Playoff energy surrounding Canadiens is ‘so special,’ Cournoyer says

MONTREAL -- The morning before he was the centerpiece of a dramatic opening ceremony, Yvan Cournoyer was in his backyard 25 miles north of Bell Centre, preparing his property for summer.

It’s a good day in this city, suggested the 10-time Stanley Cup champion, when the Montreal Canadiens and his swimming pool are competing for his attention.

On Friday, the man nicknamed “Roadrunner” for his blistering speed emerged slowly from outdoors and through a Bell Centre concourse into the arena bowl, lifting the team’s ceremonial torch skyward for a roaring crowd. It would digitally set the ice, indeed the entire building aglow.

The building was already in a frenzy, 20,962 fans stoked for action, crackling energy for Game 3 of the Eastern Conference First Round against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Canadiens legend Yvan Cournoyer emerges with the team’s ceremonial torch prior to Game 3 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Bell Centre on Friday.

The pregame ceremony had begun with a video montage and thoughts offered by late 1970s goaltending legend Ken Dryden, words he spoke for the Canadiens’ centennial game on Dec. 4, 2009, addressing their past and how it is the privilege of current players to build the team’s next 100 years.

Three hours later, an overtime laser by defenseman Lane Hutson sent the Bell Centre crowd into a frenzy and thousands more at a watch party outside into their own wild celebration. The Canadiens’ 3-2 victory has them leading 2-1 in the best-of-7 series heading into Game 4 here on Sunday (7 p.m. ET, CBC, TVAS, SNE, SNO, SNP, ESPN, The Spot).

“Playoff hockey is so special in this city,” said Cournoyer, who saw postseason action 12 times during his 15 full seasons with the Canadiens, sitting out 1977 and 1979 following back surgeries and Montreal missing the playoffs in 1970. “Maybe because we won so many times and it seemed that we were always having a Stanley Cup parade.”

One could argue there is no city more passionate about hockey than Montreal, the birthplace of the NHL and the League’s most storied franchise with 24 Stanley Cup championship banners hanging from the rafters.

Yvan Cournoyer with the Stanley Cup on Boston Garden ice on May 25, 1978, the Canadiens having defeated the Bruins in six games to win the title. From left: Pierre Mondou, Gilles Lupien, Serge Savard, Larry Robinson, Pierre Larouche, Cournoyer, Guy Lapointe and Jacques Lemaire.

Fifteen retired numbers worn by 18 legends are suspended among them, each of those players saluted with monuments outside Bell Centre in a plaza honoring the team’s history.

It’s been a long wait for the 25th championship, the Canadiens without the priceless trophy since 1993. But there’s a feeling the next one is getting closer, this team a strong mix of experience and youth assembled by patient management that has been building for the present and the future, the various parts skillfully coached by Martin St. Louis.

The team’s Alumni Lounge was packed Friday with a dozen former players, their guests and others invited for a visit. You’d quickly run out of fingers counting their Stanley Cup victories -- 35 in total won by 10 skaters between 1965-93, only Guy Carbonneau’s 1999 title with the Dallas Stars not won with the Canadiens.

Walls are adorned with portraits of all 31 captains in franchise history. Two large photos of Dryden are featured, the goalie remembered seven months after his death.

Seven Canadiens alumni, winners of a combined 32 Stanley Cup titles, at Bell Centre on Friday in front of a showcase with 24 Cup miniatures, representing the team’s championships. From left: Guy Carbonneau (three); Rejean Houle (five); Yvan Cournoyer (10); Serge Savard (eight); Yvon Lambert (four); Patrice Brisebois and Gilbert Dionne (one each). One-time Cup winners Vincent Damphousse, Benoit Brunet and Chris Nilan missed this photo, mingling with fans.

In his usual lounge seat was Yvon Lambert, who to this day is celebrated in Montreal for his Game 7 overtime goal against the Boston Bruins in the 1979 Semifinals. At 75, he remains active in the community, embracing his popularity that still surprises him 45 years after his last game with the Canadiens.

Lambert won the Stanley Cup four times from 1973-81 during his eight full seasons in Montreal. It’s not by accident, he says, that the Canadiens very much are the fabric of Montreal and the province of Quebec, a foundation of success the solid bedrock of the franchise.

“The population of Montreal, of Quebec in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, they were really spoiled,” he said, laughing, the Canadiens having won 12 of their 24 championships between 1944-69, then six more from 1971-79. “It started there, winning five in a row from 1956-60, and seeing some true superstars -- Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau and then Guy Lafleur.

“We had some years when it was really tough,” Lambert added, the Canadiens missing the playoffs five times in an eight-season span from 1999-2007. “I know people who cancelled their season tickets, but today they’re crying.

Acting captain Serge Savard (l.) and Yvon Lambert following the latter’s Game 7 Semifinal overtime goal against the Boston Bruins on May 10, 1979.

“The last three or four years the atmosphere has come back. It’s crazy. Out of 21,000 people tonight, 15,000 might be wearing Canadiens jerseys. In my day, it was adult couples in suits and ties and hats who came to the Forum; today, it’s young people. It’s a different mentality.

