NESN UPDATE 6/27 - Sean McDonough considering replacing Jack Edwards

[jimmccabe40]

No offense, but this is exactly the thing I was talking about when I gave my advice. This was Edwards taking an exciting game 7 overtime win against our greatest rival and making it all about him and his silly analogy. It fails on two levels. One, hockey is a game and should never be compared to things like fighting for freedom and independence, or any other significant historical event that cost actual lives. Let the Habs do their silly WWI poem reenactments, we should know when too far is too far. Two, it took something that needed no further hype, a game 7 series OT win over the Habs, and made it all about Jack's stupid story. Did he give credit to the team? Hell, did he even mention the players or coach once? No, it was nothing but his silly performance art.

Blech! At least back then he still tried to do actual play-by-play. I'm so glad he's gone.

I'm filling in some gaps here. is this a reference to this poem? I always try to keep in mind that a call I don't think is offensive might still be considered that way to others. I also believe in the theory of "time+tragedy equals comedy" and while I agree that we shouldn't make fun of World War 1, the American Revolution was hundreds of years ago. But again, it's your opinion and I won't try to change it. While I got a great laugh out of the monologue, it's not something I'd try to replicate.

 

[jimmccabe40]

I understand what you’re trying to do here. Have to respect the hustle.

That said, “a quick dive into bruins history” won’t give you one iota of the information you need to truly understand or feel how lifelong fans feel about that rivalry.

sorry if it's a poor choice of words. I just mean that I'm trying to learn all I can about a team that I did not grow up as the fan of, in case I get the call. and I just thought it's crazy, for a team that's been around for 100 years, to think of them as newbies, and it seems like the rivalry started on Day 1.

 

[TD Charlie]

I understand what you’re trying to do here. Have to respect the hustle.

That said, “a quick dive into bruins history” won’t give you one iota of the information you need to truly understand or feel how lifelong fans feel about that rivalry.

Honestly, I think I'm too young to really get it, and I'm fast approaching 40 over here. On top of that, a lot of it was likely just hearing the stress exit TD Charlie Sr's body as I was growing up. Ten year old me didn't know what the heck was going on. It was just "We hate these guys, you'll figure it out eventually."

I think I miss the cut off by a good 10 years. It's probably a totally different history depending on age. Somebody who is 30ish today has a completely different view from somebody who is 40, who will have a completely different view from somebody who is 50.

 

[jgatie]

I'm filling in some gaps here. is this a reference to this poem? I always try to keep in mind that a call I don't think is offensive might still be considered that way to others. I also believe in the theory of "time+tragedy equals comedy" and while I agree that we shouldn't make fun of World War 1, the American Revolution was hundreds of years ago. But again, it's your opinion and I won't try to change it. While I got a great laugh out of the monologue, it's not something I'd try to replicate.

Yes, the little lantern boy skit they do before playoff games is in reference to the poem's line:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

which they have inscribed on their locker room wall.

 

[jgatie]

sorry if it's a poor choice of words. I just mean that I'm trying to learn all I can about a team that I did not grow up as the fan of, in case I get the call. and I just thought it's crazy, for a team that's been around for 100 years, to think of them as newbies, and it seems like the rivalry started on Day 1.

There were two things that made my father spit on the floor when he saw them on the TV. No words, just a look of disgust and a big pahtooie! at the floor. The first was Roger Clemens in a Yankee uniform, the other was anything to do with the Habs.

 

[Gonzothe7thDman]

Honestly, I think I'm too young to really get it, and I'm fast approaching 40 over here. On top of that, a lot of it was likely just hearing the stress exit TD Charlie Sr's body as I was growing up. Ten year old me didn't know what the heck was going on. It was just "We hate these guys, you'll figure it out eventually."

I think I miss the cut off by a good 10 years. It's probably a totally different history depending on age. Somebody who is 30ish today has a completely different view from somebody who is 40, who will have a completely different view from somebody who is 50.

Agreed with the bolded.

I don’t dislike the canadiens anymore than some of the more current Bruins rivals.

I got a taste of it from 04-on, but with how shit the Canadiens have been along with the fact that we don’t play division rivals 8 times a season anymore makes me not care as much.

 

[jimmccabe40]

there was a broadcaster for the USPHL New Hampshire Monarchs, no longer active, who talked on the air all the time about being a Canadiens fan and boo Bruins. drove me nuts.

 

[Kate08]

Agreed with the bolded.

I don’t dislike the canadiens anymore than some of the more current Bruins rivals.

I got a taste of it from 04-on, but with how shit the Canadiens have been along with the fact that we don’t play division rivals 8 times a season anymore makes me not care as much.

I think for younger fans a lot of it has to do with how closely your parents and grandparents followed the team. I’m going on 41 so caught the tail end in person, but f*** if I don’t recall “Habs” being a 4-letter word growing up before I really “got it”.

