March 11, 1890: Hall of Fame defenceman Sprague Cleghorn was born in Montreal. Cleghorn played in the NHL from 1918-19 through 1927-28 with Ottawa, Toronto, the Canadiens and Boston.
March 11, 1918: The first all-NHL Stanley Cup playoff game took place as the Toronto Blueshirts played host to the Canadiens in Game 1 of their two-game, total-goal series. Toronto won 7-3 in front of 4,000 fans.
March 11, 1924: The Canadiens won a two-game, total-points series 5-2 over Ottawa to claim the NHL championship.
March 11, 1937: A funeral service was held at the Forum for the Canadiens’ Howie Morenz with more than 15 000 people showing up to pay their respects.
March 11, 1950: Rookie goaltender Gerry McNeil, replacing the injured Bill Durnan, recorded his first career NHL shutout in a 5-0 win over the Boston Bruins at the Forum. Elmer Lach scored a goal and added two assists.
March 11, 1961: Henri Richard scored the third hat trick in a 7-5 win over the Boston Bruins at the Forum.
March 11, 1969: Gump Worsley recorded his 40th career shutout in a 3-0 win over the Blues in St. Louis.
March 11, 1982: Rookie goaltender Rick Wamsley recorded his third career shutout in a 4-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks at the Forum.
March 11, 1996: The Canadiens beat the Dallas Stars 4-1 in the final game at the Montreal Forum (photo above).
March 11, 2000: Defenceman Sheldon Souray scored his first goal with the Canadiens against Rob Tallas and the Boston Bruins.
March 11, 2006: The Canadiens retired No. 5 in honour of Hall of Famer Bernard (Boom Boom) Geoffrion. Tragically, Geoffrion died earlier that day from cancer.
(Source: Carl Lavigne/Montreal Canadiens. Photo: Montreal Gazette files)
The final hours at Forum
PUBLISHED ON MARCH 12, 1996
RED FISHER
MONTREAL GAZETTE
These final hours at the Forum had started with the whisper of a lone pair of skates on this glistening, blue-white table. Far below my press-box seat, in this quiet time long before the Canadiens were to play their last game, the skater moved with the strong, firm strides of youth, tracing the barest hint of long, thin lines into the ice.
Scuff … scuff … body slightly forward. One leg after another … scuff … scuff – and, oh my, is there a more beautiful sight or sound anywhere?
The same lines have been traced in this place for more than seven decades. Who, I wonder, was the first skater when the Forum opened in 1924? What was he thinking about when he looked up at the empty seats then? What was lone skater Benoit Brunet, who hasn’t skated since January 10, thinking about yesterday in the early hours of the Forum‘s last sun-splashed, emotional day?
”I wasn’t supposed to skate until Thursday,” he said quietly. ”And then, I thought, ‘geez, it’s the last time. I’ve got to get out there this last time.’ It felt good.”
Once, almost 72 years ago, it was probably Georges Vezina who led his tiny band of players onto the Forum ice for the building’s first game. Was he thinking about the Toronto St. Pats, who were to fall to the Canadiens 7-1? Last night, while the thunder of the crowd rumbled and crashed around his ears, what was Jocelyn Thibault thinking about in the moments before the last game ever to be played in this place? Was he thinking about the importance of this game against the Dallas Stars, eventually won 4-1 by the Habs. Of course he was. Was he also thinking that no other Canadiens goaltender would ever again take this giant first – and last – pre-game step on to the Forum ice? Probably not. History is not for 21-year-olds. That comes later.
Was he thinking at all about the many, many goaltenders who have taken the same step in this building for more than seven decades?
There have been too many players to remember during the 41 seasons I have been coming to this place so many people choose to call a hockey shrine, but who can forget Jacques Plante, Gump Worsley, Ken Dryden and Patrick Roy? Each one so different – yet all the same: winners.
