Are Cammalleri's Frustrations Causing a French Media Spin?

There is a pretty harsh letter by some guy named Enrico Ciccone circulating that pretty clearly is based on Gagnon`s reporting rather than the version of the conversation coming from anywhere else. Something about how he called the team losers (which would be insulting) like Gagnon said rather than what he said about playing losing hockey (which would be sadly accurate).

So yeah. His comments were bad but I`m sure this is going to be another proud day for the Montreal media.

My favourite bit is that the CHIP on defense alone is good for 8th in the league there. Its certainly not just Gomez.

Yeah, I thought he crafted the sentence around the 80s team very deftly.

The statement is true, but the comparison is unfair.

No one could say with a straight face that Montreal’s ‘86 and ’93 teams were among the best of their eras in the way the Canadiens teams in the ’50s, the mid-’60s or the late-’70s were.

It is like saying Carey Price isn’t good because he isn’t Patrick Roy. I can’t look him in the face and tell him the Canadiens were in the same class as their dynasty teams, but I can tell him that between 1980 and 1993 that the Habs won their division 7 times, averaged 100 points in the no free point era and won two Cups, made another Final and made the Conference Final another two times. They also averaged a 5th place overall in that time frame.

1980 – 107 points
1981 – 103 points
1982 – 109 points
1983 – 98 points
1984 – Conference Final
1985 – Division Title
1986 – Stanley Cup
1987 – Conference Final
1988 – 2nd overall in the NHL
1989 – Stanley Cup Final
1990 – 2nd round
1991 – 2nd Round
1992 – Division Title
1993 – Stanley Cup

Those teams were not dynastic, but they were on par with the Devils, Wings, Pens of the last 20 seasons.

I think the only part of your narrative that could have holes poked in it is that teams didn’t understand the real value of the draft in the 1970s.

Torrey understood it like Pollock. He nailed a bunch of high picks and it lead to the dynasty. The Oilers had Gretzky. His play from 1980-1988 would have made any team a contender. They got to keep him from the WHA.

Yours is a fairly accurate assessment IMO.

I don’t really have a problem with it within the context it is framed.

They haven’t really lived up to the historical context of the team since the Houle/Tremblay/Roy fiasco. The ridiculousness of the past month hasn’t helped the situation.

There are some errors in there, like the amateur Quebec player access etc. It lasted for 3 seasons and not one of those players had an impact on the 70s dynasty. The simple explanation for the Canadiens territorial advantage in the Original six was geography and competing against only five other teams.

The Leafs had every opportunity to come into Quebec and buy up a team or sign players to a C-Form. They didn’t.

The big underlying one is how Montreal has become just other ordinary franchise albeit one with a great history.

How it would be possible for that not to happen given how their environment changed is rarely a question these pieces are interested in asking or even attempting to answer. These days most of Montreal’s built in advantages (money mainly, a storied name also I guess) are countered by built in disadvantages (nosy and difficult media, high taxes, weather) so unless you’ve got an extraordinary brain trust up there ordinariness is to be expected.