Alcatraz

     

    When a team full of rookies delivered an unexpected and joyful Stanley Cup to Montreal in 1986, they did it from their home base in Alcatraz. That's what the team called the isolated South Shore hotel where general manager Serge Savard sequestered his young roster, away from the building frenzy in their home city. 

    It wasn't easy for players with lives and families to stay apart from them through those long spring weeks, but even today, 40 years later, those men still recall the bonds and friendships that time forged in their careers. For many of them, it was the only championship they ever won and they still credit the closeness of that time for the victory.

    

                         🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    If this year's youth-filled team survives its Game Seven faceoff against Buffalo, perhaps it's time to reopen Alcatraz. The pressures facing the '86 team were real, but nothing compared to the reality today's players know. Forty years ago, there was no such thing as social media and its accompanying trolls. Fans today, long starved for a Cup win, are building themselves into a city-wide frenzy that feeds off itself in an unending loop of chaos.

    None of that is conducive to building the sense of calm and purpose a young team needs to concentrate on the job at hand.

    The decibel level at the Bell Centre has been recorded at 143.6, which is about equivalent to an F-18 taking off on your front lawn. The safe maximum the human ear can withstand without damage is about 85. When a building is that loud, players can't hear each other. They can't hear the coach. The booming roar echoes in their heartbeats and disrupts any thinking the players need to do. Each player exists in his own silo and cohesion is lost.

    Of course, the Canadiens weren't alone in that atmosphere. The Sabres had to play through it too, but the stakes for them were different. They had to win, and the pressure on them came from within. They didn't have to worry about disappointing thousands of fans in the building, or thousands more in the streets outside. They didn't have to worry about floods of doomsayers online tearing them and their families apart or dozens of talk shows dissecting their every decision. Martin St.Louis knows this reality too and has said he wishes the players weren't online at all.

                    🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    The human cerebral cortex is vital for memory, thinking, learning, reasoning, problem-solving, emotions, consciousness and functions related to your senses. If you're trying to be a successful hockey player, all those things are important. However, the brain's development isn't finished until a person is about 25 years old. Many of the Canadiens players are still working on getting there.

    So far, we've seen an impressive level of maturity and dedication from these young men, but we have to accept that they're still growing up. That's why Kent Hughes and the front office can help by taking away the distractions that spoil their concentration and negate all the positive work they've done.

    The first order of business now is to give everything they can in Buffalo. And if they come out on top, perhaps they should come home to Alcatraz.