When Marc Bergevin took over as the Montreal Canadiens’ GM he made questionable calls such as cutting ties with the teams alumni but none was more controversial than the stance he took with Jean Béliveau.
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At the Habs Summit yesterday, The Gazette’s Stu Cowan delighted the crowd with a few hockey stories but the one that caught my attention was when he spoke of what Bergevin decided to do with Le Gros Bill.
Béliveau was as close as can be to hockey royalty for Canadiens’ fans, winner of 10 Stanley Cups and longest tenured captain in the team’s history, he was as classy as could be. A star on the ice, he put up 1219 points in 1125 games and a star off the ice, he was the initiator of the Canadiens’ Christmas hospitals visits and always had time for fans, never refusing to sign an autograph.
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While there’s a room dedicated to former Canadiens at the Bell Centre where they can go to watch the game and mingle if they wish to, for year Jean Béliveau was always watching the local tilts in his seat, not far above the Habs bench. To make it easier for him to leave after the games, the organization used to let him use the players entrance tunnel to exit, for a while at least.
According to Cowan, it was one of Bergevin’s decision to put an end to this practice. Why? Who knows. Perhaps, for him Béliveau was just another patron and he didn’t deserve special treatment? I feel weird just writing that. It’s a particularly puzzling call, especially considering the fact the former captain was already over 80 when Bergevin was made GM.
Jean-Yves Ahern-USA TODAY Sports
Anyone who’s been to the Bell Centre will tell you there’s a lot of stairs to climb up or go down to get to your seat. Once people reach a certain age, it’s not as easy as it once was. My dad’s 76 years-old and while he loves hockey, he doesn’t want to attend games anymore for that particular reason. I can’t imagine Beliveau being happy about being bared from using the shortcut.
This might not be a big deal in the eyes of other teams’ fans but for Canadiens’ fans, it is. Beliveau was a king amongst men and to this day, his wife Elise is still considered as hockey royalty by the fans. She’s even part of the team’s pre-game video this year, just past the 1:16 mark when Luc Picard says fans where there to support their team through hard times, we see Brendan Gallagher bleeding in the Cup final, Saku Koivu coming back from his battle with cancer, and Elise Béliveau thanking fans for the ovation that followed the organization’s final goodbye to her Jean.
To me, this will forever be one of Bergevin’s worst decision. I can get the GM wanting the current iteration of his team to write its own story, but there’s no need to erase the past to do that. On the contrary, the team’s history provides a great deal of inspiration to current players.
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