the gazette · montrealgazette.com · Monday, March 7, 2011 section B1 focus on sports images Check out our daily gallery of the best photos from the wide world of sports, only at montrealgazette.com/photos

❚ ❚❚SECTION B | THE GAZETTEsports | | Monday, March 7, 2011 | EDITOR: STU COWAN | 514 987 2475 | [email protected] B2 On the Tube B2-B3 Hockey B4 Soccer B5 Football B5 The Warmup B5 Golf B6 Tennis B7 Scoreboard B8 Baseball B8 Curling B8 NASCAR B10 Cricket B10 Basketball spotlight story Vintage bauble will be presented to next Canadien who cracks the elusive three-goal barrier Martin has Habs on Hat-trick pin awaits new owner right track

Dave Stubbs Jack Todd

he hat-trick pin bought Monday Morning Quarterback T last summer at Finnegan’s Market in Hudson might would rather skewer my be the finest dollar I’ve ever I eardrums with knitting spent. needles than listen to the guy And one day, sooner or – but I’m told that one of the later, it’s going to be awarded loudmouths on English radio to a member of the Cana- has been all over Jacques diens who probably doesn’t Martin. know it exists and who might Seems to me someone value it a little less than, say, needs a reality check. Mar- the Calder, Hart or Conn tin’s team is coming off a Smythe Trophy or a bowl- three-for-three sunshine road topped sterling pillar named trip during which his char- for its donor, Lord Stanley of ges proved that their focus Preston. was on the ice, not on getting The enamel pin was in a a suntan. Three impressive box with scores of others, fin- victories in a row, one against ger-stirred into view among superior opposition. the trinkets offered by a vend- Trouble is, there are too or along one of Finnegan’s many people in this town who dusty flea-market paths of do- think they are coaches. When I-need-it?, who’d-want it? and I was on the beat regularly, I-had-that-as-a-kid! items. this particular mic jockey was Probably made in the hock- notorious for lecturing coach- ey hotbed of China, it meas- es on their tactics, while pre- ures 3½ by 3 centimetres and tending to ask a long-winded features an Art Ross-patented question. Obviously, he’s still goal net whose B-shape de- up to his old tricks. sign was modified nearly 30 In Montreal, a coach has to years ago. Three pucks lie put up with 20 or so ex-coach- behind a thick red goal line, es in the media and roughly a the words HAT TRICK on the million more in the pubs and mesh in gold-backgrounded on the open-mouth shows, print. most of whom believe they It cost half the toonie can do a better job of coaching I dropped with the same vend- the Canadiens – even if they or on the brass, NHL crest- have never coached so much shaped 1949 Valleyfield dog- as a shift of atom hockey. license tag – Chien 151 – that The truth is that less than a hangs on my car-key ring. year after becoming the first And this hockey season, the Canadiens since silly hat-trick pin has taken Jacques Demers in 1993 to on a life of its own among take a team as far as the third the nearly 9,000 who follow round of the playoffs, Martin me on Twitter, the Internet’s has the Habs poised to do it 140-character social network again. And Martin has done it, that’s often nothing more for the most part, without star than a digital clearing of the defenceman Andrei Markov. throat. Without Josh Gorges. More GAZETTE FILE photo recently, without Jaroslav Please see TRICK, Page B2 Turning the trick: Former Canadiens captain Jean Béliveau celebrates one of his 18 career three-goal games. Spacek. He’s kept this team on track even when they were missing Mike Cammalleri, one of the handful of bona fide snipers at his disposal. Discipline is keyword for Bruins return bout Give Pierre Gauthier credit for adroit manoeuvres in add- ne day short of a month ington 11-7 in a game that fea- As you know, this capitula- far as not hitting you when ing James Wisniewski, Paul O ago, the , tured 182 penalty minutes. tion to irrationalism in Bos- you’re down. We were just in Mara and Brent Sopel as the who visit tomorrow in yet an- The Canadiens and Bruins ton also included majors and the All-Star Game together. injuries on the blue line multi- other all-important game, en- combined for eight goals in minors for goaltenders Carey We’re on friendly terms. It plied, but it is Martin who has gaged with the Canadiens in the second period, seven in Price and Tim Thomas, who was business. But once busi- been able to plug in the new a brawl that had fans in both a 6:19 span during which the engaged in what charit- ness is done, it’s done.” parts and make it all work. cities re-living it for days. Bruins scored four times. ably could be described as If you’re taking notes, ac- Even Scott Gomez’s Winter Boston’s 8-6 victory had It was the first time seven a punchless brawl. Don’t cording to Elias, the last Mont- Vacation hasn’t disrupted the teams combining for 187 Red Fisher goals were scored in that time take my word for it. After the real goalie involved in a fight this team’s winning ways. minutes in penalties. The frame since Jan 6, 1990, when game, Price was to describe was a chap named , The Canadiens today are big brawl exploded with 41 people of the Elias Sports Bur- Chicago and Philadelphia it this way: “I think we were who on Nov. 30, 1987 took on playing almost exactly as seconds left in regulation eau scurrying to their files, scored that many in 4:40. It just play-fighting more than Boston’s Randy Burridge. The they did during last spring’s when eight players squared where they discovered the last was the 709th regular-season anything. Neither of us real- last Boston goalie with a fight- brilliant run, when they side- off. Four received game mis- NHL game that had at least 14 game between the Bruins and ly wanted to get hurt, but we ing major was Byron Dafoe, lined the high-flying Capitals conducts, and when it was goals and at least 180 penalty Canadiens, and the first time were out there doing what- who danced with Ottawa’s Pat- and Penguins before falling over Boston had five skaters minutes was on Feb. 22, 1981. in the history of the rivalry ever we had to do, I guess.” rick Lalime on Jan. 17, 2002. to the muscular Flyers. left on the bench, the Cana- On that night, the Quebec that both teams scored four Thomas added: “He fought diens six. That sent the good Nordiques outlasted Wash- goals in the same period. with ‘fighter’s manners,’ as Please see FISHER, Page B2 Please see TODD, Page B3

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