You can’t read that in a book or see it in old clips. One thing that Jack was, for better or worse, is one of “us”. Best advice for an outsider is don’t even attempt to go there. Boston fans are smart and will see right through it.

 

[jimmccabe40]

Yes, the little lantern boy skit they do before playoff games is in reference to the poem's line:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

which they have inscribed on their locker room wall.

I did not know that, learning new things!

 

[Gonzothe7thDman]

I think for younger fans a lot of it has to do with how closely your parents and grandparents followed the team. I’m going on 41 so caught the tail end in person, but f*** if I don’t recall “Habs” being a 4-letter word growing up before I really “got it”.

You can’t read that in a book or see it in old clips. One thing that Jack was, for better or worse, is one of “us”. Best advice for an outsider is don’t even attempt to go there. Boston fans are smart and will see right through it.

I got into hockey from my Dad in my early teens. But it was around that time he stopped following sports altogether. Nobody else in my family cares about it.

So that probably explains it since I didn’t really grow up around anybody influencing how I feel about certain teams.

 

[Kate08]

I got into hockey from my Dad in my early teens. But it was around that time he stopped following sports altogether. Nobody else in my family cares about it.

So that probably explains it since I didn’t really grow up around anybody influencing how I feel about certain teams.

To this day if you give my mom a number, she'll tell you who wore it in the 70s for the Bruins. She spits at the sight of their jersey. She's a 65 year old woman who delights in yelling f*** the Habs in the year 2024. If I was to tell her Toronto is up there with the Habs for me, disowning me would not be out of the question.

And that's just what I got from my mom

 

[Gee Wally]

f*** the Habs!

 

[DaStinger]

The habs are a scourge on the NHL. I hope for many years of 17-19th finishes for them.

 

[Kate08]

f*** the Habs!

Forever and ever amen.

 

[jimmccabe40]

I think for younger fans a lot of it has to do with how closely your parents and grandparents followed the team. I’m going on 41 so caught the tail end in person, but f*** if I don’t recall “Habs” being a 4-letter word growing up before I really “got it”.

You can’t read that in a book or see it in old clips. One thing that Jack was, for better or worse, is one of “us”. Best advice for an outsider is don’t even attempt to go there. Boston fans are smart and will see right through it.

I can't claim to be one of you and I'm not going to try. Yes, I am an outsider, but let me say that when my wife and I moved here in 2016, everything fell into place, we love living here and we want to spend the rest of our lives here. I'm amazed no one has asked me the burning question so I guess we'll have to go nuclear.

I just feel like if this gets ANY further, it's going to come up.

when my first junior team I was hired to call games for (we had a difficult relationship, I don't wanna get into it, it's fine now) found out I was a fan of THIS NHL team, he said, I think about 46% jokingly, "they wouldn't have hired me if they had known that."

without saying who it is, I'd like to share this framed signed poster hanging in the snack shack of Charles Moore Arena in Orleans, Cape Cod. Evidently the team went there in 2014 and signed it. I was like, WTF? But now I wonder, if it was all a sign, someday I knew this picture would come in handy. The Cape, as I think we all know, is pretty deep Bruins territory.

I'd also like to share this pic which was also from my Cape High School broadcasts. from Gallo Arena in Bourne: live on the air!

Since I began my professional career, and lived outside of the Philadelphia area where I'm from, my sports fandom has changed a lot and it became a thing, like Vin Scully once said, where I only really care about the game that's in front of me. So, if this happens (big "if" it seems currently), trust me that I'm going to become a Bruins fan. Hell, my brother, who was once assaulted by a Penguins fan at a bar for wearing a Flyers jersey, and who has a Gritty tattoo, said he would switch Bruins. Once while working at a hotel in Wilkes-Barre in 2007, Craig Berube who at the time was the Phantoms coach, checked in and I told him how great his OT winner was over the Devils in the 2000 playoffs. Did not seem to care. Don't meet your heroes? Anyway I know you guys probably dislike him from the Blues so, you know we can find common ground here. Andy Brickley was drafted by?

(I think the recent incident involving Cutter Gauthier was really really stupid BTW.)

It's actually been years since I went to a pro sporting event. I've never been inside the Garden. I hear it's a party. I did rock out as hard as possible with the Pawtucket Red Sox in their final seasons in Pawtucket.

While I know this is one your team's other biggest rivalries, so this may really be a nonstarter for some of you. But I can promise you that I'm loyal and I would never, EVER leave the Bruins pxp seat until it's time to retire.

one of my news radio colleagues, and a very close friend, tells me I act like myself on the air, and that I don't try to put on airs. I know it sounds like Holden Caufield, but I do hate phoniness and I do very much present an honest version of myself, minus cursing, when I'm on the air.

