It's An Effing Game!!!

Well here I am at 518am and I am already peeved and I haven't had my first cup of coffee yet. It's brewing right now. I made the mistake of reading Philippe Cantin's article on the Cyberpresse website in regards to the Habs hiring the unilingual Randy Cunneyworth as their head coach yesterday morning to replace Jacques Martin.

Let's back up here for a second first and go through some recent history. The Canadiens haven't won the Stanley Cup since the 1992-93 season. They've had a couple of good runs in the playoffs with 2009-10's almost miracle run the latest. That year we made it the conference final basically on Jaroslav Halak's back. When he was on his game, the Habs won. When he stunk up the joint, he was pulled but quick.

Since the 92-93 Cup winners, our general managers have been named Serge Savard, Rejean Houle, Andre Savard, Bob Gainey and Pierre Gauthier.

Since the 92-93 season's end, our head coaches have been Jacques Demers, Mario Tremblay, Alain Vigneault, Michel Therrien, Claude Julien, Bob Gainey (on a temporary basis twice to replace coaches he had fired), Guy Carbonneau and Jacques Martin.

So in close to twenty years aside from Bob Gainey, our general managers and head coaches all had in common the fact that their mother tongue was French.

Bob Gainey was deservedly named GM of the Habs after spending 16 years playing for them and earning his coach and GM stripes with the Dallas Stars.

The Habs have always been an organization that bring up their storied history in their promotional efforts. Habs' fans readily and eagerly buy into that fact and they have had sellout after sellout at the old Forum and at the Bell Centre.

When things are going well and the team itself is playing a fast-paced offensive crowd-pleasing style, the Bell Centre literally feels like it is shaking in its' foundation.

This is a throwback to the glory days when the Habs had the first dibs on all French Canadian players due to territorial rights. Even when they didn't as the NHL expanded, the Hab GMs were able to make the deals to get the best of the best of the French Canadian players. Case in point were the deals that were engineered by Sam Pollock to get Guy Lafleur.

Except for maybe the jobs with the Toronto Maple Leafs as we know that they are the center of the Canadian universe, being the GM or head coach of the Habs are the toughest jobs in hockey. Making it even tougher is the language bullshit. That is the correct word to use here.

The language issue is always there in the background. It happened a couple of years ago when the talented and uber-courageous Saku Koivu had his team captain credentials questioned by some sycophants in the French press.

It seems to come up every year come the annual draft when the Habs sometimes have to make picks based on the French-Canadianism of the player rather than the talent.

It comes up when the Habs make trades or don't make trades and whether or not the player being traded or obtained is French-Canadian or not.

Being the head coach of the Habs is a tough job. The fans expect winners even though present and previous management continues to make some questionable decisions on personnel.

Decisions like letting quarterbacks of the power plays signing elsewhere. Players like Sheldon Souray, Mark Streit or Marc-Andre Bergeron. Trades for players like Scott Gomez and Tomas Kaberle among others. Draft picks like Guillaume Latendresse, Terry Ryan and the whole 2008 class. Rejean Houle as GM. Mario Tremblay as head coach. Letting Saku Koivu go as a free agent. Firing some of these French Canadian head coaches that all of a sudden found glory elsewhere (Therrien, Julien, Vigneault). One marginal decision after another one could say.

But here's the point and that is something that Philippe Cantin and others of his ilk and thinking completely miss. They are hockey decisions. They are not language decisions. They are not political decisions. Hockey is a game. Nothing less nothing more. Sure we take pride when our team wins. It happens in many towns and countries around the world. We get to wave the banner. We get to strut and we get to crow that we are the best. We get to play Queen's anthem at the end of the season. But if we don't win; life goes on. Bills have to be paid. Children have to be taken care of and shown the right path. Jobs have to be done. Etc. Etc. Etc.

People ask me if I miss Montreal. There are things that I miss and I have written about some of them on here. One of the things I definitely don't miss is the language bullshit. It's neverending. It has nothing to do with being the head coach of the Canadiens. The Habs have French speakers on staff to help deal with the media. The fact that Randy Cunneyworth doesn't speak French may be a blessing. It may actually make his job easier not having to please the French press. All the fans want is a winner. It's always been that way. They could be "les gars de chez nous", they could be English Canadians, they could be Europeans, Americans or wherever else the players come from; all the fans want at the Bell Centre is team that will win the Cup so that we can have a parade down St-Catherine street.

Philippe Cantin can continue to be a navel-gazer, an individual suffering from myopia and a person so afraid to let his language prevail on its' own that he needs to politicize or aggrandize an event that should be left solely in the arena on La Gauchetiere and others around the NHL.