Hockey Night In Canada! … Montreal Canadiens vs Toronto Maple Leafs
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Toronto Maple Leafs center MIKHAIL GRABOVSKI (84), who has represented the national team of Belarus six times at the annual IIHF World Championships (37 ga, 14 go, 33 pts) but missed the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver a few seasons back due to injury, beats Montreal Canadiens goaltender CAREY PRICE (31) for a second time late in the third period of a very traditional, not to mention exciting, “Hockey Night In Canada” clash at the Bell Centre in the predominantly French-speaking Province of Quebec. (Christinne Muschi / Reuters)
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The roots of such a fantastic rivalry stretch all the way back to 1759 after originating on a plateau just outside Quebec City famously known to history as “the Plains of Abraham”. In the half century leading up until the National Hockey League’s great Expansion in the summer of 1967, the confrontations on ice between the MONTREAL CANADIENS and their traditional arch-enemy, the TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS, cemented in stone forever its status as the circuit’s ultimate clash of rivals. Still to this day, even if many things about the NHL have changed along the way as holy shrines like the Forum and Maple Leaf Gardens are no longer in use and iconic voices such as Foster Hewitt have gone, there is nothing quite like “HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA”.
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Promising, young Montreal Canadiens defenseman P. K. SUBBAN (76), the former second round pick at the 2007 NHL Draft who twice won the gold medal with Canada at the annual IIHF World Junior Championships and was named to the tournament All-Star team in 2009, slams into Toronto Maple Leafs center MIKHAIL GRABOVSKI (84), a native of Potsdam in what was then the Soviet puppet state known as the German Democratic Republic, with a clean shoulder check along the boards at the Bell Centre. (Richard Wolowicz / Getty Images)
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Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman MIKE KOMISAREK (8), the native New Yorker who was a first round pick coming out of the University of Michigan by Le Habs more than a decade ago, delivers a devastating blow to Montreal Canadiens’ Swedish import ANDREAS ENQVIST (63), the 24-year-old former IF Djurgarden Stockholm right wing who is still leading the American Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs in scoring despite his recent promotion, in full view of Le Habs’ newly-acquired enforcer BRAD STAUBITZ (25) during the National Hockey League contest at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec. (Richard Wolowicz / Getty Images)
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Montreal Canadiens pugilist BRAD STAUBITZ (25), the 27-year-old journeyman from Alberta who has scored just 15 goals while amassing 1,172 penalty minutes in seven seasons as a professional in both the AHL and NHL, and Toronto Maple Leafs tough guy MIKE BROWN, the American-made, University of Michigan product who has piled up 969 penalty minutes in his seven years of pro hockey to date, discuss the relative merits of Chairman Pawlowski’s spectacular $ 160.0 million dollar Palace of Sport for the People’s Democratic City of Allentown while tied up during the “Hockey Night In Canada” clash at the Bell Centre. (Christinne Muschi / Reuters)
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Two goals inside the final eight and a half minutes from Belarusian forward MIKHAIL GRAVOSKI and 21 saves from Swedish goaltender JONAS GUSTAVSSON powered the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs to a noteworthy, come-from-behind 3-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.
Obviously inspired by the arrival of brand new head coach RANDY CARLYLE, the Maple Leafs snapped a six-game losing streak to record just a second win in their last 12 National Hockey League contests. Nevertheless, Toronto still stand in twelfth place in the Eastern Confernece standings and remain three points off pace for the post-season playoffs. Whether or not Carlyle, who steered the Anaheim Ducks to the Stanley Cup title in 2007, can lead a late charge in Ontario remains to be seen.
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Newly-appointed head coach RANDY CARLYLE, who appeared in 1,055 National Hockey League contests over the course of his distinguished 17-year playing career, was originally selected by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second round (# 30 overall) of the 1976 National Hockey League Draft. A brief controversy ensued after the Cincinnati Stingers of the rival World Hockey Association claimed the former Sudbury Wolves defenseman had signed a contract to play at Riverfront Coliseum but the matter was quickly settled. Carlyle only spent two years in the Toronto organization shuttling back and forth between the Maple Leafs and the Dallas Black Hawks of the old Central Hockey League before being traded to the Pittsburgh Penquins in the summer of 1978. (Richard Wolowicz / Getty Images)
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RANDY CARLYLE (25) accomplished an amazing feat by winning the James B. Norris Trophy as the National Hockey League’s best defenseman while performing for the sub-par, still Mario Lemieux-less Pittsburgh Penquins in 1981. The native of Azilda, Ontario, was involved in a strange case on his only national team apperance for Canada at the 1989 IIHF World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden, after he failed a drugs test following the round-robin match with West Germany. In the wake of disgraced Canadian Olympic track athlete Ben Johnson’s scandal, the unfortunate Carlyle, now skating in the NHL with the Winnipeg Jets, temporarily suffered a loss of face at home and all across Europe but was quickly exhonorated when the B Sample proved to be clean as a whistle even if the International Ice Hockey Federation never did publically apologize to the player. (Richard B. Shaver / Pittsburgh Penquins photo)
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Montreal Canadiens goaltender CAREY PRICE (31) kicks aside the angled shot from Toronto Maple Leafs winger NIKOLAI KULEMIN, the one-time Metallurg Magnitogorsk forward who has represented Russia four times at the IIHF World Championships (34 ga, 7 go, 13 pts), as Le Habs rookie blueliner ALEXEI EMELIN (74), the 25-year-old who won three domestic crowns with Ak Bars Kazan and appeared with Russia at the IIHF World Championships three times (27 ga, 2 go, 5 pts) before crossing the Atlantic Ocean this past summer, looks to shield his countryman from the rebound during the National Hockey League contest at the Bell Centre in the iconic French-Canadian city of Montreal. (Richard Wolowicz / Getty Images)
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Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender JONAS GUSTAVSSON, the former AIK Stockholm and BK Farjestad Karlstad netminder who twice earned a bronze medal with Sweden at the annual IIHF World Championships and also appeared in one game for Tre Kronor at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, focuses on the puck while flat on his back between the pipes during the “Hockey Night In Canada” clash at the Bell Centre in the Province of Quebec.(Richard Wolowicz / Getty Images)
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The preceeding presentation was underwritten (most likely without the prior consent of Chairman Pawlowski and / or the Rubber Stamp Council of Apparatchiks) by :
THE PROGRESSIVE FOUNDATION FOR A MORE SPECTACULAR AND TRANSFORMATIONAL $ 160.0 MILLION DOLLAR PALACE OF SPORT
Unselfishly helping the global community at large warm to as well as better understand the cultural and historcial intricacies of ice hockey.