Not the greatest show on earth

I know exactly what would get us Habs fans through this long, hot, lovely summer. Unfortunately, I don't know where you can find it. But I'm working on it.

Reality shows have become a summer TV staple thanks to the people who watch them. And you know what would make the absolute best hockey offseason reality show? Some reruns of La maison de Maxim Lapierre, last spring's home-reno reality sensation.

Yeah, I said it.

I came across a rerun a couple of months ago on some French channel, and right now I sincerely regret not setting my DVR for the remaining episodes. There was something oddly compelling about watching Max's house get redecorated by Mathieu Dandenault's wife and her bizarro voice. A show chronicling the minutiae of women richer than me shopping for expensive furniture, combined with the side of a hockey player's life we don't often see, is almost frivolous. I wish we could all watch season 1 again right now, but I guess I'll just have to imagine what season 2 would be like. (My sister claims there's a season 2 currently in production, but I'll believe it when I see it.)

La maison II: Marky's Revenge

Unbelievably appropriate photo, from topshelfhabs.com

Andrei Markov has been to Maxim Lapierre's awesome house. And he's jealous. The house has everything! No wonder at any given moment, at least one-third of current Canadiens are over at Maison de Max. But since everyone is at Max's house, Markov doesn't get to have the guys over for jam sessions or Russian movie nights or what have you. Which, in his mind, is ridiculous, because he lives even closer to the Brossard practice facility than Max does. What's a guy to do? Concoct a plan to turn Maison de Markov into the coolest house ever. Whatever it takes. I'm a little scared to see my Habs hero play the role of conniving supervillain, but I can't wait to see what will be in his house. 

La maison II: This Auld House

They can be buddies now! (photo from CBC)

This July, Alex Auld got snatched up by the Canadiens faster than you can say "Oh snap, we need an affordable backup goalie". Watch as he moves to Montreal from whatever other city he used to play in (Ottawa, still?), adjusts to a new city and a new house, and attempts to make his new home so cool that his teammates will immediately all become his best friends, and as a result, the francophones in local media will treat him as one of their own. Potential setback: Alex will need to find a house whose window and light-fixture setup won't bounce too much glare off his bald head. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then it's been too long since you've seen Pierre McGuire.

La maison II: PK Moves In

If PK Subban doesn't make the Habs' roster this fall, he's a sure shot to make it very soon. He might as well start looking for his own place (unless he plans to move in with a teammate, but that would be more sitcom than reality show. Future blog post? We'll see.). If PK gets his own reality show, I'll watch it. It would make for good TV. PK loves to goof around on camera and isn't shy at all, so he wouldn't mind being filmed and would probably have fun with it. It might also be interesting to see what it's like to be a young player in the NHL. PK has a lot more money and responsibility than other guys his age, and adjusting to all of it would certainly be interesting to watch. He's buying his first home and playing his first NHL season in North America's craziest hockey city all at once. The show has the potential to be about more than bedframes and home theatre systems, and it might just make us love PK more than we already did.

There's only one problem with this whole idea: the original "Maison de Max" series happened because of the intrepid decorating efforts of one Marie-Christine (or as I call her, Mrs. Dandy) and her posse of hockey consorts. There isn't a single one of them left, and any superstitious hockey player might not even let his wife take part in any redecorating activities for fear of being dropped by the Habs, just like Mathieu Dandenault, Saku Koivu, Guillaume Latendresse, and Steve Begin. In fact, the only Hab who appeared on the show and is still a Hab is Maxim Lapierre.

Maybe my season 2 wishes are a silly pipe dream after all.

Summer in the city

Things have been extremely slow at Hab It Her Way this week. Sorry. We've either been at work, recovering from extra-long work hours, or we completely forgot what we were going to say. (That last one is mostly me.)
So, while we cook up some all-new content for you, we're doing the lazy thing and linking to a few good reads that have been keeping us going through this hot but boring stretch of the summer:

HIHW commenter and friend (also French guy from France) Grrrreg over at The Soft European promises that this will be one of many hilarious photoshop jobs.

The Habs blogger that puts the rest of us to shame, Dennis Kane, hasn't let a silly offseason interrupt his great work ethic as a writer. This week he's shared some personal stories along with a few guessing games involving pictures of vintage hockey memorabilia in foreign languages.

During the regular season, JT at The H Does Not Stand For Habs always posts thoughtful, well-researched opinion pieces. I'm so very happy that she's continued that trend into the offseason, her latest posts focusing on PK Subban and Maxim Lapierre.

