Losing A Star

I hope I don't have to write this kind of post ever again. It hurts to lose someone you used to look forward to seeing on TV every week, someone not that much older than you.

I may not have watched Glee very much this season, but my appreciation for the show's first two seasons will always be there. And I was there to see the show's cast experience the kind of insane success that seems almost unfathomable to the rest of us. (I don't want to call it "overnight success," since many cast members worked very very hard before they booked Glee.) The pilot episode is still one of my favourite pilots of the last five years. And that's why it hurt me so much to find out that we lost Cory Monteith yesterday.

This post won't include any pictures of him or clips from the show. I'm still kind of processing the fact that he's gone.

I can't even imagine what his castmates are going through. They worked with him every day. They rose to fame with him. And, as far as I know, they were all good friends. So the question remains: how can the show deal with this? There's no chance to casually write him out or give Finn Hudson a real goodbye. And I'm quite sure that despite all the tumult Finn seems to have gone through in season 4, that the writing staff would want to do his character justice. I can't even imagine how they would go about this.

When NewsRadio tragically lost Phil Hartman, they had no choice but to keep going, and write an episode where the staff find out that his character, Bill McNeil, has passed away. It can't have been easy for his castmates to film that episode, since they were going through exactly the same thing as their characters. In a nice meta tribute to Hartman himself, they ended up finding a replacement in Jon Lovitz, who seemed ready to fill some of the emptiness left by the loss of such a great comic actor.

Probably the closest thing to a blueprint for the Glee writers would be the way that John Ritter's death was handled on 8 Simple Rules. (I don't think Glee could call on James Garner to play a friendly, loving grandpa, but if there's a context for it, then by all means please let it happen.) They already did something similar in season 2, when Kurt's dad suffered a heart attack and survived. It was a real instance of serious drama that shook the teenage characters, and it rang true to life. Teenagers mourn death differently than adults do, so the emotions we saw on NewsRadio might not really translate the same way to Glee. Lots of teenagers have seen much of themselves in the characters - to the point that the show has often served them, and tried to communicate important messages instead of just being good for a laugh. And, ultimately, the show has probably been the better for it - maybe not creatively, but certainly as a media phenomenon.

If it were up to me, I'd take inspiration from an unexpected source. One of the most touching tributes I've ever seen to a fallen cast member came from 90's sitcom Suddenly Susan. (No, I never expected to make a Suddenly Susan reference on this blog.) David Strickland committed suicide before the third season had finished filming. How do you say goodbye to a character when you barely have time to say goodbye to the person? By letting your cast say goodbye to the person. An episode where the characters spend the day looking for Strickland's character, Todd, was peppered with talking-head footage of the cast (out of character, though that's never 100% clear) paying tribute to their friend. I remember seeing that episode in syndication a couple of years after it aired and it still packed a huge emotional punch. I know how much the characters on Glee need to express themselves. Giving them an outlet to do that, especially in their own words, one by one, would be a fitting tribute. Somehow I feel like putting Monteith's friends and girlfriend through rehearsals and multiple takes of a musical number would be difficult, and kind of unfair.

If it were up to me, I'd wait a little while to write the season premiere, and I'd let a few fictional months pass, so that whatever tragedy befell Finn is in the past. Instead of dealing with the shock of his death, I'd have the characters learn what it's like to go through the first few months of "normal" life after the loss of a friend. But I'm not Ryan Murphy. He's a talented and focused showrunner, and he'll probably know exactly what to write and when it should happen.

Until that episode airs, all we can do is wonder.

Plus/Minus: Without y'all, I can't buy my Phantom

So maybe this team is scrappier than I thought they were. It's kind of inspiring: people count them out, and we all keep wondering what's wrong and if things will get better or worse, and then the Habs win. I need to learn to stop counting them out.

PLUS

+ The above tweet from Paul Bissonnette, who's a good guy once you get past all the girls in yoga pants and whatnot. (But if you'd rather just go for laughs, read Ron Artest's tweets about how much he misses playing basketball.)
+ Teemu Selanne dressed up as Batman for Halloween! How awesome is that? (I heard rumblings that one of our Habs also dressed up as Batman, but unlike the Coyotes, the Habs' Halloween pictures remain a secret...)
+ For those days when work never ends, and you think you should go to bed early instead of watching the end of the game, but you change your mind and Josh Gorges scores the overtime game-winning goal.
+ Travis Moen, you are scoring goals this season. And the team appeciates that.
+ Max Pacioretty needs to go to the All-Star Game. (See Minus for more on the ASG.)
+ Ryan Miller called Milan Lucic a piece of... well, you know. And while I'm not sure that that's sportsmanlike or whatever, it's hella entertaining and I look forward to quoting that sound bite and seeing it on SportsCentre Top 10s for some time.

