Hab Nots : Montreal Isn’t Same Without Canadiens in the Playoffs, but One Thing is Unchanged: the Expos Aren’t Drawing

MONTREAL â€”  The Mont Bar is nearly deserted, its flickering TV playing to an audience of empty tables set for customers who won’t be coming.

“It’s very sad,� said Diane Caron, the bar’s owner. “When there’s no hockey, it’s dead around here. It’s not good for business.�

The scene is the same at the Pub Cristal and the Texan and most places near the Montreal Forum. East, along Rue Sainte-Catherine, where upscale boutiques line the street, swarms of people are enjoying a mild spring night. But since the Canadiens didn’t make the Stanley Cup playoffs, there’s no reason for revelers to stray toward that stretch of Ste. Catherine.

“It’s like a deserted zone,� said Roger Larocque, for 14 years the bartender at the Bistro du Forum.

The Bistro, tucked into a corner of the Forum, would normally be jammed this time of year. But this is the first spring since 1970--and only the ninth in 78 seasons--that the Canadiens didn’t qualify for postseason play. So on one recent night, the Bistro had four huge TVs blaring and only six patrons. Two customers drained their glasses and left during the first period of the Dallas Stars-Detroit Red Wings game.

“I’ve lost so much money,� Larocque said. “It’s not only me, but all the businesses here.�

It seemed an NHL rule that the Canadiens had to make the playoffs, just as it seemed summer didn’t officially begin until their captain skated around the Forum with the Cup. Two years ago, their name was inscribed on it for the 22nd time. This season, they finished 11th in the Eastern Conference with an 18-23-7 record, missing the playoffs by four points.

They couldn’t score. They couldn’t win on the road, where they were 3-18-3. They couldn’t keep the puck out of their net.

They also couldn’t get along. Goalie Patrick Roy and defenseman Mathieu Schneider were involved in a locker-room tussle that led to Schneider’s being traded to the New York Islanders.

Cultural tensions erupted when Rejean Tremblay, a writer for the French newspaper La Presse, accused five English-speaking players of scheming against Coach Jacques Demers under the influence of Red Fisher, sports editor of the city’s English newspaper, the Montreal Gazette.

The players denied any attempt to undermine Demers, but the incident was symptomatic of the season of turmoil.

“It was one incident after another and, as a result, the poor quality of the team was almost forgotten and was accepted by the fans,� said Fisher, who denied plotting against Demers.

“The Canadiens missing the playoffs was no great shock to the city. The fans knew what they had and that’s what they ended up with. [Radio] hot-line callers have been dumping on [General Manager] Serge Savard because the John LeClair-Eric Desjardins trade to Philadelphia turned out to be a disaster and they’re certainly blaming Savard for that.

“I would say fans’ reaction was mostly resignation. . . . The only time their hopes were lifted a little bit was when they made that late-season trade that brought [Pierre] Turgeon and [Vladimir] Malakhov. Turgeon got a pile of points when he arrived and he also raised the level of play of Mark Recchi a great deal.�

Turgeon, a French-Canadian, became a local hero after he was acquired from the New York Islanders and scored 20 points in 15 games.

“We were disappointed the Canadiens didn’t make the playoffs because hockey is part of our lives and that has been taken away,� said Francois Blanchard, owner of two sports bars in the Montreal area. “Every conversation starts with the Canadiens.

“But for next year, I think things will be better with Turgeon and Malakhov.�

Said Demers, “In Montreal, you can’t use the word rebuilding. But if you pick 17th, 18th or 20th [in the draft] you’re not going to get the best player. We made a couple of great trades, getting Turgeon, Malakhov and Recchi, and I think this team will come to camp with a totally new outlook.�

The Canadiens were never more than two games over .500 this season, and Demers had to use 40 players in 48 games to plug various holes. They were virtually eliminated from the playoffs in their 46th game and were booed as they lost their season finale to the Boston Bruins.

For Fisher, a lifelong Montreal resident who has covered the Canadiens for 40 seasons, that last game was a first in his career.

“I have never, ever, been in Montreal with two or three games remaining in the schedule that didn’t mean a thing,� he said. “In 1970, they started the final week still capable of finishing first in the division if everything fell right, and it came down to the final day.�

Demers said his mail is mostly sympathetic, and most letters say that had Turgeon been acquired sooner, the Canadiens would have made the playoffs.

“The support of the fans, the media and the players has been good,� he said.

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Although the fans have plenty of idle time now, few are spending it at Expo baseball games.

The second team in a two-sport town, the Expos have always struggled to fill seats in April and May while fans were preoccupied with hockey. Despite the lack of competition now, turnstiles aren’t clicking merrily at Olympic Stadium. Nor are they likely to pick up for a while.

Richard Griffin, who spent more than 21 years as the Expos’ public relations director before leaving in February, believes fans are so accustomed to watching hockey through May, they won’t go to baseball games yet. The Expos drew a sellout crowd of 46,000 for their home opener, but other than a Sunday crowd of 23,197 on Felipe Alou Day, they’ve averaged about 12,000.

“Since 1970, there was one other season [in which] by the time the Expos opened at home, the Canadiens had been eliminated,� Griffin said. “People were expecting [attendance] would pick up at that point but it never did, noticeably. It’s just the fact of the hockey playoffs, and people have built up baseball-going habits over the years.

“Quebec has the Fete Nationale [holiday] June 24, which marks the end of school year, and attendance never, ever, gets noticeably bigger until that date. It never really depended on how the Canadiens were doing.�

Said Fisher, “I don’t think [fans] will go in huge numbers. If they win, they’ll do OK. If they don’t win consistently, they’ll die. No matter what you say, this isn’t a baseball town, it’s still a hockey town.�

But it’s also a forgiving town. Despite his financial misfortunes, Larocque isn’t angry at the Canadiens for missing the playoffs.

“They had to cope with what they had,� he said. “Next year, we’ll be better.�

There’s always next year for fans, but not for Caron. The Canadiens will leave the Forum next March for a new building in another part of the city, and she will lose the pregame and postgame crowds. With that looming, she can’t afford to have empty bar stools during what should be a profitable time.

“Now is too early for hockey to stop,� she said. “We usually make a little bit more money because we’re busy at this time. Businesses in this area will have a tough time. You have to keep busy, but I don’t know what we’re going to do.