(Ed. Note: As the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue, we're bound to lose some friends along the journey. We've asked for these losers, gone but not forgotten, to be eulogized by the people who knew the teams best: The fans who hated them the most. Here are Boston Bruins bloggers Days of Y'Orr fondly recalling the 2010-11 Montreal Canadiens. Again, this was not written by us. Also: This is a roast and you will be offended by it, so don't take it so seriously.)
By Days of Y'Orr
We want to welcome you all to Montreal — The City That Never Stays on Its Feet — for today's service.
Today's eulogy is sponsored by Air Canada and the 17,000 or so refs in Montreal that couldn't steal the series for the Habs, despite their best efforts. Air Canada has threatened to pull sponsorship from this funeral if any jokes are made about Canada being America's hat.
We do have life guards on duty, but we encourage those in attendance to refrain from diving. We also have goodie bags for everyone on the way out that include a team set of 2010-2011 Montreal Canadiens Diving Team trading cards and copies of "Hall Pass" autographed by Max Pacioretty.
Montreal fans are in a state of shock today as they wonder how the series would have went if the likes of Ken Dryden, Maurice Richard and Henri Richard were healthy enough to play — because apparently you need to talk about the accomplishments of players that played before you were even a sperm to feel good inside.
Theirs was a rocky road to the playoffs, and calls from fans have already flooded into Canadien Emergency Service Centers with complaints of broken hearts, shattered pride and concussions induced by throwing themselves to the ground on front of police officers whenever a Bruins fan walks by.
Montreal's offseason started by trading the Greatest Canadien Hero, Jaroslav Halak. Fans cursed to the hockey gods and cried on every message board they could find, begging Montreal to trade Carey Price and his subscription to Douche Bags Weekly. Then, in true Montreal fashion, when Price started the season played well, fans began to build monuments of Price smoking cigarettes and choking at home in the playoffs.
Their regular season was filled with meaningless wins over the Bruins and lots of controversy as the Habs finished second in the Northeast, but first in developing Wolverine like heeling capabilities.
As you may (or may not) know, Zdeno Chara checked Max Pacioretty in a late regular season game, driving his head into the turnbuckle and supposedly giving "Patches" a severe concussion and a broken neck. Montreal overtook Philadelphia for dumbest city in the history of the world by calling 911, demanding the execution of Zdeno Chara and his accomplice, George the Animal, for eating all the padding on Montreal stanchions.
Montreal became outraged as reports came out that Pacioretty's career was over and that he would never be able to gel Carey Price's hair again. A couple days later, however, Patches was tweeting about going to the movies despite his "severe concussion," while the likes of Sidney Crosby and Marc Savard exchanged playoff stories very quietly and in dimly lit rooms.
Despite his newly found healing factor, Patches was quite obviously injured as no one with a half-functioning brain would think Hall Pass was funny.
Montreal embarrassed itself again when they were outwitted by a 127-year-old man, as Mark Recchi M.D. questioned the legitimacy of Pacioretty's injury. The Habs spent the entire last regular season game against the Bruins chasing around a man in his 40s and who stands about five feet tall, giving him at least a foot on the tallest Montreal player. The only person on the Habs roster brave enough to challenge Recchi was Hal "The Pylon" Gill, who took a break from being talentless to shove Recchi. Bravo Montreal, bravo.
The Montreal Canadiens had a playoff run shorter than Brad Marchand's nose. Funny, since critics and Habs fans alike said the "Big Bad Bruins" couldn't skate with the Montreal Canadiens. They said the Bs were too slow to deal with Montreal's speed, not skilled enough to breakthrough Montreal's umbrella defense. Ference 3:16 had just one thing to say about that.
Canadiens fans and the media said Tim Thomas was too washed up, too fat to deal with the Canadiens talented offense. They said Timmy's five hole was looser than Celine Dion's. Yet in three overtime games, Tim Thomas calmly ate cheeseburgers while making snow angel saves. Yet with all his flopping in his crease to stop pucks he came no where close taking that flopping crown from Montreal.
To Montreal's credit they tried their best. They won Oscars nominations for their embellishments and spent so much time sprawled on the ice that the Boston and Montreal Ice Crews had little work to do between TV timeouts. Pernell Karl Subban cross checked and ran, ran, ran as fast as Subban can, anytime any Bruin looked in his direction. Carey Price went down easier than the Hindenberg any time a Bruins skated within 20 feet of him.
The Bruins spotted the Habs two games out of love and respect for their long rivalry. While the Bruins scratched and clawed for victories Montreal dove and whined. Now instead of celebrating a first round win and setting the streets of Montreal ablaze, Canadiens tears and bitterness flood the streets while they call into Montreal talk radio shows and reminisce about guys like George Hainsworth and others they just read about on Wikipedia.
If Montreal fans are still wondering what happened to their team, we conducted an in-depth autopsy, compliments of Dr. Recchi.
Montreal's "respect" for the game of hockey was highlighted in an otherwise competitive Game 7 In it, hockey fans witness the first ever trust fall in a playoff game by Pernell Karl while Roman Hamrlik did his best Alexei Kovalev impersonation. Dive, dive, everywhere a dive shows, once again, how little respect Montreal has now for the game — a team that would rather lay on the ice to win than play hard to win.
The 2010-2011 Montreal Canadiens died as they lived... on their backs. And now their fans can spend the rest of the summer quoting useless history they weren't around for. Quote your history all you want, Montreal. While you're busy spouting off stupid soccer chants at your team's favorite golf course, the Bruins continue to march on.
And remember... when you're lying in bed too depressed to face the world, just remember the words of the immortal Jack Edwards...
GET UP! GET UP!
This was written by Boston Bruins bloggers Days of Y'Orr. We really can't stress this enough.