Welcome in. It's fantastic to have you joining
us today. Absolutely. Great to be here. We are
jumping right into a pretty massive premise right
out of G8 today. I mean, what does it actually
take for a sports team to become more than just
a franchise? Right. Like, how does an organization
transcend the whole business of selling tickets
and winning games to become an actual undeniable
pillar of a culture? It is a phenomenal question
to start with. Because it is exceedingly rare
that a team achieves that kind of status, you
know, globally. Yeah, totally. We are talking
about a cultural footprint that goes far beyond
the box scores. It's about identity. It's about
history. And it's really about what a logo means
to the people who wear it. And to figure out
how that happens, we are looking at an absolute
masterclass in sports history. We really are.
Today's source material is a highly comprehensive
Wikipedia article on the Montreal Canadiens.
Exactly. So whether you are a diehard hockey
fan who paints your face on game day, or you
are just someone who loves a fascinating story
about history, regional identity, and the weight
of legacy, this deep dive is going to be your
ultimate shortcut. For sure. Our mission today
is to unpack... the wild history, the staggering
records, and the cultural heartbeat of the legendary
hams. And to really grasp the scale of what we
are dealing with here, we have to set the stage
properly regarding their timeline. Because the
Montreal Canadiens do not just have a long history
within their league. They actually predate the
founding of the National Hockey League itself.
Wait, hold on. How does a team predate its own
league? Well, they were founded in 1909 as a
charter member of an organization called the
National Hockey Association. which was essentially
the forerunner to the NHL. The NHL, as we know
it, didn't even come around until 1917. That
is wild to think about. That makes them the oldest
continuously operating professional ice hockey
team in the entire world. In the world, yes.
I mean, they were lacing up skates and playing
professional hockey before the Titanic sank.
It's a massive timeline. They're older than the
Arizona Cardinals in the NFL. They are older
than almost every North American sports franchise
outside of like a few early baseball clubs. Which
means their identity has had well over a century
to weave itself into the fabric of the city of
Montreal and the province of Quebec. Right. And
that wasn't an accident. The team was explicitly
founded with a specific demographic in mind.
Interesting. Yeah. They were created to be the
team. of the Francophone community, Francophone
players, Francophone ownership, explicitly representing
French -speaking Canada. Okay, let's unpack this.
Because you cannot talk about the Canadians'
identity without talking about their logo. Oh,
absolutely not. The logo is everything. And reading
through these sources, I realized there is a
massive misconception here that even I fell for.
A lot of people do. You see that classic CNH
logo on their sweaters, right? Most people, even
casual hockey fans, assume the H stands for habitants,
which is where the famous nickname Habs comes
from. But the source material points out that
the H actually just stands for hockey. Just hockey.
The official name is Club de Hockey Canadian.
That iconic logo with the C and the H intertwined
was first introduced way back in the 1917 -18
season. What's fascinating here is how the Habs
myth actually started and took on a life of its
own. Right. Because if the H doesn't stand for
habitants. Where did the nickname even come from?
So historically, the term habitants referred
to the Francophone settlers who farmed the land
along the St. Lawrence River. OK. As a nickname
for the hockey team, it actually shows up in
print as early as February 1914. Wow, that early.
Yeah. It was in a French report in the newspaper
Le Devoir covering a game where they beat Toronto
9 to 3. But the myth about the logo. The idea
that the H on the chest proudly stood for habitants.
Yeah. That wasn't started by a French Canadian
at all. It was popularized by an American. It
really is one of those bizarre twists of history.
Tex Rickard, the owner of Madison Square Garden.
Right. In 1924, Ricard apparently told a reporter
that the H on the Montreal sweaters stood for
habitants. And it just stuck. People just believed
the guy from New York. The public ran with it.
So. Montreal Canadiens, the ultimate symbol of
French Canadian pride, had their most famous
myth cemented by an American arena owner who
just misunderstood their logo. Pretty much. That
is incredibly ironic. It is a great piece of
historical trivia, but it also speaks to how
deeply their image is scrutinized and really
apologized by everyone around them. For sure.
Take the jersey itself. The basic design of the
home sweater, predominantly red with that bold
blue and white stripe across the chest and arms,
has been in use since 1914. Over 100 years. Culturally,
it is referred to as la sainte flanelle. Which
translates to the holy flannel sweater. Exactly.
The holy flannel. I mean, you don't call a piece
of clothing holy unless it means something profound
to the people wearing it. It's treated with almost
religious reverence. And looking at the notes
here, that cultural significance literally reached
the national currency. This is one of my favorite
details. There's a famous short story by the
author Roped Carrier called The Hockey Sweater.
A classic. It is entirely about the cultural
influence of the Canadians in rural Quebec in
the 1940s. Basically about a kid who accidentally
gets sent a Toronto maple leaf sweater in the
mail. A total disaster for him. Right, the absolute
social catastrophe that causes his village. A
passage from that story was actually printed
on the Canadian $5 bill issued in 2002. On the
actual money? Think about that for a second.
You don't see the Dallas Cowboys or the Los Angeles
Lakers? getting quoted on American money. No,
you certainly don't see sports bleeding into
national infrastructure like that very often.
No. And the organization fiercely maintains that
pride in their French Canadian heritage to this
day. It is in the modern details. Like what?
If you look at their home red sweater right now,
as of 2015, they are the only team in the entire
NHL to feature the French language version of
the NHL shield on the collar. Yeah. So instead
of NHL, it says LNH. Their road white sweaters
keep the standard English shield. But at home
in Montreal, they make that very specific distinction.
It's those granular details that build a mythos.
Definitely. But let's be real. A mythos doesn't
survive for over a century just because you have
nice sweaters and a cool nickname. No, you have
to back it up on the ice. You have to win. And
the sources make it clear that this team didn't
just win. They absolutely dominated. We are talking
about sheer. unprecedented dominance. 24 Stanley
Cups. To put 24 championships into perspective
across the broader sports landscape. Me too.
Until the New York Yankees won their 25th World
Series in 1999, the Montreal Canadiens held the
record for the most championships of any team
in any major North American sports league. That
is staggering. More than the Celtics, more than
the Packers, anyone. And they didn't just win
a bunch early on when there were only a few teams
and then fade away. They sustained it. They really
did. From the 1910s all the way through the 1990s,
the Canadiens won at least one Stanley Cup in
every single decade. That is an 80 -year street
of relevance. 80 years. That requires successfully
rebuilding and reinventing your roster through
multiple entirely different eras of the game.
Yeah, completely different styles of hockey.
They survived World Wars. They survived the Great
Depression, where they actually struggled economically
so much they nearly sold an interest to owners
in Cleveland. Wow, the Cleveland Canadiens just
doesn't sound right. It really doesn't. And they
survived Major League expansions, where the talent
pool was heavily diluted. Through all of that,
they still put together dynastic runs that are
hard to comprehend today. Like the 50s. Right.
They won five straight cups from 1956 to 1960.
They won four straight from 1976 to 1979. Okay.
Here's where it gets really interesting. Let's
talk about that 1976 -77 team. Oh, boy. Because
if you want to talk about a super team, the source
material suggests this might be the greatest
roster ever assembled in professional hockey.
It's certainly in the conversation for the best
ever. They played an 80 -game season that year.
How many times did they lose? Eight. Eight? They
lost eight games in an 80 -game season. That
doesn't even sound mathematically possible in
a professional sports league. To put that in
perspective, imagine playing professional hockey
every other night for six months against the
best players in the world and going home defeated
only eight times. It's absurd. And if you were
scheduled to play them in Montreal, forget about
it. They set a record for the longest home unbeaten
streak. With 34 games. 34 games. They just refused
to lose in their own building. Completely. And
it wasn't just that they were squeaking out tight
wins. The stat that really jumped out at me from
the source notes is their goal differential.
The differential is crazy. They finished the
season at a plus 216. Which means they didn't
just win, they dismantled the opposition. A plus
216 goal differential across 80 games means...
On average, they were beating their opponents
by almost three goals every single night. Every
night. They held the record for the most points
in a season, 132 points, for almost half a century
until the Boston Bruins finally edged it out
recently in the 2022 -23 season. And looking
at this roster of legends in our notes, there
are 15 retired numbers here representing 18 different
players. The most in the NHL. The most. And I
see a note that every single one of these honored
players was born in Canada and was part of at
least two Stanley Cup winning teams for Montreal.
It's an exclusive club. But for someone who doesn't
study hockey history every day, who are the absolute
pillars we need to know about? The names on that
list are royalty. You have to start with Maurice
Rocket Richard. The Rocket? Right. He was so
prolific, so intense, and meant so much to the
culture that the NHL literally named their annual
goal -scoring trophy after him. Wow. He scored
544 goals for the franchise. Then you have Guy
Lafleur, who is the team's all -time points leader
with an incredible 1 ,246 points. Incredible
numbers. And their history of goaltenders is
unparalleled. You have legends like Jacques Plante,
Ken Dryden, Patrick Roy, and more recently, Carey
Price. Carey Price. Yeah, he holds the modern
team records for most games played and most wins
by a goalie. Go back even further to Georges
Vazina, another player who was so foundational
that the league named the annual best goaltender
trophy after him. It's just a factory of Hall
of Famers. Truly. The source says they have 37
players in the Hall of Fame just from their three
main dynastic periods. It's wild. With that much
talent and that much winning. It creates this
atmosphere where the ghosts of past legends are
always present. Oh, heavily present. And that
level of success breeds some incredibly intense
rivalries. It does. And the rivalries often reflect
much larger societal dynamics. Let's talk about
the Toronto Maple Leafs. The big one. They have
been playing each other since Toronto was called
the Arenas back in 1917. They have met in the
playoffs 16 times, including five Stanley Cup
finals. But reading the cultural background here.
this isn't just about two cities wanting to win
a hockey game not at all it goes way deeper The
source material notes that this rivalry, featuring
the two largest cities in Canada, is often dramatized
as being emblematic of the country's English
and French linguistic and cultural divide. Right.
For a long stretch from 1938 to 1970, Montreal
and Toronto were the only two Canadian teams
in the NHL. So you had to pick a side. Exactly.
So if you were a hockey fan in Canada, you picked
a side, and that choice often aligned very closely
with your cultural background and the language
you spoke at home. the two solitudes of Canada
playing out on the ice. And you can see how the
Canadians organization absolutely embraces its
bilingual reality today as a point of pride.
Very much so. Like during their home games, the
public address announcements are in both English
and French. Right. Their social media does both.
Even the national anthem is a bilingual experience.
It is. During home games, the first stanza of
O Canada is sung in French and the chorus is
sung in English. It's a very clear signal of
who they are. But while Toronto might be the
major cultural rival, On the ice, their most
frequent antagonist is actually another original
six team. Meaning one of the foundational franchises
that made up the league for 25 years before it
expanded. Exactly. And that is the Boston Bruins.
Since Boston entered the league in 1924, they
have played the Canadians more than any other
team. The numbers on this are staggering. They
have faced off in 34 playoff series. 34. Seven
of those were in the Stanley Cup finals. With
34 playoff series, that is generations. of bad
blood. That is, grandfathers, fathers, and sons
all learning to dislike the same team. It is
pure on -ice attrition. The Bruins and Leafs
rivalries really highlight how seriously Montreal
takes its hockey. It is heavy, heavy history.
Very heavy. But reading through the sources,
I was completely blindsided by something else.
Oh, yeah. I was surprised to find that a franchise
this steeped in serious tradition, with the holy
flannel and the cultural weight, actually has
a wonderfully chaotic, goofy side. To balance
it out. Ah, yes. Which brings us to Yuppie. The
mascot, yes. For the vast majority of their century
-long history, the Montreal Canadiens did not
have a mascot. They were above it. It wasn't
until the 2004 -05 season that they finally adopted
one. And they didn't even create him from scratch.
No, they basically adopted an orphan. They did.
Yuppie was the longtime beloved mascot. for the
Montreal Expos, the Major League Baseball team.
Right. He's this giant, fuzzy, orange creature.
But when the Expos left town to become the Washington
Nationals, they left Yupi behind. So the Canadians
brought him on board. Which is a brilliant public
relations move for the city, but it's also a
historic one. By doing that, Yupi... became the
first mascot in professional sports history to
switch leagues. That's amazing. He is also the
first mascot from a Canadian base club to be
inducted into the Mascot Hall of Fame. And my
absolute favorite fun fact about Yuppie from
the notes. He is the first mascot in professional
sports to ever get officially ejected from a
game. Yes. Which happened back during his baseball
days with the Expos. He's got an edge. He was
causing trouble. The source notes also briefly
mention metal. An unofficial blue mascot they
introduced recently for their reverse retro games.
Those special alternate jerseys the league introduced
a few years ago. Right. Though metal was retired
before the 2024 -25 season. So Yuppie is the
main guy. He brings this great energy to a franchise
that otherwise takes itself incredibly seriously.
Taking themselves seriously has been a bit harder
in the modern era, though. Yeah. Because as much
as we have talked about dominance and dynasties,
the recent history of the Canadians has been
a completely different story. Yeah, let's bring
us into the present. Because that incredible
streak we mentioned earlier, winning a cup in
every single decade, that died in the 2000s.
It did. Their last Stanley Cup win was in 1993.
Since then, it has been a really tough row. They
entered a long stretch of mediocrity. In the
late 90s, the situation actually became dire.
Really? Yeah. The Canadian dollar was at a record
low, and the financial struggles were so severe
that fans were genuinely terrified the team might
be relocated to the United States. That would
have been unthinkable. The Molson Brewery ended
up selling control of the team in 2001 to an
American businessman named George Gillette Jr.
