By Kristina, AllHabs.net
Montreal, QC. — You knew it was coming. Labour Day weekend has come and gone. Training camps have just gotten under way and the humid summer air has suddenly dissipated, replaced by a cool freshness that slightly burns your lungs for the first time in months.
Hockey is finally here.
And just the way summer ends and the leaves turn from a healthy green to the vivid colours of yellow, orange and red, the hockey season begins once again; like clockwork.
Rookie camp, the annual golf tournament, player physicals and training camp, preseason matches, hard fought wins and lacklustre regular season losses, the battle for playoff positioning and the grind and thrill of best of seven post-season match-ups.
It is a season that takes precedence over mother nature’s seasons in this city and it is a season that most certainly should.
But with every season there are things you wish you could change. Like the mornings you have to wake up at 5 a.m. to shovel 25 centimetres of snow (that’s 10 inches for our American friends) off your driveway or the countless hours you have to spend in your car during a rush hour snowstorm to get home.
With the hockey season, there are player quotes and post-game talk that I wish I could change, mute or (unrealistically) eliminate. Quotes that you hear year after year, spoken in a slightly different way by a different frustrated player in the dressing room on any given night.
In the spirit of hoping that the Canadiens clinch the Northeast division and win a lot more than they lose, here are some things I hope not hear during the 2011-2012 Montreal Canadiens season.
“I thought we had too many penalties. There was a lack of discipline in our play. This league is too close and you can’t give that many opportunities away.” — Jacques Martin following a 4-3 OT loss to the Lightning on October 13, 2010.
Really? Too many penalties? Apparently the message was heard loud and clear for a brief moment as the Canadiens went on to win their next game, taking six less penalties in the process. The Habs also went on to be the tenth-most penalized team in the league over the course of the regular season.
“Am I taking the blame? I don’t think I’m taking the blame. I think that individually I don’t think I played my best today and it just happened to cost our team. As a team, I think we know we can play better. I know that I have to be better, I can be better than that. I was trying to do too much at times, just little things. I am not going to shy away from it, I was out there for two goals and they happen to be big ones.” —P.K. Subban following a 4-3 OT loss to the Oilers on December 1, 2010.
P.K. was benched for three games following that colossal collapse.
“We got ourselves into penalty trouble. Took too many penalties, you don’t have a chance to get in the game, you don’t have a chance to get in a flow.” — Brian Gionta following a 4-2 loss to the Red Wings on December 10, 2010.
The Habs went on to lose 3-1 to the Maple Leafs one night later.
“It’s tough. We gotta learn from it. We got too many penalties and they hurt us.” — David Desharnais following a 5-2 loss to Flyers on January 25, 2011.
Apparently the lesson wasn’t learned when they lost to the Leafs weeks earlier or when they lost against the Lightning in the third game of the season.
“If we didn’t fall asleep for three or four minutes in the first period, it would’ve been a close game.” —Brian Gionta after a 6-3 loss to Rangers on March 18, 2011.
Sleeping can never be a good recipe for success mid-game.
“They got an early start. We got ourselves in penalty trouble again. We were killing a lot of penalties. We gotta find a way to get a better start and not get behind.” — Brian Gionta after a 7-0 thumping to the Bruins on March 24, 2011.
Nobody needs a reminder what happened the game before against the Bruins, but evidently the Canadiens did.
“We knew they were going to be desperate. They’re fighting for the playoffs. We just were not ready mentally..I don’t think we competed, and they outworked us tonight.” — Roman Hamrlik following a 6-2 loss to the Hurricanes on March 30, 2011.
The Canadiens had to get one more dose of humiliation to talk about post-game before wrapping up the 2010-2011 season.
Cheers to the least amount of sleeping, penalties, and lack of compete in 2011-2012.