 

[rfournier103]

@jimmccabe40... Any Bruins fan of any age who really follows this team and has the history of this team soaked into their flesh and bone, knows that the rivalry with the Canadiens is THE number one rivalry in hockey and is as bitter as any other rivalry in any other sport.

I jumped in in 1987, and in spring of 1988 saw the Bruins defeat the Habs for the first time in 45 YEARS. The Bruins' last playoff series win versus Montreal to that point had been in 1943 - one year before the D-Day invasion we're commemorating today. Between 1943 and 1988 the Bruins lost EIGHTEEN (18) consecutive playoff series to the Canadiens. Four-game sweeps. Seven-game thrillers. Bruins as favorites. Bruins as underdogs. ALL LOSSES. Throw in 2002, 2004, 2008, 2014 and maybe one or two that I forgot, and that makes for some pretty salty Bruins fans. Maple Leafs fans can f*** right off when they whine about the Bruins. The Bruins haven't even begun to f*** with the Leafs the way the Habs owned the Bruins for DECADES.

For years before the NHL Entry Draft existed, the Canadiens had a stranglehold on hockey talent in Quebec. With very rare exceptions, if you were a talented Quebecois player, you were going to sign with the Habs, or you could forget about the NHL. The Bruins, on the other hand, were terrible at finding and developing talent, and hadn't had a major find since they discovered the Kraut Line in the 1930s, and signed all three players. The Bruins didn't find another top-flight talent until 30 years later and only signed him because he was 12 and nobody else wanted to sign a 12 year old boy to a C-Form. The Bruins were that desperate.

The Habs always found a way to get great players. The Bruins actually traded Ken Dryden to Montreal. Years before that, The Canadiens bought an entire senior league to get ONE PLAYER! Jean Beliveau was the best player in his league and was very happy in Quebec City. In fact, Beliveau had a higher salary than all but two NHL players - Gordie Howe and Maurice Richard. The Canadiens offered the young Beliveau the privilege of playing for the glorious Habs, and were promptly told to pound sand. He was happy where he was. So, the Habs thanked Beliveau for his time, and bought the entire league and all the contracts with it. Including Beliveau's. He was going to be a Canadien or he wasn't going to play, and that was that.

The Canadiens were famous for doing shit like that. They would have had Wayne Gretzky, too, if he wasn't already under a personal services contract with the Edmonton Oilers. The eligible draft age in the NHL at the time was 20, so, years earlier, the Habs identified a real shit-bird team (I forget who it was), and traded for their first round pick in the year Gretzky would be 20. The Canadiens even sent good players to that team's division rivals to make sure they lost enough to earn the #1 spot in the draft. Gretzky, however, turned pro at 17 and signed with the WHA, and was never drafted into the NHL. He came in with the Oilers in the 1979 merger. Imagine if Gretzky played for Montreal... Ugh.

Just a small helping of the shit we've dealt with. If you want the Cliff's Notes version, watch or read about the 1979 Stanley Cup Semifinal between the Bruins and the Canadiens. That will sum it all up in a tiny little f***ing nutshell.

I could go on, but I've been typing long enough. And I need a shower now.

I hate the Montreal Canadiens the way I hate ticks; mosquitoes; leeches and poison ivy and don't f***ing tell me the rivalry isn't what it used to be. That should get you an infraction on this board.

Good day, sir.


BLACK & GOLD 'TILL I'M DEAD & COLD.

 

[Johnny Upton]

So we know that Faust and Sirott will likely be up for the job, does anyone think there are any dark horse candidates that might be considered?

 

[jgatie]

10 years later and this is still my all-time favorite thread on this board:

Hab Hating (1979-2014)

Considering we’re embroiled in another Bruins – Habs playoff series, I figured now would be a great time to go back and look at my most dislikable Habs from the past 35 years, which encompasses the years that I have been a Bruin fan. Please keep this fun and above board. Nobody dislikes that...

forums.hfboards.com

 

[jimmccabe40]

@jimmccabe40... Any Bruins fan of any age who really follows this team and has the history of this team soaked into their flesh and bone, knows that the rivalry with the Canadiens is THE number one rivalry in hockey and is as bitter as any other rivalry in any other sport.

I jumped in in 1987, and in spring of 1988 saw the Bruins defeat the Habs for the first time in 45 YEARS. The Bruins' last playoff series win versus Montreal to that point had been in 1943 - one year before the D-Day invasion we're commemorating today. Between 1943 and 1988 the Bruins lost EIGHTEEN (18) consecutive playoff series to the Canadiens. Four-game sweeps. Seven-game thrillers. Bruins as favorites. Bruins as underdogs. ALL LOSSES. Throw in 2002, 2004, 2008, 2014 and maybe one or two that I forgot, and that makes for some pretty salty Bruins fans. Maple Leafs fans can f*** right off when they whine about the Bruins. The Bruins haven't even begun to f*** with the Leafs the way the Habs owned the Bruins for DECADES.

