back on the beat explains his recovery process and mentions the sympathy he now feels for athletes who have to keep themselves in shape.

Pat also participates in the first episode of the Habs Inside/Out PuckCast, which returns for a third season.

Meanwhile on another page, Stephanie Myles (who with Dave Stubbs has been covering the Canadiens in Hickey’s absence) has a feature on the RDS guys, Pierre Houde and Benoit Brunet, the latter replacing Yvon Pedneault as the play-by-play analyst. Near the end it goes into Pedneault’s dismissal:

But both Houde and Brunet said they were surprised Pedneault got the axe.

“I didn’t know it was in RDS’s plans,” Houde said. “That’s what’s happy and sad about our line of work, we’re all freelance workers who work together. And as Benoît has said, it’s like a hockey team. Your linemate is traded, or retires, or he becomes a free agent. You stay and work with someone new.”

Given the superhuman ratings during last year’s playoff run – close to 3 million viewers – Brunet also didn’t see the decision on Pedneault coming.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” he said. “But the phone rang. I always said I’ll wait, and when they give me the sign I’ll be there. It happened this year. I was surprised.”

The article also goes in depth about technical and programming changes for the new season.

Myles Someone who may or may not be Myles, what with this byline strikyness, also writes a sidebar about anglo Canadiens fans watching French broadcasts (and vice versa).

Finally, today is the first appearance of The Gazette’s new roughly-monthly Hockey Inside/Out special section, which includes in-depth coverage of the advertising goldmine very popular Canadiens. Eight of them will be produced over the coming centennial season.

The special section includes an article from Mike Boone on how the Habs Inside/Out site was born (it was an idea of Editor-in-Chief Andrew Phillips), as well as the usual season-preview fare.

| Canadiens, Montreal, Movies

Canadiens need extras

TVA Films is doing a movie about the Canadiens for their 100th anniversary, and are filming at the Bell Centre this week. They’re looking for extras who want to be a tiny blip on a screen for a split-second without receiving any compensation.

For those who want to show their Habs pride, catch a glimpse of players, and have entire afternoons to blow off, they’re filming Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.

| Canadiens, Video

The young’uns come out to play

With Canadiens development camp open to the public, we’re getting our first taste of amateur video of some of these new prospects, including 6’8″ goaltender Jason Missiaen, seen above looking like King Kong in front of the net.

Some skater shooting drill highlights, courtesy of a very dedicated fan:

UPDATE (July 14): Some video of the team drills, showing how even the young unproven players can totally pwn the rest of us at hockey.