Eight-part series on Vrai revisits fierce Canadiens-Nordiques rivalry

Aside from the on-ice battles, the documentary looks at how the Quebec team spurred the Habs to change off the ice.

Two 70something guys are sitting in a sports bar sipping beer and talking hockey.

But they’re not just your average elderly fans. It’s Michel Bergeron and Jean Perron, two former National Hockey League head coaches who were archrivals at the height of the Canadiens-Nordiques war-on-ice in the 1980s. Bergeron was the bench boss of the Quebec team, Perron of the Habs (though he would later switch allegiances and takeover as Nordiques coach.)

They were at La Cage in Boucherville on Monday for the launch of Canadiens Nordiques — La rivalité, an eight-part documentary series on the online platform Vrai. It is produced by Montreal company Fair-Play in collaboration with Québecor Contenu and features interviews with many of the main actors from the rivalry’s heyday, including Bergeron, Perron, Guy Carbonneau, Guy Lafleur, Dale Hunter, Stéphane Fiset, Éric Desjardins, and Vincent Damphousse. The series was written by veteran Montreal sports writers Réjean Tremblay and Mathias Brunet.

Bergeron and Perron were feeling emotional after having just watched in a packed Cage two episodes from the series, the first of which traces the beginning of the rivalry in the early ’80s, and Episode 6, which focuses on 1993, when the Canadiens knocked out the Nordiques in the first round of the playoffs and went on to win the Stanley Cup.

Bergeron was reminiscing about when he was first coach of the Nordiques and they met the Habs in the playoffs in 1982. That five-game series ended, to the shock of Habs fans, with noted pest Hunter scoring the winning goal in overtime in Game 5 to seal the deal for the expansion team from the provincial capital.

“Dale Hunter scored that overtime goal and that started the rivalry,” said Bergeron.

I asked Bergeron if he looked back with a certain sadness, given that the Nords never won the Cup. The irony is that the team migrated to Denver in 1995 and won the Cup the following year as the Colorado Avalanche, with a goalie named Patrick Roy, a guy who was one of the key players in the Canadiens-Nordiques rivalry as the Habs netminder.

“Absolutely,” said Bergeron. “We had a good team in the 1980s. We made it to the semifinals twice. After beating the Canadiens in ’85, we met the Flyers in the semifinals but I never had Patrick Roy. To win the Stanley Cup you need a great goalie and an A-list defence. Look at recent finals. Look at the Tampa Bay Lightning.”

Perron said the series brought him right back to the heated days of the rivalry.

“It’s like a history course,” he said.

At the screening Monday, Bergeron was laughing his head off when he heard Peter Stastny, one of the biggest stars of those 1980s Nordiques teams, recount Bergeron’s first speech to the team: “The ice is white, the puck is black and I want to win.”

If Bergeron’s team had had a great goalie, they would’ve won the Cup, said Perron.

The series also underlines that the Nordiques shook up the Canadiens by hiring francophone management and franco players at a time when the Habs had an anglophone president (Morgan McCammon), general manager (Irving Grundman) and coach (Bob Berry). All of a sudden, the folks who owned the Canadiens — Molson Breweries — figured they’d better up the franco quotient in management. Soon after Ronald Corey was hired as president, Serge Savard as general manager and Perron as coach.

“The values of the Nordiques and the values of the Canadiens weren’t the same,” said Perron. “If the Nordiques hadn’t arrived with a gang of French-Canadians, I never would’ve coached in the National Hockey League. Serge Savard would not have become a general manager in the NHL. The Nordiques really forced the Canadiens to change. I really regret we don’t have that rivalry today. Kids back then had idols. Stastny. (Michel) Goulet. Carbonneau. Patrick Roy.”

You’ll never see that kind of rivalry again, added Bergeron.

“Back then, teams stayed together with the same players for years at a time,” said Bergeron.

That ferocious competition is captured in the series, from the disputed Alain Côté goal during the 1987 Habs-Nords playoff series to the 1984 Good Friday Massacre (a bench-clearing brawl during a Canadiens-Nordiques playoff game) to the drama of that 1993 series when the Montreal team came from trailing two games to none to triumph over the Quebec squad.

Perron thinks that rivalry was great for hockey in Quebec.

“Why do you think the Canadiens stagnated for years and years,” said Perron. “They didn’t make much of an effort to win because the Nordiques weren’t there. We miss that rivalry. We need that competition.”

AT A GLANCE: All eight episodes of Canadiens Nordiques — La rivalité are available on the Québecor online platform Vrai. 

bkelly@postmedia.com

twitter.com/brendanshowbiz

1. 

   What the Puck: Return of Nordiques might light fire under Canadiens

2. 

   30th anniversary of Good Friday brawl between Habs and Nordiques