Los Angeles Times - 09.11.2019

LATIMES.COM/SPORTS S D5

MONTREAL — The riot that followed the suspension of right winger Maurice Richard. The line of 50,000 people who passed the bier of Howie Morenz at center ice of the Montreal Forum after he died following a hockey injury. The purchase of the en- tire Quebec Senior Hockey League to assure that the masterly young Jean Beliv- eau would wear the bleu, blanc et rougeof the Montre- al Canadiens. The excerpt from the World War I poem “In Flanders Field” that the Canadiens will pass Sat- urday night as they take the ice at the Bell Centre to play the Kings. For two-thirds of a cen- tury, a line from that verse has appeared in the locker room of Montreal’s hockey gladiators. The poem, written by Ca- nadian soldier and surgeon John McCrae and asserting, “To you from failing hands we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high,” is symbolic of hockey’s most storied tradi- tion in its most garlanded franchise in its most beloved city. The Canadiens of Max Domi, Carey Price and Nick Suzuki that Todd McLel- lan’s Kings will confront Sat- urday have fallen on hard times, even missing the playoffs the last two seasons. But the Habs, as they are known here — the term is short for “Habitants,” the French settlers along the St. Lawrence River in colonial times — still retain the most Stanley Cups, their 24 championships, eclipsed in major sports only by the 27 pos- sessed by the New York Yan- kees, a standard no hockey team is likely to match. “The Canadiens are a major part of character of this city, even in times like this when they are not doing that well,” says Daniel Be- land, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. “Its players are icons in Quebec. It’s not just a franchise. It is one of the major institutions of Mon- treal.” That was evident less than a month ago, when the team opened its 108th home season with heraldry worthy of a royal occasion. As for- mer Montreal Gazette col- umnist Michael Farber once wrote, perhaps hyperbo- lically but certainly plausi- bly, “Only two institutions truly grasp ceremony: the House of Windsor and the Montreal Canadiens.” Known in French as Les Glorieux, the Canadiens have inspired poetic elegies, scholarly monographs — and athletic awe, in contem- porary time as in past years. The most potent testimony comes less from their players than from their oppo- nents. They loved to play in Montreal, even though they seldom won in Montreal. “It was different playing in Montreal than anywhere else,” says Ben Lovejoy, a for- mer defenseman for four NHL teams, including the Ducks (2012-2015), who first played in Quebec in the In- ternational Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament two decades ago. “It is the most educated fan base. You go into the rink there and they are rabid — but they also appreciate

good hockey. “They will politely clap for a nice play going through the neutral zone or a nice backcheck or small plays. The small plays that the un- trained eye may not see are clearly seen in Montreal.” Now listen to Eddie Johnston, who played in the NHL for 22 years and was the winning goalie for the Bos- ton Bruins’ Stanley Cup championships in 1970 and

“Playing in Montreal
was like playing in Yankee
Stadium,” he says.
“When there were only six
teams in the NHL, every-
body — all the great players
— seemed to belong to the
Canadiens. And their fans
were so used to winning that
they expected it. It was hard
playing against them for one
reason: They had the best
team, always.”
The Montreal mystique
did not develop only because
the first organized game was
at the Victoria Skating Rink
on March 3, 1875, eight years
after Canadian Confedera-
tion; nor because of the
emergence of the game as a
magnet for popular attrac-
tion is intimately related to
the Canadiens; nor even be-
cause the Canadiens in all
their glory were the New
England Patriots of hockey,
only more formidable.
That mystique devel-
oped because the Canadiens
are intimately linked with
the French language and
with French heroes.
The old Montreal Forum,
where the Habs played until
1996 and where the rafters
were crowded with Stanley
Cup banners, was where
Francophones could com-
pete and excel in a place
dominated by Anglophones.
“In drama, in fiction, in
television and movies, it is
front and center in the cul-
ture,” says Christopher
Kirkey, director of the Cen-
ter for the Study of Canada
and Institute on Québec
Studies at the State Uni-
versity of New York College
at Plattsburgh.