More reading over at All Habs, with a smart and concise writeup on the new Hamilton Bulldogs coach, whose name sounds just a bit too much like "Richie Cunningham" for me to not call him that. The best thing to tide you over, though, is probably the Habs playlist you can stream right from their site. At only 10 songs, it's a little too short for you to close your eyes and pretend you're watching a game live, but in the middle of summer it's the best thing your ears could ask for.

So that last post is outdated now.

Oops. I came up with all this Ilya material for nothing.

Looks like there'll have to be more negotiating between Kovalchuk and the Devils in order to come to an agreement before the season starts, which by the way can't happen soon enough. What's there to do on rainy days? My main pastime, coming up with jokes about current events in hockey, isn't passing very much time due to lack of material. Maybe I should do some research, find out more about the Habs of yore,  and make some jokes.

The story goes on

Congratulations, Ilya Kovalchuk. You've signed a new contract. It took you a very long time to decide to stay exactly where you were. You didn't need to hire me to produce your TV special (I could've pitched more ideas!) and you got all the delicious money a guy could want. You're super rich and you love New Jersey, making you the Russian Jon Bon Jovi. Congratulations.

Bon Jovi nesting dolls vs. Ilya Kovalchuk: debate in the comments section.

I'm totally mystified by this contract. Kovalchuk will belong to the Devils for 17 years. Yes, seventeen years. It's the longest contract I've seen in all my very few years of hockey fandom. It might be the longest contract ever, unless this Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes marriage outlives it. It seems like complete madness for anyone to lock down a hockey player for that long. Since Kovalchuk is 27 and not named Chris Chelios, I'm not entirely sure that he'll actually make it to the seventeenth season of his contract. So I'm guessing that this is like television actors signing contracts for 7 seasons despite the fact that their show might not make it that long. (And if it does and you're Steve Carell, then The Office may as well implode in order to avoid repeating the sins that Scrubs committed.)

No offense, Creed.

Maybe that's why the last few seasons of this contract would potentially pay him an entry-level salary. I guess no one thinks he can play at an Ilya Kovalchuk level for that long. 17 years is a ridiculously long time, especially in sports.

Seventeen years ago, some of the guys who hoisted the 2010 Stanley Cup were just learning to read. (And no, that wasn't a joke about Patrick Kane's reading and math skills.)
Seventeen years from now, my as-yet-unborn cousin will have finished high school.

Seventeen years ago, the Montreal Canadiens were the Stanley Cup champions.
Seventeen years from now, some of the players we expected to bring the Cup to Montreal this year might be retired.

It's just a lot for a newbie hockey fan to understand. But, as I usually say, let's see how this pans out. This might turn out to be a great move for New Jersey in the long run.
The very, very long run.

Licensed to Ilya

So Ilya Kovalchuk is on his way to becoming a small-scale LeBron James type of guy. He's taking an awful long time to decide what team he's playing for next season, and he's not getting any more popular, and he's certainly not getting any richer by shopping himself around all this time and playing hard to get. Come on, Ilya, if there's anything to be learned from the LeBacle it's that you can't be the top free agent forever. And if you're even thinking about booking a primetime TV special to announce where you're going next season... please, PLEASE let me produce it.

I'm serious. It'll be my contribution to society. I'm even preparing pitches!

The makeover show! Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "Only a girl would come up with an idea like a makeover show." First, you're an idiot and I hate you (but thanks for reading my blog; there's hope for you yet). Second, it's completely warranted. Kovalchuk's got terrible hair, and if he wants to be the most talked-about player in the NHL, he should at least try to look like he doesn't get his hair cut by his mommy. If he goes to LA, he'll need to know what looks good on him before he goes to all those fantastic shops. If he stays in New Jersey, a new look will be one less thing for Sean Avery to use as cannon fodder.
We could start by getting rid of or framing all the jerseys and equipment that he won't need anymore (anybody want a game-worn Thrashers jersey? Don't all say yes at once). Then Ilya could take us through his wardrobe, talking about what he likes to wear. Then we could bring in some teammates to make fun of him. Then he gets some advice from Stacy and Clinton types, and goes shopping.
The big news: The new team reveal could happen in some creative way, like his new coach and GM jump out from behind a mirror, or he shows off a new suit then opens the shirt up to reveal a logo, Superman-style.

