Preseason: Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins, September 22, 2008
Halifax Metro Centre.
De-bac-le.
What happens when you dress the Hamilton Bulldogs against the Boston Bruins? 8-3. That's what.
Alex Tanguay played his entire junior career in Halifax. He was one of the first Halifax Mooseheads to make it big (we'll say Jean-Sebastien Giguere was the absolute first). Tanguay has his jersey retired in the stands of the Metro Centre. And he still visits Halifax whenever he can.
What could have been a very nice homecoming for Tanguay turned into an ugly, ugly game. I'm not just saying that because of the score either. It was liking watching a Midget AAA game. It was just really really bad.
On the flip side of things, there was another homecoming... Brad Marchand was on tryout with the Boston Bruins. Most of the fans in Halifax, however, did not feel so warm and fuzzy about Marchand as they did Tanguay. Brad Marchand is a hometown boy. He's a hometown boy that was brought in at the trade deadline by the Halifax Mooseheads to play in his hometown. Everyone thought it was wonderful. He won two gold medals with the national junior team. But Brad Marchand is the hometown boy who actually played so awful in the playoffs, the coach healthy scratched him for the final two games of a playoff run that by all means should have gone at least to the QMJHL finals. And that's the story of why people in Halifax like a kid from Ste. Justine, Quebec better than the hometown boy.
What was I talking about?
Oh yes, that terrible preseason game. Would've been nice of the Canadiens to start a few more players that had at least a chance of making the team... Or at least starting the number 1 goalie.
