The GAzette 30 ans la Victoire du CH (Forum)

par Jéromec, dimanche 04 juin 2023, 23:48 (il y a 320 jours)

un article du Montréal The GAzette sur les 30 ans de la Victoire du CH de la Coupe stanley

Je gage un vieux 2$ que le CH ne sera même pas foutu de souligner l'événement pas plus que les merdias francoFun..

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/when-the-stanley-cup-last-came-home``

When the Stanley Cup last came home

There was Marty McSorley’s stick, Patrick Roy’s wink, an impossible 10 consecutive wins in overtime, an exultant 24th Stanley Cup — and a riot on Ste-Catherine Street.
Author of the article:
Jack Todd • Special to Montreal Gazette
Published Jun 03, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 9 minute read
20 Comments
When the Stanley Cup last came home to Montreal
Group hug: Kirk Muller, Brian Bellows, Mathieu Schneider and John LeClair at the Forum in Game 2 of the 1993 Stanley Cup final. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette
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The hairdos were bad, the suits were tight, the broadcasts low-def, the result triumphant.
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There were mullets on the ice and perms in the stands. There was McSorley’s stick, Patrick’s wink, an impossible 10 consecutive wins in overtime, an exultant 24th Stanley Cup — and a riot on Ste-Catherine St.
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In a 52-day span between April 18 and June 9, 1993, the underdog Montreal Canadiens played 20 hockey games in the pressure cooker of the playoffs and won 16, including three consecutive overtime victories over Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings in the final.

It’s been said this was a ragtag team, which is wildly inaccurate. This was a good team, well-constructed for the playoffs, with the greatest money goaltender in the history of the game.

Still, you can argue the Cup was won over a four-day stretch in August, when GM Serge Savard pulled off two brilliant trades: Shayne Corson, Brent Gilchrist and Vladimir Vujtek to Edmonton for Vincent Damphousse and Russ Courtnall to Minnesota for Brian Bellows. Damphousse and Bellows would give the Canadiens the offence the oomph it needed.
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That offence would help carry the Habs to a record 24th Stanley Cup — and would, improbably, initiate a championship drought for Canadian teams that now stands at 30 years and counting.

Dick Irvin Jr., whose crisp work in the booth was a highlight of the ’93 run, still marvels it has taken so long.

“If you had said to me that night, ‘nobody will do the job you just did with a team based in Canada for at least the next 30 years, I would have said: ‘You’re crazy. You’re talking about Canada’s game, for heaven’s sake.’”

When the Stanley Cup last came home to Montreal
Fans in the standing-room-only section of the Montreal Forum during Game 2 of the 1993 Stanley Cup final. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette

The Canadiens, accustomed to a revolving door of dynasty after dynasty and Cup after Cup, have had to accept 30 years of losing — the product of bad trades, bad drafts, bad hires and bad luck in a bloated, U.S.-driven league. The big-market teams (and the Canadiens are one) are also hamstrung with a salary cap, yet other teams have adjusted and the predecessors of the current team executives did not.
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If Canada’s game has slipped away from us for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, a determined but underrated bunch grabbed a chance three decades ago and would not let go.

The Canadiens had a strong start to the 1992-93 season, but lost 11 of their last 18 games, skidding to third place in the tough Adams Division with 102 points, behind Boston and Quebec. The rest of the league was dotted with tough rivals: Chicago, Detroit and the Leafs in the Norris, Vancouver, Calgary and the Kings in the Smythe, and the defending champ Pittsburgh Penguins in the Patrick.

To win a Stanley Cup, you need a little help from your friends. The Canadiens got it when Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Washington and Calgary fell in the first round. When the Islanders knocked off the Penguins in overtime of Game 7, the path to Lord Stanley’s Cup was suddenly wide open.
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But that was the easy part and it did not start well.

The Canadiens jumped out to an early 2-0 in Game 1 and had a dozen good chances to make it 3-0. Nordiques goalie Ron Hextall, wallowing in his crease like a porpoise caught in a net, was ungainly but effective and the Nordiques comeback began with Gilbert Dionne taking an elbowing penalty. The Canadiens were unhappy with referee Paul Stewart for calling it, but the penalty was dumb as a frozen puck. At the 18:31 mark, Martin Rucinsky scored to get the Nordiques on the board. Less than a minute later, Joe Sakic tied it from the outer rim of the faceoff circle.

