Apparently this is some witches brew of natural stimulants mixed in with beer or something. Leave it to the Quebecois...

Umm. These groups complaining have never seen Georgie-boy stickhandle, have they.

The problem in question is a group of sexily dressed women playing street hockey, with gratuitous T & A shots throughout the ad. All of a sudden Laraque shows up with these awful beer/red bull concoctions, and plies the girls with the drinks so he can have his way with them.

Aww yeah... wet T-Shirt night in Canada

Well, I made that last part up – but its sort of true, because there is no freakin way Georges could stickhandle his way through 5 people unless he got them hammered. Or rung their bells first and gave them a concussion. Check it out….

Seriously, ladies. The ad could have been way worse. Its extremely tame by today’s standards. If you want to complain about shows that objectify women, have Soap Operas cancelled. There’s more gratuitous garbage in those shows than this cheaply made low run ad that will get little to no coverage outside of Quebec. But guess what – now it has a National audience, and sales of Octane will probably go through the roof.

Sometimes complaining does more damage than good. I could understand if Georges busted through the door and started pummeling the girls – then yeah. Maybe you’d want to complain about that.

... and he has a trophy to prove it.

But its summer, the girls are wearing little clothing while playing street hockey in a deserted neighbourhood. But what about the kids in the area?

Who said hockey wasn't sexy?

Heaven forbid they see whats going on and one of them gets his first boner. The world will surely end. What boggles my mind is why the director of the vid or the marketing agency who came up with the idea or the girls themselves weren’t targeted or under fire?

Nope – lets go for the big hulking hockey player – because surely, he was the mastermind behind the whole thing and is a role model to kids and we don’t want them getting the wrong idea.

WHAT? THIS GUY BEATS PEOPLE UP FOR A LIVING! THAT IS NOT A ROLE MODEL.

If people feel Georges Laraque is a role model, they need to get their heads checked. Sure he may contribute to charity work and is a good media presence, but he’s an enforcer. He fights in order to send a message to other teams – not to other KIDS! “Hey kids – in order to send a message to your opponent, beat the snot out of him or her so they know who’s boss.”

Can we spend less time finding things to complain about and spend more time and energy focused on more important things – like trying to find a cure for stupidity?

I just trade stupid people away. Or send them to Hamilton with the rest of the donkeys.

Anyone got a plug?

The expectations are high for Carey Price – playing in BC in front of friends and family, a start against the winless Vancouver Canucks, and the opportunity to prove himself in front of everyone that he is an elite caliber goalie. Somewhere along the way, the wheels fell off and the Habs road trip suddenly looked like a clunker on the side of the road. After two standout performances where he was able to stand on his head and keep the team in the game, Carey Price was less than mediocre in the net and it showed.

Despite the lack of help on defense (and offense), Price reverted back to his timid shell, playing shallow in the net, making poor choices in positioning, and letting the faults of the team get to him in a negative manner. The best goalies are able to shake off the negative and turn it into a positive. They learn from poor play and build confidence from it. They are able to carry a team on their back and act as the example – to elevate a player’s game and perform beyond expectation and without excuses.

Price just didn’t have it in him.He looked like he was on a cigarette break on some of the goals.

"A-LOO-ET-TAH... SMOKA CEE-GA-RET-TAH"

Call it the jet-lag. Blame it on the defensive lapses. Do what you will, but at the end of the day, a loss is a loss and an excuse is just a thinly veiled disguise for shifting blame. We don’t need to press the panic button just yet – but we do need to use this loss as an example of what the team is severely lacking in, and that is adapting to the strengths of opponents. Its widely known that we have extremely fast and small forwards. We also have big slow footed defensemen. We also have a hard hitting checking line. But for the first 2-3 games, the Habs were moving – last night it looked like they were skating through mud, and for a guy like Hal Gill who is already slow, he may as well just stood behind Carey Price in goal since he wasn’t moving to begin with.

A late flight from Calgary is apparently to blame for the poor state of the team.

Another excuse. I don’t know about you, but if I’m being paid millions of dollars to perform at a certain level and there’s an expectation, you know I’m going to damn well try to fufill those expectations. Some guys couldn’t be bothered. It may be the start of the season, but losses at the start often come back to bite you in the ass come playoff time.

What?

Get some rest, skate hard and keep your head on straight. Do St Pat proud, because he expects no less.

Tell them how you REALLY feel, Pat.

Good riddance.

Last I checked, a team has players unified for a common goal. When you introduce personal needs and desires, you begin to lose sense of roles and duties. I believe we have a problem amongst some of our young Habs. Some feel they are an integral part of the machine, and this sense of entitlement clouds their judgment. Face it, Sergei – even Putin is doing the Russian equivalent of the facepalm after the public demands.