“Now, fans are so enthusiastic. They’re with you as long as you give a good show. They know their hockey here. If we don’t play a good game, or if we lose against an average team, then they boo. But they forgive the next day, always. They forget easily.”

Witness the tremendous ovation given to forward Kirby Dach on Friday, who made costly mistakes in a Game 2 overtime loss in Tampa, but redeemed himself Friday and was raucously celebrated for his goal and assist in Game 3.

Serge Savard, as busy as ever in business and the community at age 80, won the championship eight times as a member of the 1970s “Big Three” on defense with Larry Robinson and Guy Lapointe. He’d be appointed general manager in 1983 and guide the team to its two most recent championships, in 1986 and 1993.

“I was lucky. I started with a good team and my first two years we won the Stanley Cup (1968, 1969),” Savard said. “It’s such a big thing when you win your first. Then your second is your best, until you win your third. Some of the years we weren’t the best team but on the ice we got the job done because we played more like a team.

Serge Savard (l.) and Yvan Cournoyer during the Canadiens’ Stanley Cup parade through the streets of downtown Montreal on May 16, 1977.

“The energy around the team now is something. The competition is always higher and tougher in the playoffs. Your goal at the beginning of every season is to win the Stanley Cup. It doesn’t matter if you finish first in your division because you can lose in the first round. Winning the big trophy is always the main goal.”

Friday was the 57th anniversary of the solitary overtime goal scored by Beliveau during his Hall of Fame career, a double-overtime clincher that eliminated the Bruins in the 1969 Semifinal. Defenseman Hutson tied the team’s greatest captain in that category with a cannonading slap shot, to coin a phrase made popular by late broadcaster Danny Gallivan.

Beliveau won the Stanley Cup 17 times, more than anyone else -- 10 times as a player, another seven as a Canadiens executive vice president.

From left: Henri Richard, Guy Lafleur, Jean Beliveau and Yvan Cournoyer in the Canadiens’ Bell Centre dressing room during 2009 centennial-season celebrations. They won a combined 36 Stanley Cup championships, 43 including Beliveau’s seven as a team executive.

Cournoyer relishes his team’s history; indeed, he has played a great role in it, at 82 the Canadiens’ senior ambassador who remains the face of the 1970s dynasty.

Fifty years ago this week, the Canadiens were cooling their playoff blades during a nine-day break, Cournoyer in his first year as captain after having succeeded retired 11-time Stanley Cup champion Henri Richard. Coached by Scotty Bowman, they had swept the Chicago Black Hawks in a four-game quarterfinal and were awaiting their next opponent.

There was no rust apparent when they resumed against the New York Islanders, winning the first three, losing one, then advancing with a Game 5 win.

The Canadiens would face the Philadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup Final, the latter having won back-to-back championships in 1974 and 1975. They would prove no match for Montreal in a four-game sweep, the Canadiens -- 58-11-11 in the regular season -- needing just one game more than the minimum to take the Cup on parade again.

Yvan Cournoyer skates with a 1970s Stanley Cup at the Montreal Forum, and his retired No. 12 banner hanging between the No. 16 of Henri Richard and No. 29 of Ken Dryden.

Three more championships would follow in 1977, 1978 and 1979, the Canadiens going 229-46-45 with Cournoyer wearing the “C.” The 1976-77 team was one of the greatest in NHL history, rolling through the regular season at 60-8-12.

“Those must have been good teams,” Cournoyer said mischievously.

With Roadrunner in the lineup, the Canadiens went 24-4 in the 1976 and 1978 playoffs. They were 24-6 in the postseasons of 1977 and 1979, Cournoyer sidelined after two spinal surgeries; the second ultimately ended his Hall of Fame career, announcing his retirement on Oct. 10, 1979.

He was part of an incredible run of Canadiens leaders, 12 consecutive captains elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame: Toe Blake, Bill Durnan, Butch Bouchard, Maurice Richard, Doug Harvey, Beliveau, Henri Richard, Cournoyer, Savard, Bob Gainey, Chris Chelios and Guy Carbonneau.

Winner of 10 Stanley Cup championships, Yvan Cournoyer remains a hugely popular Canadiens ambassador.

Only two in Canadiens history -- Cournoyer, from 1975-76 through 1978-79, and Maurice Richard, from 1956-57 through 1959-60 -- have won the Stanley Cup each season of their captaincy, both retiring after having led the team to four straight championships.

Late afternoon on Friday, Cournoyer sat beneath the captain’s portraits of Durnan and Harvey, having rehearsed for the stirring ceremony to come, happy to talk about his team’s rich history.

He and his wife, Evelyn, will be in their usual arena seats on Sunday for what’s sure to be a roof-raising Game 4. He again will be the team’s torch-bearer even if he’s not holding a flame overhead, a strong connection between its glorious past and its exciting present and future.

Top photo: Bell Centre is set aglow before Game 3 on Friday between the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning.