It's that time again. What time, you ask? Well, I'll tell you (after a bit of inner dialogue, apparently).It's time to honor another of the NHL's recently retired class acts. Now, I'm not going to say that Eric Desjardins was at the same level as Steve Yzerman. He wasn't. Yzerman was a leader both on and off the ice, and a rare, rare talent. But Eric Desjardins was cut from the same cloth. A self-depreciating, spotlight-shunning, go-about-your-business-because-that's-what-we-do type of cloth.
When I started following the Habs back in the 80s, they were the team of an aging Lafleur, Gainey, Naslund, Robinson, and Carbonneau. They then progressed to a team of Richer, Chelios, and Patrick Roy. As Richer and Chelios went elsewhere, Canadiens fans were left wondering about the direction of the team. Then along came a young defenseman named Eric Desjardins. He wasn't a world beater, but for some reason he was my favorite Canadien of this era.
Then came 1993, and the magical, heart-attack inducing run to the Stanley Cup. I was living in
Traverse City, MI at the time and was glued to a 1960's era short-wave radio listening to the French-language radio broadcast of the games. Ron Hextall and the Nordiques had the nerve to beat the Habs in the first two games of that year's playoffs, after which the Canadiens reeled off four straight wins (two of which were in overtime). This was followed by 4 straight wins against Buffalo in the division finals (three of which were in overtime).
The Canadiens next faced the surprising New York Islanders in the conference finals, and won 4 out of 5 (two of which were in overtime -- and one in double overtime) propelling Les Glorieux into the finals for the 29th time. I was psycho. Seriously. I had rituals. Dirty socks. A countdown calendar. I even grew a playoff beard (well, a goatee - but I didn't shave it off until, like, 2001). Barking mad. What do you expect? Seven of the 12 wins had come in overtime!
So the Habs met Wayne Gretzky's LA Kings in the finals that year, who had just come off an absolutely riveting 7-game series victory over the *barf* Toronto Maple Leafs. Yes, EVERYONE was hoping for a Canadiens/Leafs final, but The Great One had something to say about that. LA won the first game at the fabled Montreal Forum, but during the next game, a 3-2 win by the Habs, Eric Desjardins scored three times. Each one was more beautiful than the last, with the final goal coming in (yes, you guessed it) overtime. Of course we didn't know it at the time, but this was to be Desjardins' ONLY career hat-trick. What a time for it to happen.
Well, the Habs went on to win the Cup that year four games to one, and of course three of the wins came in overtime. That made 10 out of 16 wins in overtime. Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck by the time it was over. I also remember where I was when I found out that he was traded. I was coming out of chemistry class at Lake Superior State University, and was gleefully informed by some Leafs fans. Yay! Despite the trade, the following pictures show just how I remember Eric Desjardins (sorry Flyer fans).
After scoring the hat trick against LA:
With Lord Stanley's Cup:
As the best damned defenseman on NHL 1994 for Sega Genesis (he's on the bottom right):
The Flyers honored Eric Desjardins tonight with a fitting ceremony, and in a very short speech, Eric thanked both the Canadiens and Flyers organizations equally, despite playing only 6+ seasons in Montreal and 11+ seasons in Philadelphia. Merci, Eric!
On the other end of the personality spectrum, David Beckham (aka Golden Balls) and his many hairstyles are coming to the US to play soccer next season for the LA Galaxy. "How nice!" you say? "Good English lad, coming to help out the sport here in America, yeah?" Not so fast. Golden Balls is going to make nearly $1 million dollars to play here. Per week. If he works a standard 40 hour week, that's $25,000 per hour, or about $416 per minute. Bollocks, if you ask me.I'm sure this will spike ticket sales, but not for all five years of the contract. There's no way that Major League Soccer has this kind of money to throw around, and if this brings about the downfall of the league, I'm going straight for Posh's bobbling head. Fact.
Update (1.12.06): Apparently MLS is only paying about $400k of Beckham's annual income. And Posh still looks like a bobblehead.
No comments:
Post a Comment