A Lot More Where They Came From

For this relief much thanks.
—HAMLET

Frank Mahovlich returned to the ninth grade and borrowed a phrase from Shakespeare in an attempt to convey what he thought the 500th goal of his National Hockey League career had meant not only to himself but to all the Montreal Canadiens. As a matter of record, Mahovlich's goal, a shanked shot that dribbled aimlessly into the net from 25 feet out, beat the Vancouver Canucks last Wednesday night and clinched the East Division championship for the Canadiens, thus leaving the preseason favorites—New York and Boston—to battle for the runner-up position. But more important, as Mahovlich realized, the championship provided the Canadiens with at least temporary relief from the pressures and the tensions of having to satisfy the most demanding collection of critics in hockey—Canada's 5� million Frenchmen.

"Only now will the people let us up," said Henri Richard (see cover), the 37-year-old captain of the team. "How many games have we lost this year? Nine. And each loss...it has been a disaster. All the time it has been pressure. And now there will be even more pressure in the playoffs. If you finish first and do not win the Stanley Cup, these people...they forget you finished in first place. Remember, when you are the Canadiens you cannot make excuses."

Montreal should need no excuses when the grueling chase for Lord Stanley's $48.67 cup begins next week. Only the Bruins and the Rangers seem capable of stopping the Canadiens, and one of them will be eliminated after their mono a memo matchup in the opening round. Stated simply, the Canadiens have the best goaltender ( Ken Dryden) and the best group of defensemen ( Jacques Laperriere, Guy Lapointe and Serge Savard) in the game; and in Mahovlich, his gangling brother Peter, Jacques Lemaire, Yvan Cournoyer, Guy Lafleur, Marc Tardif and Chuck Lefley, among others, they have more than enough firepower to storm the Bastille.

The Montreal bench, meanwhile, is stocked with talented rookies, particularly Goalies Michel Plasse and Wayne Thomas, Defenseman Larry Robinson and Wings Murray Wilson and Steve Shutt, who play like the Drydens and the Laperrieres and the Mahovliches whenever Coach Scotty Bowman finds time to use them. For instance, when Dryden suffered his annual back injury and had to sit out for almost six weeks, Thomas, 25, moved down from his seat in the stands and lost only one of eight starts, whereupon Plasse, 24, stepped in and was undefeated in seven games.

Impressed? Hold on a minute. Down east on the farm at Halifax, Nova Scotia shrewd Sam Pollock, the general manager of the Canadiens, has assembled a team comprised of the best young talent outside the NHL. Indeed, Goaltender Bunny Larocque, 20, Center Dave Gardner, 20, and Wings Chuck Arnason, 21, and Yvon Lambert, 22, are only a few of the Montreal minor-leaguers who should be playing regularly in the NHL instead of toiling for Halifax. Next year they all undoubtedly will graduate to the bench in Montreal.

Dryden best assessed the future of the young Canadiens one day when someone asked him if this might be the year that the Rangers finally will win the Stanley Cup. After contemplating the question, Dryden coolly answered: "If they don't win the cup this year, it probably will be a long time before they do."

Nevertheless, despite their impressive personnel strengths and the lordly manner in which they have dominated the NHL this year, the Canadiens' road to their 11th Stanley Cup in the last 17 years will not be one big ego trip. For Montreal, it never is. Henri Richard worries about tradition. Wayne Thomas worries that his talents are being eroded by his constant inactivity. Guy Lafleur worries that the Canadiens will not come close to the $90,000-a-year salary the Quebec Nordiques of the World Hockey Association have offered him to switch leagues next season. Scotty Bowman worries about statistics and whether 44-year-old Jacques Plante will be a miracle man for the Bruins in the playoffs. Sam Pollock worries about everything that Richard and Thomas and Lafleur and Bowman are worrying about—and some other things, too.

The English press in Montreal worries that two stories a day on the Canadiens may be one too many. And the two French morning tabloids worry that six pages a day on Le Club de Hockey Canadien may be four pages too few. Don't the people have a right to know when and where Rejean Houle's son Sylvain is being baptized? "Oui," says Montr�al Marin. Doesn't Frank Mahovlich's 500th goal deserve a 10-picture spread, including even a shot of the goal judge who turned on the historic red light? "Oui," says le Journal de Montr�al.

"When you play in Montreal," Henri Richard said between sips of coffee, "you are never just a hockey player." Silver-haired and well-scarred, Richard probably will retire if the Canadiens win the cup. "I want to go out the way Jean Beliveau did—skating around the ice with the cup," he said. If he joins the Rocket in retirement, Montreal will be without a Richard for the first time in 32 years. "My oldest boy, Gilles, is 15 and doesn't want to play the game. He knows he doesn't have it. I told him once, 'Keep your stick on the ice.' He told me, 'I don't want to be like you,' and that was the end of it. I think Denis, who is 13, will be a good player someday. But it's not important. They are first in their schools and I was always the last. Best in sport, last in school. That was me. Maybe it is better to have it the other way."