Last night, Thibault was the first on to the ice, followed by Pat Jablonski, Stephane Quintal and Lyle Odelein, but for a split-second in time, could that have been Plante followed by the Rocket, his lips locked tightly and coal-black eyes ablaze?
Vincent Damphousse was the first forward on the ice, but could it have been Jean Beliveau, tall and straight, shoulders back and gliding . . . gliding on the ice . . . all the while smiling tightly while the noise grew and grew and eventually engulfed the building?
There’s Dickie Moore and the Boomer, Doug Harvey and the Pocket. There’s Elmer Lach and Ken Reardon, Big Butch and The Flower.
Oh, how they used to enjoy that first step onto the ice. It was like coming home again. And how they welcomed the competition – during which the team was far more important than the individual, where winning was all that mattered, and losing was unacceptable.
How can anyone forget?
Yvan Cournoyer was behind the Canadiens’ bench last night, but for 16 seasons, and through 10 Stanley Cup years, I watched him step on to the ice and then fly around it. Game after game, year after year, that face as round and as brown as a meatball would break into a grin that seemed never to end after one of his 428 goals. One night, it lit up five times in a 12-3 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks. Is that worthwhile to remember? How can anyone forget?
How long ago was it that Larry Robinson, the 40th and latest Canadiens player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, was wearing the CH? He was on this ice again last night in spirit and soul, if not in body, and so were Serge Savard and Guy Lapointe.
Was Steve Shutt, now an assistant coach with the Canadiens, on the ice last night? Sure he was. Were the two jumpin’ Jacques, Lemaire and Laperriere? Of course they were. Bob Gainey, now the general manager of the visiting Stars? How could anyone keep him away?
That was Mario Tremblay behind the Canadiens’ bench, but how would Toe Blake and Dick Irvin Sr. have felt on a day and a night like this? How did Scott Bowman feel? For a little while, at least, did his heart hammer? Was there a delicious tightness in his chest? Did he shed a tear, perhaps? Did Sam Pollock?
This building was built for the Montreal Maroons, but it belonged to the Canadiens and to the 2,329 regular-season and 307 playoff games played here. It belonged to hockey’s best fans.
The NHL is what the Forum has been all about, starting in 1924, onward to the first game I covered, on March 17, 1955, which erupted into a riot largely, perhaps, because of the presence at the game by NHL president Clarence Campbell – and through last night’s game, attended by commissioner Gary Bettman. How, though, can anyone forget that heart-stopping exhibition that will always be remembered as the New Year’s Eve game? The Canadiens, who outshot the Red Army 38-13, played to a 3-3 tie and to this day, those who were there on Dec. 31, 1975, insist there was no game to match it before, or since. Perhaps they’re right, but I don’t think so.
Who can forget the first game of the 1972 Summit Series between Team NHL and the Soviets? Maybe, instead of Canadiens and Stars players on the ice, that was Phil Esposito down there throwing his arms around Paul Henderson. Look again, and could that be Valeri Kharlamov, Vladislav Tretiak, Alexander Yakushev and Boris Mikhailov celebrating after their stunning 7-3 victory?
I remember that game as not being among the best, but it surely was among the most emotional ever played in this place. I also remember Andrei Starovoitov, who was among 20 unsmiling Soviets who had invited me to a meeting in Moscow six weeks earlier.
I was there to write a pre-series series about the Soviet players. Who were these people who would dare to challenge the best hockey players in the world? What’s a Kharlamov? A Tretiak? A Yakushev?
”Martin, is he of your team?” asked Starovoitov, the U.S.S.R. Hockey Federation general secretary, through an interpreter on this late-July day.
Seth Martin was a goaltender who played a total of 26 games in the NHL with the expansion St. Louis Blues. Before that, however, his playing time was divided between senior hockey and international assignments.
”Your (Ken) Dryden, is he as good as Martin?” Starovoitov asked.
”I’m sure Martin was a very good international goaltender,” he was told, ”but he wasn’t good enough to play in the NHL. Dryden probably is the best goaltender in the NHL.”