The variety hour! I'm sorry, LeBron, but getting an old white guy to ask you questions is not how to fill an hour of television when you're the most exciting athlete in your league. You have to DO something. Anything. Sing us a song, juggle some fire, put on a show, I don't care how. You hosted SNL, LeBron! You should have known better! Ilya's Decision One Hour Variety Spectacular will be so much better. Any non-hockey skills that Ilya may have will be put to good use here. Let's call up all his friends and make some unintentional comedy. Or intentional comedy, if we've got a few more Ryan Getzlafs in the league. (Now that he's proven he can be a bit funny, you have to admit he's quite aptly named.) Or call up Ilya's favourite singers and get them to perform on the show.
The big news: I'm not sure exactly how Ilya's choice of team will be announced, but I'm pretty sure I want it to somehow involve Laugh-In style doors.

The great debate! LeBron James called his TV hour "The Decision." Many elections in the US are referred to as "Decision (Insert Year Here)." Thus, the link between televised athletic ego-trips and political campaigns is undeniable. Let's have a debate! Just not a boring one. And since sports fans love watching people argue (see: 50% of what's on sports TV) it's a match made in heaven. The debate will have two moderators: Ilya Kovalchuk and Mike Milbury, just to keep things loud, interesting, and slightly boorish, just like all sports programming televised debates should be.
Round 1: The GMs still in the race debate and answer moderators' questions.
Round 2: Fans from each hopeful team make their cases, then beg Ilya to play for their team, then trash-talk the other teams.
Round 3: Free-for-all. No weapons, please.
The big news: For the sake of making it all TV-interesting, the great debate will take a page out of reality TV's handbook and make the GM and fans of each team huddle together all nervously, fingers crossed, under spotlights, as one by one they are eliminated from the race. It can be split into two segments by a commercial break if the network wants. Oh, who am I kidding, there'll definitely be tons of commercials.

The alternate universe! Lost has done it. Fringe has done it. Hell, even It's AWonderful Life has done it. Let's answer all our Ilya-related "what if"s by taking us into each potential city next season and finding out what might happen if Kovalchuk signs there. Each act will show us an alternate reality wherein Kovalchuk (played by Keanu Reeves, of course) is playing in what we're speculating will be the city of his choice. We'll also get to see a segment chronicling what might have happened if he'd never been traded to New Jersey. Oh, and the very last alternate universe we see before The Decision will be one in which we see what our lives could have been like if he weren't forced to wait all this time just for news about one hockey player.*
The big news: Should be revealed in the most Lost-y way possible because... oh, you know what? I don't really care. As producer I should know that Ilya and hockey aren't the star of this show anymore. As long as the big announcement (which will happen in our real universe, don't you worry) elicits a "whoa" from Keanu, the hour will be worth your time.

My guess, however, is that this TV special will either suck, or won't happen at all. But I wouldn't be surprised if we're stuck waiting for a decision for so long that I would have had time to plan, cast, build sets, and sell ad time for any of these shows.

Oh, and rest of the NHL? You can't call Kovalchuk "Kovy." That's Alex Kovalev's nickname. You can't double up on nicknames! Yes, I know there were two boxers called "Sugar" Ray but this is different.



* I have suddenly been reminded that we need to lock Carey Price down.

Top 5: Teams I'm A Little Bit Scared Of

There used to be some teams in the NHL that I wouldn't be afraid of playing against. But after a few GMs took it to the max during Free Agent Frenzy, I'm not so sure what to think of clubs who used to be write-offs. I've put all this time into learning about the NHL and being able to name all thirty teams in less than a day, and remembering that there are thirty teams and not thirty-two, and then July comes along and hockey players find new homes and I'm back at square one. Did you know that the Kings are pretty good? When I started watching hockey, they were garbage. It's true. I read it on Wikipedia.

A few teams have made some major changes during the last couple of weeks, and now there's quite a good chance that they'll pose a threat to the rest of the NHL.

St. Louis might have us singing the... well, you know. Their most obvious change occurred when Pierre Gauthier decided to pick up a few young players and trade a goalie for them. Remember when that happened? Then you might also remember that this season proved that when a goalie is good enough, he can carry his team on his back and take them pretty far. (The opposite is also true. But it's one or the other, nothing in between.) I wouldn't be surprised if just acquiring Jaroslav Halak is going to make the Blues a great team.
Remember the last All-Star Game, when Keith Tkachuk was invited so that Blues fans could see one of their players and not feel left out, like when you had to invite your whole kindergarten class to your birthday, even that girl who cried if her grape juice was too cold? Those days might be over.

