On May 16, 1976, Montreal Canadiens captain Yvan Cournoyer emerged from a celebratory throng, lifting the Stanley Cup over his head, grinning big enough to put the Cheshire Cat to shame. He circled the ice at the Philadelphia Spectrum, trailed by teammates awaiting their turn to touch the coveted chalice. The win completed a sweep of the Flyers, who'd won the previous two Cups in their then-incarnation as the Broad Street Bullies.
Philly had some good players in Bobby Clarke and Reggie Leach, but they made their reputation for fierceness on the fists of Dave Schultz, Battleship Kelly and their fellow goons. They won because every other team in the league was afraid to play them. That is, until the Canadiens turned the tide by developing a very different game and imposing their will on the truculent Flyers. In the months and years since that victory of skill, speed and sportsmanship over bullying and intimidation, more than one observer has credited the Canadiens for saving the game from an overall descent into Philly hockey.
"This is not only a victory for the Canadiens; it is a victory for hockey," Serge Savard said that night at the Spectrum. "I hope that this era of intimidation and violence that is hurting our national sport is coming to an end. Young people have seen that a team can play electrifying, fascinating hockey while still behaving like gentlemen."
"And if they had won the third Stanley Cup in a row, then we could see that it was going to revert back into a lot more fighting," recalls Steve Shutt years later. "And I think it would have put the game back 5 or 10 years. So us going in there and winning that particular series, I think really, really benefited the game in general."
"We wanted to win the Cup in Philadelphia and I think that was a real legacy for that hockey team; the start of something that took it to a new level," Doug Risebrough remembers. "The Flyers won with that kind of aggressive, fighting, beat-you-up-for-checking type game. And I don't think people in our room believed that that was the way the game should have been played."
"And I'm not belittling what the Flyers did because they won Cups, but the Montreal Canadiens were going to win it different than that. We weren't going to win it the way they had won it. We didn't adjust to their style. We were going to win it differently with skating, offence, attention to the detail and defence."
"Everybody follows the champion and every team wants to be like the champion," said Ken Dryden.
"And as the Flyers were winning, everybody wanted to be like the Flyers. And I think it was important that we won."
"I mean there there are good teams, there are great teams and there are important teams and there are a lot of Stanley Cup winners and a lot of them are great teams or near-great teams. There are not very many that are also important teams. And I think the Montreal Canadians of that time were also a very important team."
The Canadiens of that era, essentially, saved NHL hockey from itself.
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Now, fifty years later, the Canadiens face a similar challenge.
These days, the NHL is a business more than at any other time in its history. Between constant gambling ads, players' outside business interests, pointless franchises in pointless markets and inequitable officiating (including from the so-called office of player safety), the game is at risk of losing its soul once again.
It's especially true this year with the Vegas Golden Knights one game away from making the Stanley Cup Final on the back of goalie Carter Hart. Hart is one of the 2018 Canadian World Junior players who were charged with sexual assault against a young woman in London, Ontario. The players ended up being acquitted because the judge didn't believe the complainant, despite compelling evidence.
A team with a soul would look at the situation and question the wisdom in signing a guy with that background hanging over him. At the very least, it would put his judgement at being in that position and failing to stop it into question. A team with a soul doesn't hire Carter Hart.
The NHL today is willing to ban rainbow stick tape to appease a few homophobic critics. It's willing to sell itself to the highest sports-betting company. It allows the Stanley Cup to visit the fascist US White House. And it's willing to give players who are involved in abusive situations second chances to restart lucrative hockey careers.
These Canadiens are not today's NHL.
The first thing Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes look for is character. Logan Mailloux got into trouble in Sweden as a 17-year-old by taking and sharing non-consensual photos of a sex act with a young woman. He played a total of eight games for the Habs before they shifted him to St.Louis. Even if he paid a price for his past, he didn't belong with this group. Hughes wants to know the players he hires are good people, unlikely to get caught up in scandal. He wants them to have a soul.
If the Canadiens are lucky enough to make the Finals this year, it'll be on them to show the league what a real, tight, clean-cut team looks like. They'll show that even in this age of social media and so many outside influences, a group of young men can come together in sincerity and with a common purpose to beat out the glitzy, controversial, Bettman-sponsored McTeams he's foisted on the league.
It's time for the Canadiens to save hockey, again.
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