Here’s an excerpt from the TSN article:
It’s been 15 years since the Stanley Cup was awarded to a Canadian team and the Montreal Canadiens enter the season with the best chance of ending that drought. The Habs finished first in the Eastern Conference last year and added Alex Tanguay, Robert Lang and Georges Laraque to their roster over the summer.
The team is also celebrating its centennial season and would love nothing more than to win a 25th championship. Some fans almost expect it.
“We had a very good season last year, continue to make changes and improve the team and we’re going into the centennial year _ I think our fans have very high expectations and we have the same expectations,” said Canadiens president Pierre Boivin. “It’s a long season, it’s 82 games. We’ve got to make the playoffs and go as far as we can thereafter.
“You cannot predict a Stanley Cup. That’s what we’re in it for and we’ll do everything in our power to be there.”
There will be plenty of focus on the city whether that happens or not. The NHL will stage the all-star game at the Bell Centre on Jan. 25 and hold its annual entry draft at the arena over two days in late June.
Consider Montreal the centre of the hockey universe in 2008-09.
“It is a marvellous opportunity to celebrate what is an institution,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. “And I didn’t limit what I just said to sports institutions.
“The Montreal Canadiens are an absolute institution. As it relates to sports franchises, there’s probably nothing like it in the world in terms of the history, tradition and even success.”
The most successful player to wear the Habs jersey over the past two decades will be celebrated on Nov. 22. That’s the night Patrick Roy‘s No. 33 will be retired by the Habs, ending a chilly period that has existed since the Hall of Fame goalie famously demanded a trade from the team in 1995.