No more sympathy All-Star invites for the St. Louis Blues!

Struck by Lightning. As if having dynamite Steve Yzerman wasn't enough, Tampa Bay took away our future coach and a goalie we could have had. Okay, Ellis only belonged to the Habs for like three hours, but Guy Boucher and his francophone players might have something to prove when they encounter the Canadiens.
The fact that Martin St. Louis is staying in Tampa will be great for the team if he continues to assist Steven Stamkos, literally and figuratively.

The Ottawa Senators... um, a pun about legislation. Sergei Gonchar is good, and was denied the Stanley Cup this year thanks to a little team we all know and love, so he probably won't like us very much next year. Add to that the law of probability dictating that Alex Kovalev will have a great season, and we've got some intense games in store for us this year.
By the way, now that he's not in Montreal anymore, do we go back to calling him "Alexei"?

The Oilers could cause more problems than BP. As if it wasn't bad enough that the Habs are usually jet-lagged or something when they arrive in Edmonton, the Oilers seem to have a shot at being the complete opposite of last year's Oilers. Taylor Hall will probably spend no time with the farm teams, and it's been said that he'd make a great linemate for Jordan Eberle, who you probably forgot was the property of one of the NHL's saddest teams. If these two live up to the hype it'll be like Kane and Toews all over again, but hopefully we can prevent Taylor Hall from collecting arrest warrants and showgirls.

Nashville makes us prey. Sergei Kostitsyn's got a shot at a career renaissance with the Nashville Predators. He's got a pretty good team supporting him, an old teammate offering to keep an eye on him, and he'll be playing in a hockey market that's not huge, so he'll have to work to get attention. I wouldn't be surprised if the Latendresse effect set in and Sergei returned to his fine rookie form, taking full advantage of his speed and talent. The Habs will probably have to be even more careful around him than Nashville's division rivals, because Sergei's passion will probably translate to some kind of serious ass-kicking against the city that disowned him.
Also Matthew Lombardi keeps getting better and better and Phoenix should never have let him go.

We'll have to see what happens, I guess.

On top of the world

How do you say "We won the fucking Cup" in Spanish?

photo yoinked from rds.ca

My offseason placeholder sport is no more, as Spain has just won the World Cup. With fans who chant Olé Olé, and a guy on the team whose name sounds like "PK" I'm happy enough with the final result.

In about two months, I'll have hockey again, and hope to see the same impressive combination of talent and teamwork that these soccer teams showed, but hopefully with a little less diving. In the meantime, we'll just have to watch our NHL teams finish coming together.

Development camp links

Now, I'm sure I'm not alone in being confined to the internet for all my development camp updates. Twitter (@All_Habs in particular is a great reference) has been a big help in that department. Here's my bit of help for those who are a little behind, or who at least want to know which prospects are/were lining up to strut their stuff for the Habs, as well as all over the league.

Atlanta
Anaheim
Boston
Buffalo (not so much a list, per se, unfortunately)
Carolina
Chicago
Columbus
Dallas
Detroit
Edmonton (I knew they'd be excited, but my my my this is impressive)
Los Angeles
Minnesota
Nashville
NYI (also pretty excited, these guys)
NYR
Ottawa (.pdf)
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Pittsburgh
Tampa Bay
Toronto
Vancouver
Washington

An added division rivalry~ shoutout goes out to Something's Bruin for their development camp coverage! :D

Gauthier speaks!

Pierre Gauthier awoke from his slumber today and held a press conference. He even missed a World Cup semifinal game for said press conference, so we thought it would be something big. From what I can gather, this is what he had to say:

"We want to keep Carey Price and Maxim Lapierre. As you know, we haven't officially kept them yet, but there's been talks. Oh, and Glen Metropolit, Paul Mara, Dominic Moore, and Marc-André Bergeron don't have contracts yet because I don't want them anymore. If anyone wants to pick them up, go for it."

No proof yet if this press conference was brought to us by the letter M, and how Lapierre feels about surviving this alphabetical holocaust.

I was really hoping we'd hold onto Moore and Metropolit for a little longer. Moore is exactly the kind of guy you'd want on your supporting cast: he's smart, not physical enough to take dumb penalties, but he's enough of a go-getter to score when it counts. He seemed to fit pretty well into the team's lineup. And he speaks a little French, which probably tickled half the city's media. Gauthier got a lot of praise when Moore proved himself to be a good acquisition at the end of the season and during the playoffs, but that's all over now.

