Habs fans surprise me sometimes

I know I should never be shocked when I read a Montreal Canadiens fan forum, but there are still lots of things that surprise me.

Seriously, wouldn’t Milan Lucic look good in a Habs uniform?

Recently, I posted on a Habs Facebook group, asking who is one person you would never want to see play for the Habs.

I chose Brad Marchand. Habs fans hated Mike Ribeiro and his diving ways. I couldn’t imagine they would support Marchand and his diving ways (plus his cheap shots).

Some made sense. Sean Avery and Matt Cooke (even though the first is now retired and the second has cleaned up his act).

Some choices had a personal feel. My buddy Dave hasn’t forgiven Martin Brodeur from scoring an empty net goal a decade or so ago. One guy never forgave Andrew Ference for giving the Habs fans the middle finger during a playoff game a couple of years back.

I can buy the reasons if it’s personal. But I was floored by some of the other answers.

Here was the rest of the list: Milan Lucic, Ruslan Fedotenko, Zdeno Chara, Alexander Ovechkin, Henrik Lundqvist, Scott Hartnell and Shane Doan.

None of these choices make any sense to me.

Let’s look at the list player by player.

Lucic: I don’t think there’s another NHL non-superstar player that Habs fans would love to have on their team more than Lucic. He’s pretty much everything the Habs need right now. He can hit, he can fight, he can score, he can intimidate, he can beat up Mike Komisarek with regularity. Basically, he’s the exact opposite of Rene Bourque. He would be treated like royalty by Canadiens fans.

Fedotenko: I’m just shocked that someone would think he’s the one person in the league they wouldn’t be able to cheer for.

Chara: Yeah, it would suck to have a guy on the team that gets nominated for the Norris trophy every single season. Habs fans would love Chara if he played for them.

Ovechkin: This is where the list really starts to get silly. A potential 60-goal scorer who likes to hit people and plays with passion? No room for someone like that on this team.

Lundqvist: I lime Price too. But if we had Lundqvist instead of Price, wouldn’t we cheer him?

Hartnell: Another guy who would be loved. He can hit, score, get under the skin of opposing players.

Doan: This only makes sense if people remember the frog comment he made a few years ago.

I realize a lot of these may be personal answers, but I can’t see anyone not cheering for Chara, Lucic, Ovechkin or Lundqvist if they played for Montreal.

What do you think? Who would you hate to see on the Habs?

Time to eliminate headshots

So the media is on the whole headshot kick again when it comes to NHL players.

For some reason, there are more headshots nowadays than ever before.

The latest happened yesterday, while Matt Cooke nailed Marc Savard with an elbow to the head.

Now that sort of thing never happened in the 1980s (or at least, not to the level that it is now), but players were more dangerous back then. Why is that? Did they respect each other more?

No, it’s because there’s no accountability for these players on or off the ice.

Case in point, when Cooke hit Savard with the elbow, what happened immediately afterwards? Nothing. No gloves were dropped, no stickwork, not even a facewash (watch the video of the hit and the aftermath here).

So what would have happened back in the 80s if someone had done this? It’s easy. The team’s tough guy would have taken his opponent and pounded him until the guy couldn’t feel his funny bone, much less be able to hit someone with it.

But because of the league’s instigator rule, that doesn’t happen anymore. There’s nothing to stop these guys from running around with no fear. It’s why guys like Sean Avery, Maxim Lapierre, Cooke and others can go around acting cowardly.

Off the ice, the league just doesn’t do enough to protect its players. Alexander Ovechkin runs guys, and the league won’t do anything. Michael Ryder hits a guy into the boards on Saturday (see the video here), and is free to play on Sunday.

And this isn’t Cooke’s first suspension. In November, in almost an exact same hit to the Savard one, Cooke elbowed Anton Anisimov in the head (see that video here). He got two games for that one. A year ago, he hit Scott Walker in the head, and was suspended for two games.

So obviously, Cooke isn’t learning a thing. He did the same thing to Savard that he has done to other hockey players.

But here’s the thing. If Cooke had been suspended for 10 games for his elbow on Anisimov (which wasn’t even his first career suspension), do you honestly think he would have tried the same thing against Savard? Not a chance.

Honestly, this is one of the main reasons I have stopped paying to go to hockey games. I go to them if I get free tickets, but I haven’t paid to see a game in about 10 years. I made that vow after Kyle MacLaren hit Richard Zednik in the head during the playoffs about a decade ago, and it still stands. And it’s because of garbage like this.

If the league won’t the players protect their teammates, then the league needs to do it. No more pussyfooting around. Either come out and say you care about the health of the athletes and there will be no more of this (to be followed by a 15-game suspension of Cooke), or continue to do nothing until a player gets paralyzed.