Quebec politicians are not spared from “series fever” and neither Justin Trudeau, François Legault or Valérie Plante has forgotten the magical spring of 1993.
During the summer of 1993, I was working as a guide on the Red River for Nouveau Monde. A fervent supporter of the Canadian since always, it is certain that I was not going to let the distance prevent me from watching the team go to the end. I remember we were sitting around the TV in the tiki bar on the river cheering on the invincible Patrick Roy and the whole team during that spectacular performance where we got to see a record 10 overtime wins. which still stands!
When we won, you could hear the celebrations taking place in Montreal and echoing across the province. As Quebecers, hockey, particularly the Montreal Canadiens, is a fundamental part of our culture and history, and the Stanley Cup is the pinnacle of achievement in this sport. More so, the Stanley Cup is a symbol of perseverance, the continuation of tradition and the fulfillment of our collective dreams and hopes.
Even though 30 years have passed since the last time we brought the Cup to Montreal, hockey is our sport and it will always unite us, as Quebecers and as Canadians. I look forward to watching the next chapter of our franchise and its rich history unfold, this time from my living room, with my wife and children. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another 30 years before we hear our cries of celebration again.
Since my youth, I have been a great hockey fan. I still have vivid memories of the 1993 playoffs, which I watched with my wife Isabelle. They were exciting matches. Ten straight overtime wins! The Canadian had an exceptional team, led by Jacques Demers with Vincent Damphousse, Kirk Muller, Guy Carbonneau and, of course, Patrick Roy. How can we forget his famous nod to Tomas Sandstrom? Patrick was an extraordinary goalkeeper, and he still makes us proud today as the Remparts coach.
I also remember Eric Desjardins’ hat trick in Game 2 of the Finals against the Kings after the penalty to Marty McSorley who had a stick with an illegal curve. It was a good time for hockey in Quebec. The Canadian had dominated the 1970s with six Stanley Cups and won again in 1986. If I have one regret, it’s that my two boys, 29 and 30, haven’t yet been able to experience that, a Cup Stanley in Montreal. Hopefully it will happen soon!
Thirty years have already passed since the Montreal Canadiens last won the Stanley Cup. On June 9, 1993, at the dawn of my 19th birthday, I had not yet settled in Montreal. However, I remember that, even in Trois-Rivières, the victory of the Habs gave the population a strong sense of pride.
This team may not have been the favorite to win top honors, but they had heart in their stomachs. Led by Montrealer Jacques Demers, and spearheaded by proud Francophones including Guy Carbonneau, Patrick Roy and Vincent Damphousse, the Canadiens made us dream, but more importantly, it brought us together.
Across Quebec, fans have united. It is this spirit of communion that I retain from this remarkable series. It is deeply moving to see a community vibrate to the rhythm of its team and to see pride spring up following a victory, which becomes that of an entire people.
We were lucky enough to experience that excitement again in 2021, as the Canadian reached the Stanley Cup final. The Habs may have bowed, but they gave us an exhilarating spring, which we really needed.
Sport has a unique unifying power and no team makes hearts beat like the Canadiens. Let’s wish him a 2023-2024 season that lives up to our wildest dreams! Go Habs go!
The 1992-93 season is perhaps one of the greatest hockey seasons of all time for me. I was 28, recently married, had no children, young lawyer. Mario, my favorite player, scores 160 points in 60 games after cancer treatment. Teemu, another I would greatly admire, scores 76 goals as a rookie and I find myself at the Montreal Forum to watch the Canadiens win their 24th Cup on home soil, along with my godfather Cookie Lazarus. Cookie generously shared all the best sporting moments in Montreal with me. There’s nothing better than seeing Carbo let Denis Savard lift the Cup first, with the Rocket and Beliveau in the building.
This scene alone represents everything that described the Canadian. Tears in the eyes. Montreal was absolutely electric that night. I don’t think there’s anything like winning the Cup at home. And there’s no guarantee you’ll see it in your lifetime. We were blessed and 30 years later I can watch it on YouTube a thousand times. Patrick in his prime. Gretzky and Melrose deflated. And see Jacques Demers win his only Cup. Tears in my eyes again.
