With
the possible exception of baseball's New York Yankees and
basketball's Boston Celtics, no North American sports team
has had as storied and as successful a history as the Montréal
Canadiens. They have won 24 Stanley Cups, far more than any
other team. In fact, the second most amount of Stanley Cups
is held by the Toronto Maple leafs, who have 11.
The
Canadiens would continue to consistently perform through the
early 1990s, winning another Cup in 1993 over the Los Angeles
Kings. That season, they picked up scoring threat Vincent
Damphousse from the Edmonton Oilers, in addition to having
forwards Kirk Muller, Brian Bellows and Stephan Lebeau - all
four of whom scored more than 30 goals each during that season.
By 1995,
the Canadiens disintegrated and missed the playoffs for the
first time in 25 years. The final straw came in December of
that year, when Patrick Roy allowed nine goals against the
Detroit Red Wings in one game and, after head coach Mario
Tremblay pulled him from the goal well after the game was
out of reach, Roy approached then team president Ronald Corey
and told him, "I just played my last game." Then
he walked past Tremblay with a defiant look as he took his
seat behind the bench. He was dealt to the eventual Stanley
Cup champion Colorado Avalanche along with Mike Keane for
Jocelyn Thibault, Andrei Kovalenko and Martin Rucinsky, and
despite solid players like Pierre Turgeon, Mark Recchi, Vladimir
Malakhov and Patrice Brisebois at various points in the late
1990s, the Canadiens would stumble and eventually miss the
playoffs three straight seasons between 1999 and 2001. There
was even small talk of the team moving, especially after American
investor George Gillett was the team's only interested buyer
when the Molson family sold it in 2001.
In the
fall of 2001, it was revealed that center Saku Koivu, who
had been with the team since 1995, had cancer and would miss
the season. Miraculously, he would come back and, along with
the surprising strong play of goalie Jose Theodore, inspire
the team for a run to the 2002 playoffs as the final seed
in the Eastern Conference. They would then upset the Bruins
in the first round, but lose to the cinderella Carolina Hurricanes
in the second round.
On
November 22, 2003, the Canadiens participated in the Heritage
Classic, the first outdoor hockey game in the history of the
NHL. They defeated the Oilers 4-3 in front of more than 55,000
fans – an NHL attendance record – at Commonwealth
Stadium in Edmonton.
Founded:
1909-1910
Arena: Bell Centre (capacity 21,273). Formerly
known as Molson Centre until 2002.
Uniform colours: red, white and blue
Logo design: a C with an H in the centre
(for Club de Hockey Canadien)
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