Go ahead. He helped stabilize their finances
and eventually sold it back to a consortium led
by the Molson family in 2009 for more than double
what he paid for it. Wow. Good business. So the
business side was saved. The business was saved,
but the on -ice product has been a roller coaster.
The 2020s for the Montreal Canadiens have given
fans absolute whiplash. If we connect this to
the bigger picture, you really see the extremes
of professional sports condensed into a span
of just two years. Let's look at the 2020 -21
season. This was during the height of the COVID
-19 pandemic. Right. The NHL had to realign the
league, putting all the Canadian teams in a single
North division to avoid border travel. They were
playing in empty arenas for much of the year.
And the Canadians were not considered a powerhouse.
But they sneak into the playoffs, and they go
on this miraculous run. A total Cinderella story.
They are down 3 -1 to the Toronto Maple Leafs
in the first round, and they battle all the way
back to win it in seven games. Beating their
biggest rival. Then they sweep the Winnipeg Jets.
Then they beat the Vegas Golden Knights in overtime
in Game 6 to advance to the Stanley Cup Final
for the first time in 28 years. They were the
first Canadian team to make it that far since
Vancouver back in 2011. It was a magical run,
even though they ultimately lost the final to
the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games. Right.
You would naturally assume that a trip to the
final would be the foundation for a new era of
success. Naturally. But instead, the very next
season, 2021 -22, was a historic collapse. To
go from the Stanley Cup final to what happened
next is jarring. Just how bad did it get? They
finished dead last in the entire NHL. dead last
the very bottom of the standings it was the first
time they'd finished last since the 1939 40 season
it was their first last place finish ever in
the modern expansion era since the league doubled
in size back in 1967 so they were setting records
in the wrong direction Absolutely awful franchise
records. The most regulation losses in their
history with 49, the most goals against, and
the fewest wins in a minimum 70 game schedule
with just 22 wins. 22 wins after playing for
the Cup the year before. That is a free fall.
And that catastrophic drop forced the organization's
hand. Team owner Jeff Molson had to authorize
a true rebuild. Which is huge. Now, for a franchise
with this much pride, that is a bitter pill.
In the modern history of the Canadians, they
had never formally torn down the roster to rebuild
from scratch over an extended period. Right.
They always just tried to fix it on the fly.
They always tried to retool on the fly. But the
2021 -22 failure proved that relying on the ghosts
of the past wasn't going to work anymore. They
needed a clean slate. So they brought in a new
general manager in Kent Hughes. Hughes, and a
new head coach, Martin St. Louis, to start over.
And looking at the most recent data and the source
material, it seems like biting that bullet is
finally starting to pay off. It really is. In
the recently completed 2024 -25 season, the rebuild
is showing real fruit. They bounce back with
a solid campaign. 40 wins, 91 points, and they
finally return to the playoffs. They lost in
the first round, but the trajectory is completely
different now. The modernization is working.
It proves that even a team with a century of
institutional memory has to be willing to evolve.
You cannot survive in the modern NHL just because
you wear the holy flannel. You have to adapt
your approach to team building. So what does
this all mean? Good question. When we zoom out
and look at all these sources, the Montreal Canadiens
are a masterclass in duality. They really are.
On one hand, they're a team that carries this
immense weight of historical dominance. The 24
Cups, the unbeatable records, the Hall of Famers.
The ghosts. Exactly. On the other hand, they're
constantly trying to adapt to modern realities,
rebuilding their roster from the ground up. Right.
And through it all, they have maintained a profound
cultural identity that means so much to the Francophone
community and to hockey fans globally. It really
is a unique position in the world of sports.
And this raises an important question, something
for you to think about long after we sign off
today. In the Canadiens' dressing room, right
where the players can see it, there is a famous
motto painted on the wall. Okay. It is taken
from the World War I poem in Flanders Fields.
It says, To you from failing hands we throw the
torch. Be yours to hold it high. Wow. Imagine
sitting in your locker stall, taping your stick,
and reading a poem about fallen soldiers telling
you to carry the torch. Exactly. When a franchise
has a history that is so deeply intertwined with
a specific cultural and linguistic identity and
a motto literally begging future generations
to live up to the past, does that immense historical
weight act as an inspiration that elevates the
current players to greatness? Or does it create
an impossible shadow that modern rosters simply
cannot skate out from under? That is the ultimate
question for anyone putting on that sweater today.
It really is. Thank you so much for joining us
on this deep dive into the Montreal Canadiens.
The next time you catch a game, look at the logos,
listen to the crowd and keep exploring the incredible
history hidden in the sports you watch. We will
catch you next time.