Montreal Canadiens

DISCLAIMER:Today's blog will be fairly angry and ranty. Reader beware. So, Big Georges Laraque is gone. Sent home packing. Basically told to grab his SH*T get the F*CK out (pardon my French). He will get paid nearly $600,000 to sit hope before being paid another cool million (two thirds of the remainder of his contract) over the next two years to simply go away. I can't say I'm surprised that he's gone. I can't even say that I'm surprised at the way Bob Gainey handled the situation, basically kicking Laraque off the team, throwing dirt on his own mistakes and blaming Laraque for them, and scapegoating him for other problems with the team (if you remember, he did the same with 1...

After a disaster of a weekend and 2 days off, the Canadiens return to action tonight, as they host the St. Louis Blues for another rare Bell Centre tilt. To say that this past weekends losses to the Senators (4-2) and to the Rangers (6-2!) were failures would be an understatement. As a result of falling to two teams that were essentially tied with the Canadiens, as well as the action in the NHL on Monday and Tuesday, the Canadiens dropped from a tie for 7th place to 12th place in the East. Somehow, despite having the last two days off, as well as four days off last week, 4 of the 5 teams immediately ahead of the Canadiens STILL have games in hand! The only solace the Habs can t...

The Montreal Canadiens will look to increase their win streak to 2 games tonight as they welcome the ailing Ottawa Senators to the Bell Centre. On Thursday night, the Habs lit the lamp and broke out offensively, scoring 5 goals against another ailing team in the Dallas Stars. With two goals from Brian Gionta, beauties from Benoit Pouliot and Mike Cammalleri, as well as a rare goal from Georges Laraque (his first as a Hab, hence the title of the blog... can't pass up a good pun like that), the Canadiens walked out of that game with 5 goals and 2 points in the bank. Laraque certainly had something to prove on Thursday. There has been much criticism about his game (deserved criti...

Once upon a time Georges Laraque was one of the most feared enforcers in the NHL. He was even unanimously awarded the 'Best Fighter' award from The Hockey News in 2003. In 2008, Sports Illustrated named him the number one enforcer in the league. During his days an an Oiler, Laraque racked up the penalty minutes, 826 in 490 games, while scoring the occasional goal here and there. Also known as "Big Georges" or simply "BGL", Laraque even scored 13 goals and 16 assists for 29 points in 2001-01 with Edmonton. BGL's good old days: After short stints with the Phoenix Coyotes and the Pittsburgh Penguins, Bob Gainey signed BGL to a 3-year $4.5M contract on July 3rd, 2008. Gainey n...