When the Stanley Cup last came home to Montreal
At the 18:15 mark in Game 2, with the Canadiens trailing 2-1, coach Jacques Demers called for a measurement of Marty McSorley’s stick. Photo by ALLEN MCINNIS /GAZETTE

In about the time it takes to tie your skate laces, the Canadiens had blown a two-goal lead. Behind the bench, Jacques Demers looked as though he had taken a puck to the face. The Canadiens still had chances in the overtime period, but Hextall was able to flop and flounder and keep the puck out of the net until Scott Young beat Roy with a wraparound goal.
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In Game 2, the Canadiens looked like a team that hadn’t recovered from the shock. The Nordiques jumped out to a 3-0 lead with Young scoring two goals and waltzed to a 4-1 win.

Demers was not an X’s and O’s guy, but what he could do was motivate. Even down in the series 2-0, he made his players believe. The message was simple: It didn’t start the way they wanted but they had played some great hockey. They just needed a bit of luck.

They got it in Game 3. Halfway through the first overtime period, Damphousse got the winner on the power play to put the Canadiens back in the series.

When the Stanley Cup last came home to Montreal
Wayne Gretzky of the Los Angeles Kings argues with referee Kerry Fraser during Game 2. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette

Then came the most important game in the entire playoff run. After watching 20 consecutive games from that 1993 season, I’m convinced it all turned on a wild and woolly Game 5 in Quebec City.
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The carnage started early when Eric Desjardins was shaken up by a hard collision with Kirk Muller. In the first period alone, both Stéphan Lebeau and J.J. Daigneault were almost out on their skates after big hits. There was no concussion protocol and it didn’t appear either player missed a shift.

You didn’t even need to be on the ice to get hurt. Rob Ramage was sitting on the bench when Gary Leeman’s clearing attempt caught him squarely on the nose. Ramage left with a towel to his face, streaming blood.

The injury that might have changed everything came early in the second period when Mike Hough’s hard, rising shot hit Roy on the right shoulder. The pain hit Roy like a thunderbolt but, somehow, he managed to get back up.

Roy tried to stay in the game, but after Andrei Kovalenko scored, he left for the dressing room and André Racicot took his place. Michael Farber detailed what happened next in a piece for Sports Illustrated:
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In the room, Dr. Eric Lenczner diagnosed the injury: a bruised rotator cuff. Roy asked if it could be frozen. Lenczner said it was worth a try. After an injection of an anaesthetic called Marcaine, the shoulder was numb, if no more mobile than it was before.

With Roy out in the second period, the Canadiens got goals from Damphousse and Eric Desjardins, but Mats Sundin and Owen Nolan countered against Racicot for Quebec to tie it at 3-3. To the dismay of the crowd at the Colisée, Roy returned in the third period. He gave up another goal to Sundin, but Dionne atoned for his Game 1 elbowing penalty by tying it to send the game to overtime.

The Nordiques were flying in the extra frame but Roy, injured shoulder or not, relied on his quick skates to make save after save. Finally, Damphousse broke into the Quebec zone with Muller on his right. The pass and the shot were perfect and the Canadiens had their second overtime win, with Roy stopping 35 of 37 shots despite the injured shoulder.
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When the Stanley Cup last came home to Montreal
The finale was anticlimactic. The Kings’ Wayne Gretzky was held off the score sheet and the Canadiens cruised to a 4-1 win and their 24th Stanley Cup. Photo by FRANK GUNN /Canadian Press

Irvin agrees the Quebec series was the key. The Canadiens room after Game 5, Irvin recalls, “looked like the scene from Gone With the Wind where all the wounded soldiers were laid out in the town square. They had taken a hell of a physical beating but still won the game.

“Two days later at the morning skate, some Quebec players, especially Sakic and Hextall, had a vacant look that hinted they were a beaten team. And they were.”

The Canadiens took Game 6 in crushing fashion, 6-2. They couldn’t have known it at the time, but they had dispatched the toughest opponent they would face that spring.

After the drama and passion of the Quebec series, the sweep of the Buffalo Sabres passed like a dream, even if Montreal had to win the last three games in overtime. By now, Roy was locked in. Nothing else would matter.