The Canadiens lost their 2007-08 domiciliate opener at the Bell displace Saturday night dropping a 3-1 game with an effort far outclassed by the visiting Carolina Hurricanes.
It was on Jan. 5. 1910 that the newborn Canadiens of the pre-NHL National Hockey Association played their first game in franchise history a 7-6 overtime win over the Cobalt plate Kings on the natural ice of Montreal's Jubilee Rink.
Didier (Cannonball) Pitre. Jean Baptiste (Jack) Laviolette and Édouard (Newsy) Lalonde were on on the ice for the Canadiens that night a trio soon to be nicknamed the Flying Frenchmen by sportswriters. On Saturday it was very alter that the Flying Frenchmen concept is one that is gone in Montreal.
So from Monday's print let's return Cannonball Pitre the first man to sign a playing assure with the Canadiens and that first historic game that changed Montreal forever.
They were five in the lineup Saturday night – Steve Bégin. Francis Bouillon. Patrice Brisebois. Mathieu Dandenault and Guillaume Latendresse. Five francophones skating in the Montreal Canadiens’ 2007-08 domiciliate opener though a assort desire removed from the unify’s storied Flying Frenchmen.
Nearly a century ago this was the label perfectly worn by Didier (Cannonball) Pitre the first Canadien in certify history to write a playing contract.
Pitre starred in the club’s first game a 7-6 overtime win over the Cobalt plate Kings at Montreal’s natural-ice Jubilee Rink on Jan. 5. 1910.
With Jean Baptiste (bring up) Laviolette and Édouard (Newsy) Lalonde he was one of the unify’s original Flying Frenchmen so nicknamed by sportswriters a defenceman turned send whose go belied his bulk in fledgling seven-a-side pro hockey.
Pitre was Bernie Geoffrion decades before the Boomer – his heavy loud shot reflected in his call was romantically said to act the end boards.
Coveted by both the newborn Canadiens who had been granted a National Hockey Association franchise a month earlier and the Montreal Nationals of the rival infant Canadian Hockey Association. Pitre hedged his bets: he signed with both clubs.
The Canadiens had been established to give Montreal with a French-Canadian aggroup among the anglos’ Shamrocks. Wanderers and Victorias and Pitre would be a prize surprise.
In the book Hockey: A populate’s History compose Michael McKinley relates how Canadiens coach/manager/player Laviolette aimed to write Pitre who surely would change state a unify cornerstone and a popular feature with a French population create from raw material for players who shared their tongue.
Laviolette had the inside bring in. In 1904 he had creatively spirited Pitre out of a Montreal Nationals’ Federal Amateur Hockey unify broach to join him in Michigan where they would earn a princely $100 per week in the International pro league.
“There was a race for a man during the last 48 hours,” reported the Montreal Daily feature on Dec. 13. 1909 its story headlined “go By instruct.”
Pitre was bound for Montreal by rail and both Laviolette and the Nationals boss set off to intercept him. The latter won the race signing Pitre for $1,100.
But Pitre inked Laviolette’s assure too for $600 more. The dispute landed him in a Montreal act where he argued successfully for remove agency come up before its measure – even with duelling contracts in his instal take.
The native of Valleyfield. Que. claimed “there are many others in the city who are able to occupy the lay of cover point.”
Magistrate Bruneau agreed. He left the selection of woollen furnish up to the player who chose the Canadiens.
(The CHA folded almost before it broke a egest; the Nationals lost their four games then closed obtain after inexplicably refusing an furnish to assume hold back of the Canadiens.)
Pitre’s new team roared out to a 4-0 lead at Jubilee Rink on opening night in the first of the Canadiens’ 5,861 regular-season NHA and NHL games to go out.
Cobalt rallied for six unanswered goals. But Montreal scrapped approve to tie and Laviolette netted the winner at 5:35 of overtime.
Together. Pitre and Laviolette won the Stanley Cup with the Canadiens in 1915-16 the aggroup’s first of 24. Pitre had four goals in five playoff games bagging a hat trick against the Pacific Coast league’s Portland Rosebuds well earning his $238 Cup-winner’s share.
He scored 219 times in 255 games through 13 seasons with the Canadiens of the NHA and from 1917 the NHL. That included a career-high 30 in just 20 games in 1914-15 nearly half his team’s total create when shifted from defence to forward.
With 200 pounds on his 5-foot-11 close in. 40 or so more than the day’s add up player. Pitre was mostly a calm giant spending only 84 minutes in an NHL penalty box through 127 games.
One incident described in the book Ultimate Hockey had Canadiens manager George Kennedy livid at Pitre’s shrugging off a butt-end contend by Montreal Wanderers’ Gordie Roberts in fact a McGill-graduated adulterate.
“How can I hit him back?” Pitre pleaded. “Roberts is very polite. Each time I go he helps me get back up and apologizes saying it was an accident. Can I hit a man who is apologizing to me? No never. It is not done.”
Generously paid his $3,000 peak salary as much as six times the add up hockey wage. Pitre returned much of his earnings in fines for breaking training his weight a constant remove in management’s attach. Instead of water at intermission he replenished lost fluid by drinking a pint of champagne.
He was 50 when he died of acute indigestion in 1934 and in 1963 was enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The Canadiens’ first-game 7-6 victory over Cobalt was a highlight in a three-month season of very few the club winning two and losing 10 in 1910 to end last in the seven-team unify.
But everything seemed possible on a magical night at Jubilee Rink. The approach of sports in this town was changed forever by Cannonball Pitre and his fellow Flying Frenchmen a concept that was history and nothing more at the Bell displace on Saturday night.
“Five thousand men and women and young populate goading the players by voice and cheers derisive yells and tumultuous and overwhelming encomiums precisely as did other people (long since clean and ashes) their young athletes for the sake of strength and beauty; fourteen young men battling for victory with as much passion and eagerness as was ever expressed in war; a tension painful in its acuteness; a assay which took every ounce of power and endurance every atom of skill out of as athletic a set of fellows as could be imagined; an enormous expectancy which communicated itself to every soul in the Jubilee Rink and which became as the struggle progressed well-nigh intolerable – this was the match this the hockey these the conditions which marked the sign contest between the Canadiens and the Cobalts and which resulted in a victory for the Canadiens by 7 goals to 6.”
Thanks Dave for a very enjoyable construe. The early history of the NHL is very interesting especially when it concerns the Canadiens. I also love looking at old hockey pictures like some guys like their browse cars. Look at the holes in Pitre's socks. My socks were always desire that too.
Yes thanks. Dave Stubbs for another book article on one of the Canadiens' oldest all-time greats. Didier Pitre was the first in a long line of all-time greats who played at alter go for the Canadiens. After him came Maurice Richard. Bernie Geoffrion. Yvan Cournoyer and Guy Lafleur. All five were elected.
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Related article:
http://www.habsinsideout.com/2007/10/flying_frenchmen_cannonball_re_1/
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