I had to rely a lot on closed captioning for this episode, so forgive me if anything is lost in translation, folks.
- The show opened with an explanation that on this team, there is no “Galchenyuk, Bouillon and Gallagher … just Chucky, Frankie Boo and Gally.” Which led to a rundown of the team stating their nicknames for the record. I took notes. We know the usuals, Marky, Pleky, Pricey, Emmy, Patch (or Pac Man) and Gio, but we now know that White is “White Dog” and Prust is “The Caveman”. One of my favourites was Budaj: “Boods. Booooods.”
- My other favourite was P.K. “Is this self-proclaimed, or is this what guys call me? Well … they call me P.K.! Or Subby, maybe Subby. I think Subby’s short for Subbanator, but they may not confirm that, but Subby, for sure. (laughs) They’re gonna kill me for that one.” P.S. Josh Gorges won’t go by “Georgie” anymore now that Parros is on the team – he’s now “Jorge”. Then Parros comes on and says, “I’m Georgie.” I would totally give Parros my nickname too, if I were Josh. Mama didn’t raise a dummy.
- Therrien comes on and says his nicknames are “Ti-coune and casque de bain” and has a good laugh and says it’s a joke. I Googled both and Ti-coune is, I think, a TV character and “Wiktionnaire” says it’s also someone who appears young but wants to feel older, and casque de bain means swim cap. So, I need more background on that joke.
- Three months after the devastation caused by a derailment at the town of Lac Megantic, the team goes for a goodwill/spirit-boosting visit and practice at the local arena, which, as we see during a conversation Daniel (don’t call him Danny) has with arena staff, narrowly missed destruction.
- Briere, Desharnais and Bouillon feature heavily in this footage, signing autographs and chatting to the cameras. The episode is especially Briere-centric – I get why, but I hope we get to see more in the future on the players who are making a serious difference in this young season, which Briere is certainly not, yet.
- Therrien closes out the Lac Megantic visit by saying the team was very happy to be generous with their time, and, as we clearly see from the footage, fans were also very appreciative – so everyone was happy to be a part of that.
- Bergevin gets more face-time, this time discussing Parros’ injury. Parros rejoins his “Canadiens family” three days after his season-opening injury and concussion, and is greeted warmly by all his teammates. Bergevin talks about how when he saw the injury, he immediately went downstairs, knowing he couldn’t help, but had to be there because although it sounds cheesy, it’s like his son, it’s like his pal getting hurt and coming out on a stretcher … and he trails off and appears to become emotional. I LOVE HIM.
- After a practice, we get to see Emelin’s smiling face off-ice, and Budaj runs down the schedule of the “hardest-working guy” on the team, which goes something like this: “Five in the morning, stretch, ice, food, ice, pool workout, ice, and then he has a bed right there.” Good. Can’t wait to see “Emmy” back.
- Back to the Briere Hour, we see his youngest son, Cameron, coming to work with his dad. While his dad works, we see Cameron playing some NHL 13 (I think) with Jean Jacques Daigneault and Brendan Gallagher. Gally brags how he always wins and Cameron corrects him that he lost once. Cameron is completely bilingual and a very nice boy, by the way. These are things a mom notices – kids who are brought up right.
- We get to see Nathan Beaulieu get called up, and he talks about how excited he gets, because every time you get sent down, you are bitter. These, then, are emotions he gets to feel a lot.
- More of the Briere Hour brought us to the story behind his jersey sporting the proper accent grave on the e. Canadiens’ staff had explained to the anglophone company that makes the jerseys the importance of the accent and although they haven’t done it before, they put an accent on his jersey. The narrator then says, “No more ‘Danny Breeurrrr’ and welcome, Daniel Brière!” I don’t think I’ve ever heard an anglo wildly mispronounce Briere’s name that way, but whatever.
- More of the Briere Hour taught us that the player for whom a game is most special, in the event of a victory, must treat his teammates to dinner, which Briere had to do after the 4-1 win over Philly. And oh yes it was Plekanec’s 600th NHL game and Bournival’s very first, too, but let’s talk more about this Briere guy.
- We do also see Bournival’s mom there for his first game, and she talks about how all her kids played sports, and they would laugh that their mother doesn’t play sports, but does a lot of driving. Then she laughs. This sounds WAY better in French.
- More of the Briere Hour gives us his dad speaking proudly (and very, very fast) about how Briere first skated a the age of two (he even kept his teeny-tiny skates), his backyard rink, the neighbourhood kids spending all their time there, when Daniel would be playing peewee games and then leaving home at the age of 14 to pursue his dream, and how hard that was on his mom. Briere grew up as fan of the Habs, and indeed we see him in the CH in all his childhood photos – he wore the number 14 because Mario Tremblay was his hero, and his other hero was Mats Naslund.
- Lars Eller gets hit by a puck against Philly, breaks a tooth, goes and gets stitched up by the dentist. The team doctor, by the way, asks him if he feels concussed, and Eller says no. And that was the extent of that diagnosis. Eller comes back on to the ice to pot a goal, and grins from the bench.
- We get to see a little more of Briere in the section dedicated to the Philly game, his penalty, and then apologizing and chit-chatting with the ref from the penalty box – he regrets embarrassing the ref by challenging the call. Do we know if P.K. apologizes to refs? I hope not.
- White gets ejected from the game after fighting, and we see him in the back explaining that he will get to come back if the game goes to overtime; but he hasn’t seen an overtime shift in about 10 years, so …
- The Philly game ends and of course doesn’t go to OT, and we see a final clip of Briere, being greeted by his kid and his wife, who looks fabulous and is teetering on gold stilettos. Way too much Briere in this episode for me, but I do have to say his kids seem great, and he seems to be very much a gentleman.
- The episode ends with a sweet scene of an eight-year-old boy catching one of Carey Price’s First Star pucks, then the cameras follow him and his dad home, to be greeted by a mom who clearly would prefer to be off-camera, then into his room where he places the puck on his nightstand right beside his Habs pennant. The show ends with the boy watching the second season premiere of 24 CH.
I love this show, and if there are going to be weekly instalments unlike last year where we’d have to wait weeks between episodes, it’s clear they’re going to be spending more time off-ice showing more real-life moments. Hopefully future episodes will revolve around the rest of the team as well.
The English version of this episode airs on TNS2 and TSN on Tuesday at 7:30 PM EST and Wednesday at 1:30 PM EST, respectively.
More from Eyes On The Prize:
- Canadiens at Canucks – Game Recap – Carey Price brilliant in Habs’ 4-1 win over Canucks
- Tortorella’s post game presser: The new, calm Torts is calm no longer
- Retour sur le match Canadiens – Canucks
- Bulldogs fall in shootout to defending champs
- Canadiens at Canucks – Top Six Minutes – The Price is Right /