When the pundits look back on the 1993 playoffs, there’ll be plenty of talk about 10 straight overtime wins, Marty McSorley’s stick, Gilbert having more Stanley Cup rings than Marcel Dionne, and more. The 1993 team clearly had a date with fate and we should have known when prolific David Volek of the New York Islanders knocked out Mario Lemieux’s Penguins in overtime in Game 7 of the Patrick Division.
Looking back, what strikes me is the importance that winning has taken on in the economic model of the NHL and the Canadiens. Victory has sadly become optional. In the recent past, winning was the bread and butter of an organization that had to sell tickets. If I believe the 21,000 people who, on a beautiful evening in April 2023, made the wave during a match without meaning, for a club which was going to finish 27th in the league, I tell myself that victory has a very relative importance. .
Organizations are oriented towards television or platform broadcasting agreements, and especially towards real estate. The Senators aren’t worth a billion because of Kanata’s charm. Having a winning team in Arizona is Gary Bettman’s consideration number 1204. Teams are now part of entertainment groups and they are just one column in a balance sheet. Profitability first, even if you have to add an advertisement on the jersey of a legendary team that is already generating millions in profits.
In 2001, George Gillett reportedly paid $275 million for the Flannelette. The Molson family bought it for 600 million. Groupe CH is now worth well over C$2 billion. Thirty years without winning is… too bad. But as our last scorer of 50 goals so aptly put it, “there’s not just hockey in ‘life”.
I was 14 years old. I was in 3rd grade. From my perspective as a guy from Quebec, it was the first series against the Nordiques that really interested us, especially since we had taken a 2-0 lead. We thought that was it, and it hurt twice to see that the Canadian came back, beat us and went all the way. There is a part of us that thinks that if we had beaten them, we would have gone all the way. We are in very hypothetical scenarios. This is sport, there is never anything very rational. But that’s in the past. We’re the Memorial Cup champions again. The Stanley Cup, we don’t give a shit! Patrick Roy went to win the Cup with the Colorado Nordiques in 1996. We have several injuries related to Patrick Roy. To see him bring Memorial Cups back to Quebec is the best bandage. Now it is ours. For how long, we don’t know…
The Montreal Canadiens are the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup. We can be proud of that, but we can find it sad too. The year 1993 remains a memorable date. I remember watching all the games. I was in a bar on Saint-Laurent for the last game. As soon as they won, I turned back to Sainte-Catherine Street to go to the Forum, but the riots started and there were bottles that went two inches from my head, so I screwed up. camp from there!
This is a team that is underrated. We said we were lucky, yes, because the Penguins fell. But this team still had an extremely mobile and robust defense. We also had Kirk Muller, Vincent Damphousse, Guy Carbonneau and company on the attack. We also had quality plumbers and we had the best goalkeeper in the world, so we could win and we won. It’s a wonderful memory. The Canadian started to fall a few years later when he let Serge Savard go and traded Roy. I’m still pretty excited to see how the team is building now. It may be the Canadian who will first bring the Cup back to Canada in a few years.
We are a year before the album Dookie, by Green Day, and a year after Killing in the Name, by Rage Against the Machine. Smartphones were not yet invented, the school agenda serves as a timetable, a diary and an outlet for our need to express ourselves. The diary is filled with signs of punk bands drawn in liquid paper, photos of Cindy Crawford cut out of magazines, Abeille Gélinas (yes), Bart Simpson and a heart drawn in pen with my name that of the kick of the month. Although I stayed in Sainte-Marie de Beauce, 30 minutes from Quebec, I was not a Nordiques fan, despite the talent of Joe Sakic.
At the end of April, we leave Quebec in 6. Abeille leaves the agenda in favor of Kirk Muller. The turn of the Sabres, with the great Pat Lafontaine who had just had a season of 148 points. It’s gonna be rough. Scan! Bart Simpson transforms into Vincent Damphousse and Brian Bellows. The Islanders in 5. The name in the heart is now that of Patrick Roy. Now the Los Angeles Kings, dressed all in black. With at their head, the Marvel, the greatest of the great, like the Witch King of the Lord of the Rings. We get up in secret from the parents to finish the matches. We would have made the film, people would not have believed it.
