We are now so far away from the last Stanley Cup parade along the usual route that the entire Montrealer generation grew up without knowing the intense euphoria that accompanies the championship season.
It is a pity, because getting titles was once a part of life here, like urban corruption and a cross on the royal mountain.
We would be waiting there for the first floats, and then for the trail along with the players to Peel and further. It always struck me that at this time of year, when most people had healthy tan, the triumphant Canadiens were always pale as ghosts and covered with welts and bruises on their faces, necks and shoulders.
The Stanley Cup Parade was the usual thing in this unusual city and it remained so until 1993, 25 years ago, this spring. A quarter-century, long, thirsty time, to go without a drink from the cup. Speaking of the triumph of '93 with old colleagues Stu Cowan and Pat Hickey for the HIO last week, I was forced to take into account some revisionist history.
First of all, although it is often called a "Wonderful" Cup, the championship in 1993 was won by a very solid team. Canadians were fortunate to have won Buffalo and Icelanders in the second and third laps, not in Boston and Pittsburgh, and were lucky enough to beat Chicago Blackhawks and Pat Burns Maple Leafs in the final, and were lucky to have won amazing 10 simple game overtime, a record that will never be broken.
But there was more than luck: the Canadiens had leadership in Guy Carbonneau and Kirk Muller, ahead of Vincent Damphousse, Brian Bellows and John LeClair, a young, talented and deep knight of defense and the best player who ever played for money. Patrick's game. It was a 102 point regular season team, not an 88 point one - he ran like the opponent in the final, Kings of Los Angeles.
The history of this band from 1993, as well as how it was developed, is in many respects the history of the Canadiens in the last half-century. When I told HIO that the beginning of the Canadiens end was a trade that sent Patrick Roy and Mike Keane to Colorado for Jocelyn Thibault, Martin Rucinsky and Andrea "Me Russian Tank" Kovalenko, Pat Hickey disagreed and pointed to the series catastrophic offers that Serge Savard did before he and Jacques Demers were released and replaced by Réjean Houle and Mario Tremblay in October 1995.
Pat was right. By the time Savard was released about 16 months after winning the Stanley Cup, the team was almost completely dismantled by a series of bad hands made by Savard himself: The Canadians began the 1995/96 season with seven holdovers from the championship team. J.J. Daigneault was distributed before Roy's trade, after which only four remained.
The long drought in the Stanley Cup is more than the mistakes made by a single WMA or GM group, just as there were more in the first place. Now it is a 31-man league, which will soon be 32 years old. Chances are now more difficult: 17 teams were when Canadiens finished their last dynasty in 1979, 24 when Habs won in 1993.
The Canadians won in 1986. With Jean Perron behind the bench, and Kings won in 1993. With coach Barry Melrose. It does not happen anymore: each of the 16 teams in the play-off this year had a coach who was at least robust, if not spectacular. There are fewer real patents in the entire league - teams with incompetent GMs or coaches, or both just waiting for them to be neutered.
Of course, drought is not just about Canadians: no other Canadian team has won since 1993. We have been told that Canadian teams have more problems, high taxes and sometimes terrible weather conditions - but that's more excuse than reality. Unprotected free agents may be excluded, but if they live here throughout the year, the exchange rate covers most tax losses. And Winnipeg Jets, the best of Canadian bands, was built basically without free agents.
If nothing else, Winnipeg has proven that the Canadian team can win it all. With a few breaks they could do this feat this spring. You need to build a solid team, hire a good, competent trainer and hope that everything will go your way, as in the case of Canadiens in 1986 and 1993.
The loyal and often hysterical base of Canadiens fans has been waiting for this elusive 25th Stanley Cup for 25 years. If and when the team wins the next, there will be few people who remember what the usual route was.
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