Ugh, this boy. He is smart like goat.

That takes balls – seriously. How many people have gone up against Gainey (one of the most revered Habs in the modern age) and won? Like seriously won, where hey have forced his hand and made him cave to their demands. Not a single one. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, he’s already felled the dreams of 3 other Russians looking to walk amongst the hallowed Habs greats. Sure, Gainey may not be well liked amongst the media and critical fans, but there’s one thing you don’t do to your team, and that is bite the hands that feeds. At this point, our friend is now sitting in suspended animation – unable to play for Hamilton and unable to play for Montreal. So instead of taking his frustrated forward show down to the AHL while his agent orchestrates a deal in some manner, he goes on the record and sprays shit everywhere like a spoiled dog who is left home alone while his master is out.

Darth Gainey speaks the truth.

Its all about receiving attention. Fragile egos need it. Weak characters crave it.

Well, if there’s any gift that Sergei will receive in the near future, you can bet it will be one of two things. A plane ticket to Siberia, or a chunk of humble pie.

This pie looks great, but will probably make you sick - like Kostitsyn

Pack your bags, Sergei. You’ve worn out your welcome. Maybe you can learn from your elder countrymen and get some tips on swindling North American teams out of money from Yashin. Oh, and tell Perezhogin that Drew Stafford says hello.

When he comes back, I'm going to knock his head clean off his shoulders and back to Russia.

I wrote an article about Carey Price a few months back, just shortly after the Habs made their exit in the playoffs. People were jumping on his back and calling for a trade and all this mumbo jumbo about how terrible he was and that he was no longer the star of the future and so on and so forth. (You can read it here at Associated Content)

Jeez… gimme a break. The kid is in his second year, under the media spotlight and in one of the worst cities for public criticism in hockey. If that wouldn’t make you collapse, I don’t know what will. It would be enough to drive me to drink, or do something stupid. Either way, if Price was the problem, he would have been shipped out by now. But he hasn’t, and he won’t for a while. He’s a highly regarded prospect in Gainey’s eyes and knowing him as well as we do now – we know he has absolutely no patience for guys who dog it and don’t chip in. I can relate to that, and  I agree with his stance. So this is the focus of today’s post – players who have been in MY doghouse from years past.

I promise I won't shit on the rug again.

.

Remember these guys? Currently they’ve all been relieved (thankfully) of their duties with the bleu. blanc et rouge.

Mike Ribeiro -This lazy forward with the biggest lips in hockey were sent packing (ahem.. diving) to Dallas.
Sheldon Souray – The cement footed defenseman was left to walk after finally pulling his pants up from around his ankles.
Jose Theodore – After years of pulling his hair out over letting in bad goal after bad goal, he was shipped off to the lowest bidder.
Alexander Perezhogin – Mr. “I’m worth more in Russia” should have considered taking up baseball for more of a lucrative payday.
Michael Ryder – When this big dumb Newf figured out how to score, he was already on another team (looks like his career as a garbage man is really taking off.)
Mikhail Grabovski – Third line talent with first line mentality – I thought this was reserved for players who were past their prime and couldn’t let the sport go?
Patrice Brisebois – Bruce Springsteen wrote ‘Glory Days’ for this guy - they past him by just like opposing skaters did nightly.

Currently, there’s a few dogs on the team right now that I’d like to see put down (I think I’m going to regret using that metaphor later…)

Ryan O’Byrne – People who know me personally know how much I dislike him. He’s a younger, less intelligent version of Hal Gill. If you’ve ever had Gill on your team, you understand my frustration.

which leads me to:

Hal Gill – I’m not exactly sure where this guy fits in to the system. We replaced all our power forwards and energy line guys with 30 goal scorers, which would mean we’re looking for speed and mobility, and then we bring down the average by signing this lumbering redwood tree. My guess is they’re going to place Gill behind Carey Price to force him not to play so deep in the net, and as insurance to stop errant pucks from going in. (He’s our Mr. Sieve)

Georges Laraque - Sure he’s tough, sure he’s French, but he’s NOT a contributor to the play or an energy line guy. I love the guy when he’s fighting and banging, but I don’t like when he’s wheeling aroud the net looking for garbage goals. I’m worried that his personal attempts to become a rehabilitated scrapper may soften his hands and his style, and negate the main reason why we have him out there in the first place. He was given a gift – and that gift is to break faces, not score goals.

Now things could change this season and some of these guys may not be in the dog house for much longer. We’ll have a follow up post (a series) as the season goes on. There will probably be some additions to the doghouse, and there may be some strays set free. In a perfect world, all these dogs would be purebreds – but when the expectations are as high as they are in Montreal, there’s a fat chance of that happening.

I may be in the dog house now, but I'll punch my way out if I have to.