“Life in many families in Quebec still revolves around hockey — practices, games, Saturday night on television. You can walk into a sports bar with 24 televi- sions, and 24 of them will be tuned to the Canadiens.” Everyone is watching — everyone, that is, except those who on winter eve- nings are playing hockey themselves. The game is so ingrained in the city that the father of hockey icon Mario Lemieux, now one of the owners of the Pittsburgh Penguins, would cart snow indoors and onto the family home in the Ville-Émard dis- trict of Montreal and let it freeze so they could play in the living room. “The way people in Mon- treal think about hockey is not the way other people think about hockey,” says Brian Kennedy, a Pasadena City College English profes- sor who played youth hockey in Montreal and has written several books on hockey. “The mind of a Montre- aler is not like the ordinary mind. Everybody in Montre- al still has the hockey sweat- er they had as a child. I have the programs from my first games and the tickets too.” This loyalty travels, the way Dodgers loyalty moved from Brooklyn to Chavez Ravine and the way Steelers loyalty moved to Charlotte, N.C., and Houston when Pittsburgh’s steel industry collapsed and its workers sought jobs in cities in America’s south. You can see those yellow Terrible Towels in the stands at Bank of America Stadium and NRG Stadium when the Steelers play there. “Your childhood loyalty to a team like the Canadiens is very hard to lose,” says Marc Lortie, who grew up in Quebec City as a fan of the Habs of the Béliveau years (1950-1971) and who as Cana- da’s ambassador to Chile and France would rise in the morning to check his favor- ite team’s scores.

“Hockey is part of our DNA. In Quebec, hockey was the most important event that could take place on Sat- urday night. We were all Francophone and Catholic and Canadiens fans. That was who we were, and that’s who I am today.” Montreal once had two teams, the Canadiens with a French accent and the Ma- roons with an English accent. The Maroons — whose Hall of Fame star Hooley Smith is considered the first NHL player to wear a helmet — won the Stanley Cup in 1926 and 1935, and one of its season-ticket holders was a furrier named Bernard Marks. During an especially tor- rid Canadiens-Maroons game at the Forum, he was ejected from the arena for spitting in the face of a Cana- diens fan, one of many col- orful stories surrounding my Montreal grandfather. Today, sports executives strive to build a fan experience that will create a fan base remotely like that still owned by the Canadiens. It is an elusive goal. “You can’t replicate Mon- treal hockey anywhere,” says David Morehouse, pres- ident of the Pittsburgh Pen- guins. “You shouldn’t even try. Hockey is what made a French-Canadian city in Quebec a major interna- tional sports city not just known but revered for excellence.” These days, however, there is excellence elsewhere as well. The sport rooted in the experience of Franco- phone Canada now thrives beyond Montreal, in Win- nipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver — all very important centers in Canada and in hockey. “That’s a good thing,” says Colin Howell, who di- rects the Center for the Study of Sport and Health at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada, , and is the author of “Blood, Sweat & Cheers: Sport & the Making of Modern Canada,” published in 2001. “The metropolitan domi- nance of the old cities is in decline, in hockey and may- be in Canada.” That is a climate change that complements global climate change. Even so, the winters remain robust here, with average low tempera- tures here around 32 degrees Fahrenheit this month — plunging to average lows of about 10 degrees in January. Nearly six decades ago, on Feb. 1,1962, the first-place Canadiens played their archrivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, at the Forum. Nine members of the Habs were born in the same city: Montreal. The temperature outside was minus-25 degrees. The Canadiens won 5-2. “Hockey fit with the ‘northern myth’ of Canada, a place where people over- came winter— embraced winter — by doing things like playing hockey,” says An- drew Holman, a historian at Bridgewater State Uni- versity in Massachusetts and co-author of “Hockey: A Global History,” published last year. “If Canada had been any- place else, it would not have worked. But hockey also is not British and it’s not American. It’s neither ‘Mum’ nor ‘Big Brother.’ ”

THE MONTREAL CANADIENScelebrate after scoring on Boston goalie Tuukka Rask in a recent game at the Bell Centre, where the Kings will play Saturday. NHL players often cite Montreal as a special city to visit.

Minas PanagiotakisGetty Images

Bonded together by bleu

The heartbeat of Montreal can still be found through a reverence for

the Canadiens that runs deep, even if the team’s postseasons run dry

By David Shribman

WESTERN CONFERENCE Pacific W LOLPtsGFGA Edmonton 11 5 2 24 52 46 Calgary 10 7 2 22 57 55 Vegas 9 5 3 21 52 48 Vancouver 9 5 3 21 57 45 Arizona 9 5 2 20 46 37 DUCKS 9 7 1 19 45 43 San Jose 6 10 1 13 46 63 KINGS 5 10 1 11 41 63 Central W LOLPtsGFGA St. Louis 11 3 3 25 54 49 Colorado 9 5 2 20 58 47 Nashville 9 5 2 20 64 52 Winnipeg 9 7 1 19 48 52 Dallas 8 8 1 17 41 42 Chicago 5 7 3 13 38 46 Minnesota 5 10 1 11 42 57 Note: Overtime or shootout losses worth one point.