McSorley’s stick, Desjardins’ hat trick, Patrick’s wink, Jacques Demers’ poise, it was all there. It was magical. I cried with them at celebrations (not too loud to wake up the parents, who weren’t “hockey” at all). It will forever be in my heart, as will Cindy Crawford, who was the only one who didn’t lose her spot on the calendar that year.
In June 1993, I had just turned 14 with a limp mustache. I followed the rise of the Canadian from day to day. Beyond the exploits and the riots, I especially remember the caricatures of Pijet in La Presse that I put aside. I should have kept them, I could resell them on Kijiji. I also remember my admiration for Gilbert Dionne. I took it from my pool. I was never really a visionary.
But the thing that stood out to me the most about this adventure was Queen’s song We Are the Champions which played in the Forum while the players lifted the Cup. I think that’s when I understood what belonging can do. The emotions it can generate. My father was crying. Anyway, it seems to me. I relive that moment every time my kids win a hockey tournament, which is not often, and the arena DJ plays Queen. Each time, I remember 93 and I cry.
Patrick’s wink, Marty McSorley’s illegal stick, Eric Desjardins’ hat trick in Game 2 of the Finals: all those flashes are, 30 years later, still intact in my head. For a long time, I watched, with tears in my eye, a DVD of CH’s 10 overtime goals. Nordiques, Sabres, Islanders and Kings were played around. A way for me to get through the hard years of the club, from the exchange of the best goalkeeper in the world in 1995 until the beginning of the 2000s.
What I will remember above all is this tireless teamwork under the good auspices of the positive Jacques Demers. And ever since, when I hear Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now (the rallying song from that spring of 1993), I inevitably think of that unlikely ride.
« And we can build this dream together, standing strong forever, nothing’s gonna stop us now. »
I was 12 and not the biggest hockey fan. But I remember Patrick Roy’s wink perfectly. It was very subtle, and without a camera placed in the right place at the right time, it would have flown under the radar. It shows what a master he was at playing in the heads of his opponents. This kind of nuance makes a person stand out. It’s part of the principles of the art of war: you can do anything, even use psychological weapons. Already at the time, I was in love with karate. I was almost a black belt and competed, so it impressed me to see in Patrick Roy’s eyes how you can make an opponent lose faith. It piqued my curiosity. In fact, it was really cool…
I think I must have been destined to become a coach, because I watched everything Jacques Demers did. When you think about it, you could say he was ahead of his time. Today, teams are looking for coaches with his profile. Coaches who are close to their players, who have a different vision, who focus on team building. All of his synergy with his franchise player [Patrick Roy], to whom he said, “We’ll live or die with you. He trusted his leaders. He was benevolent: he added Donald Dufresne to his roster in the last game to have his name on the Stanley Cup! It was an unusual situation at that time. Jacques Demers, we haven’t talked about him enough, especially not as the avant-garde that he was.
My father arrived in Quebec in the 1970s, so he told me a lot about the good times of the Canadian. Me, I saw two Stanley Cups, the lost 1989 final, Mats Naslund’s 100-point season… So I grew up in a time where winning cups was possible, it happened. Young people today are not so lucky. I remember the final series, Wayne Gretzky who could pull a rabbit out of his hat, the collective effort of the Canadian in defense, the three goals of Eric Desjardins, the illegal palette of Marty McSorley… I liked Stéphan Lebeau, a little player not necessarily flamboyant but so intelligent… And Patrick Roy. All the kids wanted to be in goal and make mitt saves like him. Everyone was watching the Canadiens.
I’m not a hockey fan enough to remember every detail, but I do remember how exhilarating there was every time the Canadiens found themselves in overtime. It challenges the whole theory that it takes superstars. Because the ardor that this group had, it is worth all the superstars. With a good mix of veterans and youngsters ready to give their all, players who give their all and a coach who has their confidence, things are falling into place. As a young athlete, at the time, I was less interested in the victory of the CH than in the “how”. Every game, the strategy, the synergy, how to build a winning team… It seemed like in overtime they were going for a strength that others didn’t have. They were having fun and building their confidence, and it certainly ended up undermining their opponents.
