Yeah, he was considerably smaller than Pete.

Exactly.

Uh, in fact, later on they became teammates briefly in Philly.

Not many people remember Harrelson in Philly, but he was there a little bit.

And they never really talked about it, but for the rest of his career, Pete Rose was booed in New York.

And Pete Rose, the Hit King, it was never forgiven.

So let's go ahead to '79, and, um, February '79, and Ulf Nilsson, uh, who was this terrific Swedish player, came with Anders Hedberg.

[laughs]

And, uh, Marty St. Louis, basically it's a f- it's a new four-year deal because they ripped up the last year of his previous contract and added three to it.

They will never fire him, and I said this when they hired him, that if St. Louis doesn't wanna coach, he'll walk away before...

Nope.

He's...

You can't fire him, um, because he doesn't need the money.

He doesn't need the aggravation.

He's incredibly self-aware, and if things aren't going well, they're not gonna say, "Okay, you're out.

[laughs]

in the Pantheon,

because what René LeCavalier had to do in hockey, essentially invent a language, Jacques Doucet had to do with baseball.

He gave a sport its voice, and I'm not sure that was fully appreciated.

Now, of course, LeCavalier is the winner of the Foster Hewitt Award, But Cavalier was a far better broadcaster than Foster Hewitt, from at least what I've heard of Foster Hewitt.

But yeah, I would think not having a franchise and not hearing Jacques do Expos games, even though later on he would do Blue Jays games, might have affected the way some people saw his candidacy.

Again, I don't want to be critical of that.

I understand the process and how very difficult it is, and everyone has an opinion and is entitled to it.

It

But it's nowhere near the way that I'm sure you will tell us what you felt watching that full 90 minutes of a Argentina team who just wanted to seemingly injure and drive people nuts on the pitch, and one team that just kind of said, "You know what? Uh, I'm just gonna do what we do."

Well, I mentioned the 1990 final a couple weeks ago, West Germany against those very same Argentines.

Well, not the same ones.

Maradona was playing back then.

And this is what, uh, Argentina does.

It's gonna...

Argentina, when it comes down to it, they are going to play hyper-physical.

Mm.

[laughs]

I didn't see a bus.

I saw like 10 guys back trying to defend.

And when you're trying to defend Messi for a half hour, well, good luck to you.

Uh, they were very, very passive.

I mean, for those who like the NFL and you see a prevent defense, you know, you've been all over a team for, oh, 55 minutes.

You're up a couple of scores.

Uh, since we last spoke, there has been zero movement on the, uh, Dylan Larkin trade w- request, and then came the news that Steve Yzerman has been kicked upstairs and the Red Wings are now in search of a new general manager.

Um, you wanna start with the team or you wanna start with the captain?

Let's start with the captain, uh, who knows his body better than any of us.

And no matter what the MRI said, uh, he couldn't play.

If you can't play, you can't play, and I trust him on that.

Uh, I thought the communication was poor throughout.

Um, but I'm sure that he just didn't say, "No, no, I'm not interested in this." Uh, he tried.

He couldn't go.

But, uh, to, to me, getting to the round of 16, like so many other nations who have been at so many other World Cups who haven't gotten to that, to that spot, um, I think it's an absolutely fantastic accomplishment.

[laughs]

I thought it was pretty, I thought it was pretty big.

Now, what we're hearing, including from Jesse March, is, uh, well, this will inspire generations of Canadian kids and, uh, in that rather demonstrative, uh, talk on the field in the huddle.

And he might be right.

Um, we hope he's right.

Uh, you know, it's tough for people our age to be able to see that through.

Back in my Montreal Gazette days, we were talking about soccer being the next big sport.

First time I noticed, and that, that's very symbolic, I think, in light of what we're witnessing here.

Oh,

okay.

Because, you know, it's prior to the business.

And, you know, I was a fan.

I mean, there are other great moments.

I mean, the Brooklyn Dodgers finally breaking through.

All the Yankees World Series.

Kuzmin and

And again, as I said, I was talking to some of the Irish media afterwards over a pint, and they had said if that had gone down on the Emerald Isle, that the manager would be getting tar and feathered at dawn.

Yeah, again, I couldn't tell if it was a joke or whether it was somebody who's just been rewarded with a contract to take him to 2030.

I flashed back to the Women's World Cup in 2015 when one of the Canadian defenders made a horrible play.

Essentially, that's Canada being eliminated from a home World Cup.

