Well I was thinking about just leaving that beautiful piece of literature I contributed this afternoon as my final thought on the Gainey resignation. But I realized I would be just like those fake fans that I despise the most if I did not leave a final tribute to one of the classiest guys this organization has ever seen. Bob Gainey was never the best guy on the ice, but he was the smartest. I think this was the case for his Managerial work as well. Even though flashy GM's like Brian Burke had more success with all out styles of negotiating and blockbuster trades, I respected Bob's tentative style. Many people hounded him for his reluctance to give up a lot for a trade, but I promise you, 95% of the deals he passed on would have hurt us in the long run. If it was up to the majority of idiot Hab-nots, we would have Vinny Lecavalier, 15 goals and all, without Andrei Markov, Tomas Plekanec, maybe even PK Subban who has become one of the premier Defenseman in the AHL in his first year. Everything he did was thought out and thorough although the players he acquired almost never performed the way he expected they would. Lost opportunities in the names "Kovalev, Lang, Tanguay, Latendresse, Samsonov, Higgins, Ryder, McDonagh, David Fischer" might soon be joined by "Pacioretty, Lapierre, D'Agostini and Price", and ultimately this could be a core reason for our failures during the Bob era. Or maybe it's the guys who we let go, year after year, only to watch them have success elsewhere. "Well maybe we can let Souray go, at least we have Streit. Oh, you say they're both All Stars now? And they both do not play for the Canadiens?" Personally, I just never had that much of a problem with it. I felt each year Bob tried to put us in a position to compete, and in the early spring of 2008, it seemed everyone had forgotten why they hated Gainey so much. No one seemed to care about the "Niinimaa for Ribeiro" deal anymore, they all pretended to love Bob, only to turn their backs on him once again, after a team he did not play for, a team whose fortunes he could not change on the ice himself, started to slide. Maybe that's pro sports for you, a thankless and cruel world where the most repeated mantra is not "Play as a team!" or "For the love of the game!". It's more like "What have you done for me lately?". Maybe that's just Montreal, where the best/worst fans in the world scrutinize every deal, every signing every fart you let out, just because they happened to be privileged enough to grow up in an age of dynasties that no longer exists and need some happiness that they obviously cannot generate for themselves.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is, as happy as you morons are who parade Montreal today, finally "ridding our glorious team of that boring and passive shlub", I warn you. I'm watching you cowards. And when things get bad in the new and improved Pierre Gauthier era, and I promise you, it will sooner than later, I dare you to go on the Team 990 where Tony and friends pleasure themselves to the doom and gloom of our 8th place team, and say out loud "Gauthier is garbage, I wish Gainey was back".
You take this team as it is, or don't take it at all.
Don't be a fucking hypocrite.
Peace True Believers,
And thanks for everything Bob, hope you find some happiness.
E
