Montreal has hockey lore of epic proportions

Montreal, Quebec, Canada is the cradle of ice hockey in North America, and the Montreal Canadiens hockey club remains the most revered franchise. 

Every hardcore hockey fan knows that the club in Montreal was founded in 1909, making the Canadiens the oldest hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL), one of the oldest continuously existing sports franchises in the world…and also one of the most successful in all of sports. 

Montreal’s mystique is glorified by the team nickname – “the Habs”…and the club’s logo – a big red “C” with a white “H” in the middle.

 

Sports historians agree that “Habs” is an abbreviation of “Les Habitants.”

 

This term dates back to the 17th century. It applied to the French people who came to inhabit New France – a territory that extended in North America from Newfoundland to the Canadian prairies and included the Great Lakes region. 

Jamie Fitzpatrick, a freelance sportswriter in Newfoundland, Canada, said: “In 1924, the first person to refer to the team as the ‘Habs’ was George Lewis ‘Tex’ Rickard, owner of Madison Square Garden in New York City. Rickard apparently told a sports reporter that the ‘H’ in the logo on the Canadiens’ jerseys stood for ‘habitants.’”

 

Rickard had no clue; he just made that up. Rickard, who was a leading sports promoter of the day. His mouth frequently “shot from the hip.” 

But sports headline writers loved it. “Habs” had way fewer characters than “Canadiens.” 

A note about Rickard: He grew up in Sherman, Texas, and became a cowboy at age 11. At age 23, Rickard was elected marshal of Henrietta, Texas, and took the nickname “Tex.” 

Tex Rickard’s enthusiasm for hockey was sincere, however. When he was awarded an NHL franchise in New York City for the 1926 season, he dubbed his club the “Rangers.” (Yep, boy howdy, they were “Tex’s Rangers” all right.) 

Fitzpatrick said that Montreal’s “distinctive C-wrapped-around-H logo stands for the hockey team’s official name, “le Club de Hockey Canadien.” 

“Therefore, the ‘H’ stands for ‘hockey,’ not ‘Habs,’ Fitzpatrick wrote…and it has ever since it was first rolled out in 1914.

 

The NHL itself dates back to 1917, when the Canadiens and three other teams formed a new professional league. The Canadiens were joined by the Montreal Wanderers, the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Arenas. 

Matt Drake, an editor at SB Nation, a sports blogging network owned by Vox Media, said: “The idea was to promote the Canadiens as the Francophone (French-speaking) team, with the Wanderers as the Anglophone team, to foster a great rivalry.” 

Unfortunately, the Wanderers ceased operation after just one season, because the team’s rink burned down. The Montreal Canadiens went on to amass a record 23 Stanley Cups (league championship titles). No other team even comes close. 

Who’s the greatest Montreal Canadien of all time? You might select from two local boys who grew up playing hockey in Montreal. They are Henri Richard, who played on teams that won 11 Stanley Cups, the most in NHL history, and his older brother, Maurice “Rocket” Richard, was a member of 8 championship squads.

Henri Richard (above) and Maurice Richard (below)

 Others deserving consideration are: Jean Beliveau and Yvan Cournoyer, with 10 Stanley Cup wins apiece; Claude Provost (9); Jacques Lemaire and Serge Savard (8); Jean-Guy Talbot (7); Bernie Geoffrion, Doug Harvey, Tom Johnson, Dickie Moore, Larry Robinson, Ralph Backstorm, Jacques Laperriere and Guy Lapointe (6).

 

Jean Beliveau

All of these players are in the Hockey Hall of Fame. With 64 inductees, Montreal has the most players to be enshrined.