And in the mix zone, she said, only positive questions.

And later on, I bumped into a member of that team in the airport in Toronto.

We were having a little chat, and I said, I couldn't believe it.

Okay, so there is no Stanley Cup final that can match you on site for the World Cup in Italy, but can you recall a start to a Stanley Cup final that you covered over the years that is anything like this one?

I was there.

Where ...

Yeah, and Claude went down in front of the Canadiens bench, and, uh, Gaétan Lefebvre, the trainer, goes to help him, and he's wearing that white sweater that they, uh, had at the time.

It was a cardigan.

And, uh, Pat Burns grabbed him and said, and I'll paraphrase slightly, "Let him lie there." You know, because he thought Lemieux was diving, and he didn't deserve the help.

Uh, Claude a- and, and Pat Burns did not have a good relationship a- as, [coughs] as you know.

Uh, I, it ...

Brendan Gallagher, the Canadiens exit.

Forty?

I saw him once in Atlantic City in 1989.

I was down covering a fight, probably Tyson.

And there was an amphitheater outside a casino on the boardwalk.

And it was one of the worst concerts I've ever seen.

After every song, he'd turn his back on the crowd.

G.E. Smith on Saturday Night Live.

Now available on iHeartRadio.

Uh, what, before we get to what's happening inside the building you're staring at, what about that? The, the Colorado Avalanche down oh-three to Vegas.

Uh, surprising, not shocking, uh, because the way that they played the last eight games under Tortorella and the way they all came together, and Makar's injury, and last night, of course, MacKinnon.

So, because everything's all about Montreal, I'll tell you a story about Cale Makar.

So the last story I did for Sports Illustrated that I can recall, I was out in Denver in 2022, November, and just doing Makar.

And when you do a feature like that, it's one person, you are locked in, and you're watching every shift.

And not only that, you're watching him on the bench.

You're watching how he interacts with teammates, if at all, what the coach might say.

[laughs]

Correct.

And, uh, and there you go.

But the '79 game here was so important, uh, because that was the end of an era.

I mean, it really was the imprimatur for a dynasty.

Uh, four in a row.

You know, three in a row is great, four in a row was magical.

And the Canadiens were on fumes, and they pulled it out.

They didn't.

Correct.

And, uh, and there you go.

But the '79 game here was so important, uh, because that was the end of an era.

I mean, it really was the imprimatur for a dynasty.

Uh, four in a row.

You know, three in a row is great, four in a row was magical.

And the Canadiens were on fumes, and they pulled it out.

They didn't.

Yes.

Um, but, you know, enough peddling, uh, you know, the, the, the old stuff.

Let, let's give us something new.

And the way, [clears throat] excuse me, the way this team plays is new, or n- new from what they've seen over the past few decades.

Not new for people that watched the team in the '70s.

So, uh, the fans relate to that, and that's why there's such connectivity.

And I'm not sure Montreal has the best fans in Canada.

Mm-hmm

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah.

So, uh, and Buffalo was a faster, probably more skilled team, although the Bruins have skill kind of, oh, latticed through the lineup, but Buffalo has more of it and that, that big D.

So now you're playing a team that's every bit as fast as you are.

They're not as big, um, but, uh, they can be physical, as we've seen.

So it's, uh, a, a different kind of game.

He is just a different cat, man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah.

So, uh, and Buffalo was a faster-Probably more skilled team, although the Bruins have skill kind of, oh, latticed through the lineup.

But Buffalo has more of it, and that, that big D.

So now you're playing a team that's every bit as fast as you are.

They're not as big, um, but, uh, they can be physical, as we've seen.

He is just a different cat, man.

to the last

three Montreal Cups, post-78, when the Canadians were clearly the best team.

And it doesn't mean...

It's necessarily relatable to 2026.

But if you've been watching this team long enough, when it does win the Cup, weird stuff happens.

79, you've got too many men on the ice.

Canadians are cooked.

It was exhausting watching it, and I say that with great respect.

Let's go back to

the last three Montreal Cups, post-78, when the Canadians were clearly the best team.

And it doesn't mean...

It's necessarily relatable to 2026.

But if you've been watching this team long enough, when it does win the Cup, weird stuff happens.

79, you've got too many men on the ice.

Canadians are cooked.

yeah yeah we yeah it's true you can almost maybe even stretch that out it's uh it was exhausting watching it and I say that with great respect