Wednesday 25 November 2015

Canadiens, Bruins announce rosters for the Winter Classic Alumni Game

The Canadiens and Bruins have revealed their rosters for the Alumni Game that will be held before the Winter Classic.
Bruins Alumni Roster     Canadiens Alumni Roster
PJ Axelsson     Donald Audette
Bob Beers     Christian Bordeleau
Ray Bourque     Francis Bouillon
Rob DiMaio     Benoit Brunet
Tom Fergus     Patrice Brisebois
Hal Gill     Guy Carbonneau
Steve Heinze     Lucien Deblois
Al Iafrate     Gilbert Delorme
Brian Leetch     Eric Desjardins
Reggie Lemelin     Normand Dupont
Ken Linseman     Gaston Gingras
Rick Middleton     Rick Green
Jay Miller     Mike Keane
Cam Neely     Alex Kovalev
Terry O'Reilly     Sergio Momesso
Andrew Raycroft     Mats Naslund
Mark Recchi     Chris Nilan
Sergei Samsonov     Lyle Odelein
Marco Sturm     Oleg Petrov  
Bob Sweeney     Stephane Quintal
Don Sweeney     Stephane Richer
Tim Sweeney     Larry Robinson
Glen Wesley     Richard Sevigny
      Steve Shutt
      Jose Theodore
        
         
Bruins Coaching Staff     Canadiens Coaching Staff
Lyndon Byers     Simon Arsenault
Don Cherry     Yvan Cournoyer 
Stan Jonathan     Jacques Demers
Don Marcotte     Stéphane Gauthier
Tom McVie     Réjean Houle
Mike Milbury     Guy Lafleur
Derek Sanderson      
   
Bruins Honorary Coaches
John Bucyk
Eddie Sandford

Some comments:

1)  I feared the Bruins would cheat, obviously, and stack their roster with recently-retired players, younger players who gave them a greater chance to win.  On first perusal, there's no real smoking gun, there are some names from the seventies and eighties, so I'll lower my pre-emptively raised hackles.

Although I see a note at the bottom of the press release stating that:
These rosters are current as of Nov. 24 – additions or changes may be made leading up to the game.
So you know I'll be checking behind the curtains and under the bed and be hyper-suspicious of any wheeled wooden horses right up until puck drop.

2)  Steve Shutt and Larry Robinson!  I know Larry in his current role with the Sharks probably spends a lot of time on skates, but I don't know how nimble Shutty is going to be.  He'll probably have to up his game in the dressing room, contribute in that manner.  Not merely be 'good in the room', but great.  Should be manageable for the quipster.

3)  Francis Bouillon will be our cheater, he could probably still play in Europe right now.

4)  Richard Sévigny and José Théodore in nets, no André 'Red Light' Racicot, so we should be fine in goal.  I would have brought in Jocelyn Thibault, he's the emergency practice goalie for the Canadiens now, should still be sharp.

5)  Isn't Stéphane Quintal more of a Bruin than a Canadien?  At least, that was my sense until I looked it up, and found that he spent barely four seasons in Boston, around 150 games played with some time in the AHL, and seven full seasons with the Canadiens over two stints.

6)  Chris Nilan to handle the nastiness.  I fully expect there'll be a real fight, not the good-natured pantomime we often see.  Jay Miller, the Bruins' worthless goon they somehow found reason to include in the proceedings, will be going down hard.

7)  Wait, that leaves Sergio Momesso to handle Terry O'Reilly and Rob DiMaio.  And Stan Jonathan and Linden Byers on the bench.  We're outmanned!  Damn dirty Bruins.

8)  And Ken 'The Rat' Linseman, the original rat against which all are measured.  What, couldn't they spring Nevin Markwart out of jail for this too?

9)  I'm on the record that I hate the name 'Sweeney', it gives me the creeps somehow, maybe it's too close to 'swine' and/or 'sheeny', something like that, that it just rubs me the wrong way.

I now realize there's more to it, there have been three Bruins named Sweeney for me to hate over the years.

10)  Fossil Zdeno Chara should by all rights slide right into that game, and then disappear forever.


I honestly don't know which game I want to win more, the Winter Classic itself or the Alumni Game.

Oh, who'm I kidding.  I desperately want to win both

No comments:

Post a Comment