I'd have kept Glen Metropolit on the team mostly for emotional reasons. And believe me, when he first put on the CH I never would have said that. Never in my life would I let myself actually like a player who's been both a Bruin and a Flyer, I said. I quickly, and somewhat begrudgingly, changed my mind. Metro is a truly good guy, and it's a shame that his skill set makes him a good stopgap, and not a franchise player. He's the kind of guy that could be a good captain. I'm not trying to put down any of the guys who've already been (rightfully) hailed as The Next Habs Captain, but Metropolit should have been considered among them. He's smart, experienced, reliable, and patient. He can lead his teammates while handling the extra load of being the team's ambassador to the media. Plus, he's easily one of the nicest guys in hockey. I've never heard a single story about him being rude or even curt. When he's back home in the GTA, he goes back to his old neighbourhood, the one he worked so hard to get out of. He plays hockey with the underprivileged kids. He visits his grandmother. He's like Shane Doan without a permanent address, or Sidney Crosby without the Scrooge McDuck fortune.

You know that feeling you get when someone you know, who's not a terrible person, but not necessarily more desirable than you, gets ENGAGED and you're single? That's how Metro and Moore must feel.
I joked about this earlier on Twitter, and what's sad is that it's kind of true. These players don't deserve to be bounced around from team to team like this. I'm going to miss them. I'm also going to have to make new Christmas graphics next year.

Goodbye, Mara's beard. May you ever grow in our hearts.

All the best to these players, and whatever teams they end up with. Hopefully not teams I hate.

On another note, congratulations are in order:

To Geoff Molson, who will succeed Pierre Boivin as President of the Canadiens, a job whose description I still do not understand. (Between you and me, I think Molson might've greased the team owner's palm to get this job.)

To Sergei Kostitsyn, who officially belongs to the Nashville Predators for one year. He gets $550 000, face time with Shea Weber, and a chance at redemption. Go Sergei.

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.

We stand on guard for thee

You've got to love Canada Day. It's become more than just a celebration of the country we call home. It's the day when renters move into their new homes, and when hockey players find out where they'll be buying their next house. And it's the day I slip on Team Canada gold medal T-shirt, turn on the TV, and make sure the WiFi is working. Oh, and celebrate Canada.

So, what's this goalie business? Remember how we traded Jaroslav Halak and assumed a contract was in the works for Carey Price? I'm still waiting for it. If our dear GM can maybe get something done, or at least speak up and tell us what's causing the delay, I'd appreciate it. We lost one great young goalie, and I don't know why the other one hasn't been locked down yet.
As for Dan Ellis, he seemed like a great guy and had considered playing for Montreal since the Habs own the rights to him, but ultimately it just wasn't meant to be. It probably came down to salary, what with our lack of cap space. Like many things that were at some point Montreal's, he's now in Tampa Bay.
Other possible candidates for backup, Martin Biron and Chris Mason, have also gone to other teams. Biron went from being a Flyer to being a Ranger, so as you can guess, we feel exactly the same about him.
Last year's senior Hamilton goalie, Curtis Sanford, got a nice raise and will presumably be mentoring Cedrick Desjardins.
As for the big club, it looks like the Canadiens will be Alex Auld's ninth NHL team. One year, one million dollars. (I dare you not to say that in your Dr. Evil voice.) It's already been established that he is quite bald, so I don't have to mention that, do I?

I will, however, mention that mustache man behind him

Show us what you've got, bAuldy. But first, if you talk to management again, GET ME CAREY PRICE.

And as for the skaters: We've kept Dustin Boyd on board, meaning that the Sergei trade has worked out okay so far. As for our other free agents... remember when I mentioned Pierre Gauthier was MIA? He was also MIA for a few other guys: Glen Metropolit, Paul Mara, Dominic Moore, Maxim Lapierre, and Bulldogs stars David Desharnais, Cedrick Desjardins, Brock Trotter, Mathieu Carle, Ryan Russell, and my James Wyman. And if you still care, Marc-Andre Bergeron is on that list.


I'd cover the rest of the Canada Day action, and I'd express my utter frustration at Scott Gomez and his ego trip, but I'm a little wiped out from all the Twitter, TSN, and Timbits. I hope it was a good Canada Day for all.