For decades, the Canadiens had a stranglehold on hockey talent in Quebec. With very rare exceptions, if you were a talented Quebecois player, you were going to sign with the Habs, or you could forget about the NHL. The Bruins, on the other hand, were terrible at finding and developing talent, and hadn't had a major find since they discovered the Kraut Line in the 1930s, and signed all three players. The Bruins didn't find another top-flight talent until 30 years later and only signed him because he was 12 and nobody else wanted to sign a 12 year old boy to a C-Form. The Bruins were that desperate.

The Habs always found a way to get great players. The Bruins actually traded Ken Dryden to Montreal. Years before that, The Canadiens bought an entire senior league to get ONE PLAYER! Jean Beliveau was the best player in his league and was very happy in Quebec City. In fact, Beliveau had a higher salary than all but two NHL players - Gordie Howe and Maurice Richard. The Canadiens offered the young Beliveau the privilege of playing for the glorious Habs, and were promptly told to pound sand. He was happy where he was. So, the Habs thanked Beliveau for his time, and bought the entire league and all the contracts with it. Including Beliveau's. He was going to be a Canadien or he wasn't going to play, and that was that.

The Canadiens were famous for doing shit like that. They would have had Wayne Gretzky, too, if he wasn't already under a personal services contract with the Edmonton Oilers. The eligible draft age in the NHL at the time was 20, so, years earlier, the Habs identified a real shit-bird team (I forget who it was), and traded for their #1 pick in the year Gretzky would be 20. The Canadiens even sent good players to that team's division rivals to make sure they lost enough to earn the #1 pick. Gretzky, however, turned pro at 17 and signed with the WHA, and was never drafted into the NHL. He came in with the Oilers in the 1979 merger. Imagine if Gretzky played for Montreal... Ugh.

Just a small helping of the shit we've dealt with. If you want the Cliff's Notes version, watch or read about the 1979 Stanley Cup Semifinal between the Bruins and the Canadiens. That will sum it all up in a tiny little f***ing nutshell.

I could go on, but I've been typing long enough. And I need a shower now.

I hate the Montreal Canadiens the way I hate ticks; mosquitoes; leeches and poison ivy and don't f***ing tell me the rivalry isn't what it used to be. That should get you an infraction on this board.

Good day, sir.


BLACK & GOLD 'TILL I'M DEAD & COLD.

yup, I totally get it.

the thing that has grabbed my attention most is the Richard Riot. I think that was a big black eye for that fan base.

 

[BMC]

@jimmccabe40 I wish you the best of luck & I hope you'll stay on the board even if the job doesn't work out. I've enjoyed your posts a lot.

I also want to associate myself completely with @rfournier103 's outstanding post. He nails the reasons why Montreal has been so hated for so many years. As everyone on this board can attest I loathe the Habs. I don't care that they haven't been relevant for awhile they're still the Evil Empire & Public Enemy #1.

 

[jimmccabe40]

@jimmccabe40 I wish you the best of luck & I hope you'll stay on the board even if the job doesn't work out. I've enjoyed your posts a lot.

I also want to associate myself completely with @rfournier103 's outstanding post. He nails the reasons why Montreal has been so hated for so many years. As everyone on this board can attest I loathe the Habs. I don't care that they haven't been relevant for awhile they're still the Evil Empire & Public Enemy #1.

thank you! I definitely will do that. I've known about this website for a long time dating back to Puck Daddy's "Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal Of The Week". it's funny what actually brought me here for the first time.

 

[TorontLoL 67]

Sirott is ok but I'm not crazy about the gaps in his PxP. My dad taught me when I was young that the great PxP announcers can make you see the game in your mind. With Sirott there are too many gaps in the coverage, sometimes to the point where the puck is at the other end of the ice and you're left wondering what's going on.

McDonough would be fantastic and is from MA iirc.

 

[CHRDANHUTCH]

Sirott is ok but I'm not crazy about the gaps in his PxP. My dad taught me when I was young that the great PxP announcers can make you see the game in your mind. With Sirott there are too many gaps in the coverage, sometimes to the point where the puck is at the other end of the ice and you're left wondering what's going on.

McDonough would be fantastic and is from MA iirc.

likely National contracts prevent McDonough from full season

 

[jimmccabe40]

So we know that Faust and Sirott will likely be up for the job, does anyone think there are any dark horse candidates that might be considered?

I am such a dark horse that I'm invisible.

As far as my cadre of hockey broadcaster colleagues, if they're pursuing this, they're keeping it a secret. I, however, chose to go... slightly more public... for better or for worse.

 

[Ratty]

I am such a dark horse that I'm invisible.

As far as my cadre of hockey broadcaster colleagues, if they're pursuing this, they're keeping it a secret. I, however, chose to go... slightly more public... for better or for worse.

Jim for Mike.