Buffalo Boy's Blog

The Montreal Canadiens, love them or hate them, are arguably the second most storied franchise in sports next to the New York Yankees. They also have something in common with the Yankees. They are both ruining their respective sports.

The Yankees ruin baseball by spending more on individual players than some teams spend on their whole teams. It ruins the sport because no team in baseball can compete with the money the Yankees throw around and spending it foolishly on jackasses like Alex Rodriguez.

The Montreal Canadiens are ruining hockey in another way. On the ice. By playing a boring, garbage style of hockey that puts most people to sleep unless you are of course a Montreal fan blinded by your teams unbelievable luck.

The Montreal Canadiens have joined the ranks of the embarassingly ugly style of the teams that play the neutral zone trap. Is it any surprise? Jacques Martin used to coach the Ottawa Senators who were notorius for those boring 1-0 and 2-1 games where you would have to be lucky and score off a weird bounce. And then the fact that Montreal signed a bunch of former New Jersey Devils: Brian Gionta and Scott Gomez amongst others who come from that Devils style of play that forces most fans to fall asleep during games.

This is not the style of play the NHL wanted post lock out and within 4 short years it is exactly what we are back to. If the Eastern Conference final is Boston Vs Montreal be prepared to watch grass grow. Thats about as exciting as those two teams will be. You'll be lucky to see more than three goals a game and most unfortunately will go to overtime extending the agony for any casual fan who dares to get caught up in the series.

At least if its Philly they have a few skill players who can skate and hopefully unlike the crappy coaching that failed to adapt to the Habs ugliness against Pittsburgh and Washington, they can break the trap.

Going into next season the NHL has to do something about this and for starters they can start calling the clutching and grabbing and cross checking that goes on. They can also ditch the instigator rule that will allow players to police the garbage themselves again.

If there is a hockey god amongst us let him put an end to the Habs run, them, the Devils and every other neutral zone trapping team are ruining this sport.