MINUS

I thought I could trust him

- Does Carey know that PK was triple-low-fiving another goalie?
- I'm sorry, but I still don't know what a Scrivens is. Someone please explain, and make fun of me if you must.
- Hey, Flyers and Bolts: you know that playing hockey involves MOVING AROUND, right?
- I thought players had to play a minimum number of games to be eligible for the All-Star ballot. But Sidney Crosby is on it. So, can we just write anyone in? A locked-out basketball player? An actor who played a hockey player in a movie? Sidney Crosby's dad? Batman? LMFAO? Or how about my cat? They've all played just as many games this season as Crosby has. I encourage you to vote for my cat.

- There is literally nothing I can say about this Penn State mess that hasn't been said already, and especially nothing that can make this situation better. I don't know why anyone didn't realize that covering up child molestation is not only unbelievably wrong, but even worse for the school's future than taking immediate action. I don't know what could have motivated so many people to want to cover this up. I don't know why Joe Paterno didn't realize that this scandal could end his career, and didn't try to show some sort of remorse or accountability by retiring before getting fired. But I do know one thing: it's made us as fans think about what we may not know is happening behind the scenes, and that maybe our loyalty to a sport isn't the most important thing there is in life.

Things That Are Worse Than Josh Gorges' Injury

I made this list in a misguided attempt to cheer myself up, because I still can't quite talk about it:

Jarome Iginla, New York Ranger.

The cancellation of my favourite TV show. (It's been almost five years since Arrested Development ended, and the wounds have finally started healing.)

Getting dumped on your birthday. For your nemesis.

Realizing that American Idol will be back on TV soon.

Movies with talking animals.

Dental work.

Being Eric Bélanger and performing your own dental work.

Many of 2010's biggest pop songs.

Being Carey Price when he heard the Josh Gorges injury news.

Twilight fans.

Justin Bieber fans.

The thought of Jacques Martin in a dress. Like, say, this one:

Having basically no ACL in my own right knee. (My threshold for pain is much, much lower than any athlete's.)

Zach Parise's injury.

Josh Gorges requesting a trade to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
(Actually, that last one might hurt less. I'd pretend to hate him for a few weeks, and then I'd actually hate him.)

This one goes to #11

So. Scott Gomez has decided to wear number 11 on his jersey next season.
No use writing him strongly worded letters, or wondering if we can bribe someone at Reebok to keep making him #91 jerseys. Looks like it's a done deal. Signed, sealed, delivered, it's his.

In case you were wondering, no, Gomez didn't check with the fans first. He asked Pierre Gauthier about the number change, and in a rare moment of action, our GFM gave him the green light. Either Scotty (ever the wordsmith) spun a lovely phrase and talked his way into it, or Gauthier is really looking for anything to help him dig in his heels about re-signing Carey Price.

I keep thinking this might be a really lame attempt at a joke, or an April Fool's Day prank that's three months late. But it's not Gomez's style. One thing I really like about Scott Gomez is his comedy. He's too funny to do something like this as a joke, so unfortunately it looks like he's serious.

Scott Gomez never played with Saku Koivu. They're contemporaries, sure, and Gomez has been in the NHL for Koivu's entire tenure as Canadiens captain, but Montreal is the kind of hockey city that you have to spend time in to truly know. Gomez was never here at the same time as Koivu, not during his battle with cancer, not even during the messy last season. Koivu, as a captain, hasn't yet officially been replaced. As a player, he'll be even harder to substitute. His name was on the back of the first Canadiens shirt I bought for a reason. (Many reasons, actually.) Gomez taking number 11 a year after Koivu joined the Anaheim Ducks, trivializes the effect that the seasoned captain had on this city. Some fans won't take issue with this, because they don't see Koivu as a hero of the post-Roy era. Those are probably the same fans who chided Koivu because of his poor mastery of a third language, spoken by people in this city too stubborn to learn a second.

Koivu proved himself to be a patient leader. So far, Scott Gomez has proven himself to be a pretty nice guy and an 8 million dollar Gionta magnet. (A "Giontagnet," if you will.) What does it say about him, that his most impressive accomplishment was reeling in a teammate, without whom he is unspectacular? I'd be more okay with this if Gomez's hefty salary paid for the amazing power forward I'd been promised last July. But our highest-paid player was not our highest scorer. Anyone who wants to bring back Koivu's number had better be supernatural. This season, Gomez was only human. He wasn't really one of the players who tried to fill the sentimental hole left by my captain's departure. Don't get me wrong, he grew on me as the season progressed, but not to the point that I can easily be happy with this. Sorry.

Ace journalist Dave Stubbs broke the story and usually he can sell me on anything. However, in an interview regarding this change, Gomez doesn't sound as personable as he usually does:

" 'I've been disappointed that I haven't gotten to wear No. 11 in the NHL...' "
You know who else is disappointed? All the guys who never made it to a decade in the NHL. I've also heard he said that not wearing #11 was the worst thing in his life, but without sources, I'm going to hope it was a misquote, because he's either the most hyperbolic man alive or he's living a truly charmed life.


" 'I'm stuck with 23. Who wears 23?... I didn't know much about Bob [Gainey].' "
From what I've heard, they started handing out the Selke Trophy specifically so that Bob Gainey's talent could be recognized. But I haven't been playing hockey my whole life, so what do I know?
I hope Scott Gomez never told Gainey this story, unless he really wants to get called a throw-in in the Tom Pyatt trade, or any of the nicknames I came up with in rough drafts.

"He wanted No. 11 in Montreal last fall..."
Wow, to even admit to this is either very brave or very stupid. It would have been an even dumber and more disrespectful move to wear the 11 then, than it is to change his number now. I guess we believed Gomez a little too easily when he professed his love for Montreal like a regular Cyrano de Bergerac on skates.

or should this be a picture of Pinocchio?

I have no doubt that wearing the 11 will make Gomez very happy, and maybe that satisfaction will give him a sense of identity and make him feel more like the player that he is. (Or that he's paid to be.) I can only hope that we'll see the result of this on the ice. And, obviously, I can come up with some kooky ideas about all this number 11 business:

• Maybe he doesn't want to be one of those rare NHL bigshots with a high number. Of course, why would he want to take anything away from Crosby? (It goes without saying, though, that if Crosby got traded tomorrow, not a single Penguin would ask to wear #87.)
• Maybe, now that his biggest worry as an NHL player is taken care of, he can lighten our load and worry about his fans' problems, so that we can concentrate on our wardrobe issues too!
• Maybe he takes a pay cut to go with the lower jersey number. Eleven dollars a point? I'll start making my Stanley Cup party plans.
• Maybe Gomez should take Mike Komisarek's old number instead. 11 may remind him of his youth in Alaska, but 8 reminds us how much he costs.
• Maybe we all need to remember that the CH on the front of a jersey is more important than the number on the back, and the man wearing the jersey trumps both.

I hope Scott Gomez makes me eat my words.

Here's to you, Jaroslav Halak

Traded to the Blues for two guys who'll have to show us what they're made of. Mostly because I know almost nothing about the St. Louis Blues. Usually I have to be reminded that they're even a thing.

Jaro started the season somewhat out of the spotlight, then grew in popularity as he became "the other white meat," an alternative to Price that Camp Carey Boo were constantly calling out for, then got the ice time to prove just how talented he is, behind both the Canadiens and the Slovakian Olympic team, then became such a mythical figure that his talent was celebrated even outside the Montreal bubble. Some TSN analyst described a brilliant third-round performance by Antti Niemi as "Halakian."

So it looks like we've got to say goodbye to the Halak puns and the stop signs. He'll post shutouts for other teams.

Jaro and Carey might now have a shot at each getting the ice time they need and deserve, and we might finally see an end to the childish, Twilight-esque rivalry.

But that doesn't mean I'm happy for the St. Louis Blues.

More on Coach

Gotta love these crazy news days, right? Yeah, me neither. I'm trying to counter all this NHL drama by watching me some WB drama.

In any case, all this Guy Boucher news has been a lot to handle in just a few days - and I'm not even the one all over his Facebook fan page.

We thought he was going to stay with the Habs organization, then we thought we lost him, then we thought we got him back, and now it seems like he's gone to the beach. This is probably even worse than knowing that Steve Yzerman, the man responsible for a gold medal at the Olympics, is working for a team that's inferior to both Team Canada and the Detroit Red Wings. OK, maybe that's the Canadian "nationalism" and Original Six jackassery talking. Now, Tampa has both Stevie Y and Guy Boucher. No more Coach after one glorious season with the Bulldogs, where he might have turned a lot of our top prospects into NHL-ready players. And, like the most promising of players, he's been called up.

Why couldn't it be the Panthers? They let all their talented guys get away eventually so we'd have a good shot at getting him back someday.

If I had to find a bright side to all this, I guess it would be that Lightning fans finally get some good news. Coach will make Steven Stamkos even better than he was this year. He might make Vincent Lecavalier, who's got one of the most ridiculous contracts in the NHL, worth the ridiculous money he's being paid. Because right now, the best thing Lecavalier's doing for hockey is making Scott Gomez look like one hell of a bargain. (Just kidding, Scott! Let's get some frogurt sometime and we'll gossip.) Or he'll just be one more francophone that RDS can talk to, so we'll have a bit more variety in interview subjects.

Guess we'll have to see what happens next.