EASTERN CONFERENCE Metropolitan W LOLPtsGFGA Washington 12 2 3 27 69 53 N.Y. Islanders 11 3 1 23 47 34 Pittsburgh 9 6 1 19 55 42 Carolina 9 6 1 19 52 46 Philadelphia 8 5 2 18 50 48 N.Y. Rangers 7 6 1 15 46 45 Columbus 6 7 3 15 38 54 New Jersey 4 7 4 12 40 60 Atlantic W LOLPtsGFGA Boston 11 3 2 24 58 40 Toronto 9 5 3 21 58 54 Buffalo 9 5 2 20 47 43 Florida 7 3 5 19 55 56 Montreal 8 5 3 19 58 52 Tampa Bay 7 5 2 16 47 49 Ottawa 5 9 1 11 41 50 Detroit 5 12 1 11 39 70

NHL STANDINGS

RESULTS

TAMPA BAY 3 BUFFALO 2

Yanni Gourde scored the deciding goal and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves for Tampa Bay in Stockholm. AT DETROIT 4 BOSTON 2

Robby Fabbri scored twice in his first game with Detroit. Boston’s David Pastrnak is on a 14-game point streak. AT WINNIPEG 4 VANCOUVER 1

Kyle Connor had two points and Connor Hellebuyck made 31 saves for his ninth straight win over Vancouver. AT EDMONTON 4 NEW JERSEY 0

Mikko Koskinen made 26 saves and Leon Draisaitl scored his team-leading 14th goal for the Oilers.

TODAY’S GAMES KINGS at Montreal, 4 p.m. Florida at NY Islanders, 10 a.m. Buffalo vs. Tampa Bay, 10 a.m. Chicago at Pittsburgh, 4 p.m. Philadelphia at Toronto, 4 p.m. Carolina at Ottawa, 4 p.m. Vegas at Washington, 4 p.m. Minnesota at Arizona, 5 p.m. Columbus at Colorado, 6 p.m. St. Louis at Calgary, 7 p.m. Nashville at San Jose, 7:30 p.m.

Lakers 95, Heat 80 MIAMI Min FG-A FT-A OR-T A P T Adebayo ............38 4-7 3-8 3-9 4 2 11 Butler...............387-16 8-8 2-6 3 0 22 Leonard.............12 0-1 0-0 0-1 0 2 0 Nunn ................234-11 2-2 0-3 1 0 10 Robinson...........24 1-7 0-0 0-3 2 3 3 Dragic...............347-16 2-2 1-6 7 0 19 Olynyk...............293-11 1-2 0-3 0 4 8 Herro ................23 2-8 2-2 0-2 0 0 7 Johnson ............14 0-3 0-0 2-4 1 0 0 Silva ...................2 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 Totals 28-80 18-24 8-37 18 12 80 Shooting: Field goals, 35.0%; free throws, 75.0% Three-point goals: 6-35 (Dragic 3-7, Herro 1-5, Olynyk 1-6, Robinson 1-6, Leonard 0-1, Johnson 0-2, Butler 0-4, Nunn 0-4). Team Rebounds: 12. Team Turn- overs: 12 (11 PTS). Blocked Shots: 2 (Adebayo, Nunn). Turnovers: 12 (Adebayo 3, Nunn 3, Dragic 2, Leonard 2, Olynyk 2). Steals: 9 (Adebayo 3, Butler 2, Nunn 2, Herro, Robinson). Technical Fouls: coach Heat (Defensive three second), 00:44 first. LAKERS Min FG-A FT-A OR-T A P T Davis ................3411-17 4-4 2-8 7 4 26 James...............3610-19 1-2 1-4 6 2 25 McGee ..............15 4-7 1-1 3-10 1 1 9 Bradley.............24 4-9 0-0 1-5 3 4 9 Green...............23 1-7 1-1 1-3 2 4 4 Kuzma ..............25 3-9 0-0 1-5 1 2 7 Caruso ..............18 3-6 0-0 0-3 4 1 6 Caldwell-Pope ....17 1-6 0-0 1-2 3 0 2 Howard .............15 1-2 0-0 0-6 1 4 2 Cook.................14 1-4 0-0 0-0 2 2 2 Daniels.............13 1-3 0-0 0-2 0 0 3 Totals 40-89 7-8 10-48 30 24 95 Shooting: Field goals, 44.9%; free throws, 87.5% Three-point goals: 8-32 (James 4-7, Daniels 1-3, Bradley 1-4, Green 1-5, Kuzma 1-7, Caruso 0-1, Cook 0-2, Caldwell-Pope 0-3). Team Rebounds: 11. Team Turnovers: 18 (17 PTS). Blocked Shots: 5 (Davis 3, Ca- ruso, McGee). Turnovers: 18 (Kuzma 4, James 3, Bradley 2, Cook 2, Davis 2, Green 2, Caruso, Howard, McGee). Steals: 6 (Davis 2, Green 2, Caldwell-Pope, McGee). Technical Fouls: None. Miami 21 25 20 14— 80 Lakers 28 20 30 17— 95 A—18,997. T—2:14. O—JB DeRosa, Ken Mauer, Courtney Kirkland