That’s when Starovoitov popped the question: ”How do you think the series will go?”
”Eight straight.”
”We will see,” he said.
Now, it’s only a few minutes after this shocking – and brilliant – series-opening victory on this Sept. 2 night at the Forum. The media had congregated in the Forum garage looking for answers. They wanted to know how something like this could happen. What went wrong? Why?
While the media searched desperately for answers, a beaming Starovoitov had a question.
”Do you remember me from Moscow, Mr. Fisher?” he asked, this time without benefit of an interpreter.
”Yes, Mr. Starovoitov.”
”Do you remember you said the series would go in eight straight?”
”I do.”
”You could be right,” he snapped. Then he turned sharply and walked away.
Was there ever a better game at the Forum than the scoreless classic delivered by Tony Esposito in the Canadiens’ nets and Gerry Cheevers in Boston’s? Or a more emotional one than in ’79, when the Canadiens rallied for a tying goal in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup semi-final against the Bruins when Boston was caught with too many men on the ice?
The time: 17:26 of the third period. That brought Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, Steve Shutt and Jacques Lemaire on to the ice and soon, there’s Lemaire carrying the puck into the Boston zone and dropping it back to Lafleur at the top of the circle. Lafleur’s perfect shot rocketed beyond Gilles Gilbert. Only 74 seconds remained in the Canadiens’ season when the goal was scored. Now, another chance.
It came in the 10th minute of the first overtime. Mario Tremblay raced down right wing, with Boston defenceman Al Sims in pursuit. Yvon Lambert came down the left side, sprinted for the Boston net and arrived there just in time to deflect Tremblay’s pass between Gilbert’s legs. It was the Canadiens’ 52nd shot. The time: 9:33.
It was a goal and a game for all time. It was a game the Bruins had in their grasp, and then lost it – probably along with a Stanley Cup the Canadiens went on to win in five games.
Three years ago, the Los Angeles Kings won the first game of their best-of-seven Stanley Cup final against the Canadiens. They led Game 2 by a goal, and if they could hold on they would go back to Los Angeles for the next two games – with their first-ever Stanley Cup a hair beyond their grasp. Then: The Stick! Marty McSorley’s stick!
There were fewer than two minutes remaining in the game. The Kings led 2-1. Desperate times call for desperate moves – and there’s nothing quite as stressful as calling for the measurement of an opponent’s stick with time and, perhaps, the opportunity to win a Stanley Cup running out. One minute and 45 seconds remained in regulation time when referee Kerry Fraser was asked to determine whether or not the hook on McSorley’s stick was beyond acceptable limits. It was, at best, a guess. Guess right, and the Canadiens would have a one-man advantage – two if goaltender Roy was lifted in favor of an extra attacker. Guess wrong, and . . . oops! The game and maybe the series would be over.
McSorley’s stick was found to be illegal. Roy was yanked. Thirty-two seconds later, Eric Desjardins lifted the Canadiens into a tie with his second goal of the game. Fifty-one seconds into the overtime, he scored the winner – the eighth consecutive game the Canadiens had won in overtime.
I sat here yesterday, long before the start of this Canadiens-Stars finale and wondered about some of the truly great nights and games in this place. One game runs into another, and eventually, they become a blur. But then, there are little flashes of light – each special in its own way.
There was the night, for example, when Rogatien Vachon, a graduate from junior B hockey, was making his debut in the Canadiens’ net. Horrors! Could that be Gordie Howe sweeping in on a breakaway? On one side, an icon who was to end his career with 801 NHL goals. On the other: a junior B goalie preparing – and hoping – for his first NHL save. Things don’t get much better than that at the Forum – or anywhere else.
How many junior B goaltenders can claim the first shot he faced – and stopped – was on Gordie Howe? Rogie can.
Yesterday was a long day. A tired, old lady rests now, as she should. The memories live on – as they should.