HOCKEY LAST NIGHT: YOU WANT KEN DRYDEN TO KEEP TALKING, YOU NEED KEN DRYDEN TO KEEP TALKING

OK, so maybe Ken Dryden went on a little too long during his sweater retirement ceremony before the Senators-Canadiens game last night in Montreal. He might still be talking, actually.

Be honest: We all needed Dryden say his piece. For starters, let's assume any griping about the opening faceoff being pushed back (the puck dropped at 8:53 p.m. Eastern, 23 minutes later than expected) might have been borne out of long-buried Hab hatred that needed to be purged. No doubt the sight of Dryden back in a bleu, blanc et rouge sweater dredged up some feelings that have lain dormant for a lot of people ever since the Canadiens gradually ceased to be a Force through the '80s and early '90s -- and just became another branch plant in the Gary Bettman hockey economy.

Even as late as 1993, the peak of the Patrick Roy era, you could pure flat out loathe the Canadiens (but ultimately respect them) and not feel like a total wad for doing so. Alas, not long after after we got the Wonderful World of Bettman, they became just another of the seven Canadian NHL teams,* and a lot of feelings have been bottled up ever since. Today, the whole country would get behind them if they got close to the Stanley Cup, apart from Maple Leaf-myopic southern Ontario and possible sleeper cells of Nordiques loyalists.

Part of our country's identity died the day when Canada ceased to have a hockey team whom everyone either loved or hated. (Teams who haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1967, and teams who can't win a playoff series against teams who haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1967 don't pass muster, but thanks for asking.)

It's hard for anyone born after about 1975 to totally relate (the Roy era was really more of an epilogue) to what it was like, but last night was really about when the Montreal Canadiens were the Montreal Canadiens. The key word Dryden used that keeps echoing was "lucky." For generations, anyone who played for the Habs, almost to a man -- considered himself lucky to have the chance to live up to all that history and tradition that went all the way back to 1909. To the legions who hated the Habs, it always seemed like they were lucky, but of course you had to eventually admit that while luck certainly played a part -- those fabled Forum ghosts -- they were just damn good.

Good enough to love, and good enough to make those who didn't so paranoid that you would imagine that CH crest coming to life and snickering at you behind your back, like I did as a kid. Bottom line, something like last night was a portal to a day, admittedly idealized here, that can't happen anymore, not when we're stuck with Gary Bettman. Being able to air that resentment of the Habs since one of their legends is a little long-winded (and a Liberal to boot) is for our own goddamn good.

If Ken Dryden can stand up there and give us just a sliver of what hockey fans used to have, then so be it. Besides, it was a Monday night in the dead of a Canadian winter. Save for some kind of personal crisis, what else was so important at that moment that you couldn't wait for the game to begin while the greatest intelligent hockey player alive spoke on his tribute night? Are our lives that hectic that we can't relate to anything that happened more than 24 hours ago?

(The Montreal Gazette's Habs Inside Out has great stuff on this, including audio. Sportsnet's man in Ottawa Ian Mendes has mixed feelings about the ceremony's length. Even The Guardian picked up the story way over in London -- the one in England!)

Habs 3 Senators 1: Didn't hear the post-game interviews, but here's hoping none of the Senators pulled a Mussina after the slumping Canadiens pulled off a surprise win.

Rangers 6 Bruins 1: Brad Stuart was minus-4 on the night. Someone wants out of Boston.

Headlines: AHL All-Star Game Flops in T-Dot (via Mirtle), Oshawa officially concedes defeat to Stephen Colbert, Quebec City tries to make nice with Hockey Canada.

Today's better games: Leafs-'Canes, 7; Capitals-Sens, 7:30 (assuming Peter Sidorkiewicz's sweater retirement ceremony doesn't run long); Sharks-Stars, 10:30.

(* Yes, I consider the Buffalo Sabres a Canadian team, but I also consider dip the fifth food group. Draw your own conclusions.)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.