and the Heat with back-to-
back three-pointers that
gave the Lakers a 92-77 lead,
departing with 1:18 left to a
standing ovation.
“I’m extra motivated to
put myself in a position
where I know I belong,”
James said. “So it’s my per-
sonal motivation every sin-
gle night I step on the floor to
be great.”
James’ running mate,
Anthony Davis, made up for
his poor game at Chicago on
Tuesday night. Davis was
the man in the first three
quarters, finishing with 25
points, eight rebounds and
seven assists.
Jimmy Butler led the
Heat with 22 points and
Goran Dragic had 19 for Mi-
ami, which leads the South-
east Division at 6-3.
The Lakers held the Heat
to a season-low for an oppo-
nent, with Miami shooting
35% from the field and 17.1%
(six for 35) from three-point
range.
Avery Bradley got off to a
quick start for the Lakers,
scoring six points in the first
quarter, helping them build
a seven-point lead by the
end of the period.
But by the half, the Lak-
ers lost some of their steam
and saw their lead cut to 48-
46.
James and Heat coach
Erik Spoelstra were to-
gether for four years in Mi-
ami, the two of them along
with Dwyane Wade and
Chris Bosh winning two
NBA championships to-
gether.
Before the game, which
Wade also attended, Spoel-
stra offered high praise for
the way James has played in
his 17th season.
“That’s one of the best
qualities that I’ve always ad-
mired about LeBron, that he
puts so much into the game

and into his craft,” Spoelstra said. “And a large part of that is his body and his phys- ical well-being. To prepare himself at that level every single night for 82 games and beyond in the playoffs, that’s a commitment a lot of players are not willing to do, and that’s what makes him un- common. “We have a couple guys like that too. Jimmy was like that, Dwyane was like that. But that’s unique, and it’s a great example for young players coming in to see just how much you have to put in to stay at that level phys- ically. And that, in turn, is the fountain of youth.”

MIAMI’SJimmy Butler dribbles around the Lakers’
Danny Green during the first half at Staples Center.

Sean M. HaffeyGetty Images

James, Davis push

streak to seven

[Lakers, from D1]

coach in Indiana.
“I had high expectations
about what we could be,” he
said.
It’s been a real victory for
Vogel and his staff — and a
real relief to any of the prob-
lems that could’ve come with
a slow start.
No one is talking about
how Vogel wasn’t the Lakers’
first choice to be the head
coach. No one has wondered
if Jason Kidd sliding down a
chair would make the team
better or their stars happier.
If the Lakers’ 7-1 start was
the inverse, that kind of talk
would almost be guaranteed.
We saw it in Miami, where
James’ and the Heat’s strug-
gles had people talking
about Erik Spoelstra. We
know how things ended for
David Blatt in Cleveland.
And while coaches who
get hired almost always end
up fired, Vogel’s start with
the Lakers couldn’t be going
better — unless you ask him.
“There are a lot of things
we can do to play better —
execution on both sides on
the ball has to continue to
improve,” he said pregame.
“We’re not getting back well
enough in transition, and
we’re turning the ball over a
little too much. Our shot
selection can continue to
improve. We’re not boxing
out and gang rebounding as
well as I’d like. The list is
long, but we’re off to a good
start. There’s still a lot of
room for improvement.”
But the Lakers have
found the way to win while
still needing to get better, to
absolutely lock teams down,

a byproduct of the Lakers truly caring about how they compete on the defensive side of the basketball. After the game, Vogel said the team’s internal statistics showed that the team con- tested 88 percent of Miami’s shots Friday, an astound- ingly high number. “That sounds about right,” Avery Bradley said. “And that’s a crazy number.” Danny Green said he had a feeling the Lakers could eventually be this good on defense. They had high- caliber defenders at a lot of positions, a rested and fo- cused James and a lot of depth. “That’s what had me most excited coming here,” he said. But even Vogel is at least a little surprised about what they are already. Trouble will come. It does for every team. Vogel and his staff will have to continue to nurture relationships with James, Anthony Davis and the rest of the team. But because it hasn’t happened yet, the Lakers are more equipped for it when it does come. “You’ve got to figure it out one way or another. But yeah, [you’d] obviously rather have success than not,” Spoelstra said. “But you have to get a group com- mitted to go through the mud even when it’s not nec- essarily going your way. The process, you can’t skip steps in this league — no matter how much talent you have. “And they’re not skipping steps.”

Vogel is taking

an extended

honeymoon

[Woike,from D1]

Los Angeles Times - 09.11.2019

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