Former Habs coach Demers has message for his 1993 Stanley Cup champs

Source : montrealgazette.com

June 9 marks the 20th anniversary of the Canadiens’ last Stanley Cup championship when they beat the Los Angeles Kings 4-1 at the Forum to win the Cup final in five games.

I spoke with Jacques Demers, the last coach to win a Cup with the Canadiens, a couple of days before the anniversary and asked him if he had a message for the players from that ’93 team.

“The first thing I would tell  them is thank you for changing my life,” Demers said. “I know when I was in Detroit things went well – coach of the year twice, those are all nice things – but winning a Cup in my own backyard …. I lived in Cote des Neiges, brought up in poverty, and to go and win the Cup in front of our own people, our fans, I would really sincerely thank them for changing my life.

“It’s not the Senate that’s changed my life,” added Demers, who was named to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2009. “Personally, family … but what has changed my life (is the Stanley Cup) and it’s a tremendous, good feeling. Everywhere I go in Canada, especially in the province of Quebec, people remind me of 1993. Those wonderful athletes and human beings have changed my life forever. I will die feeling very good about myself and my family feels good about me.”

Demers also wore his Stanley Cup ring to the Senate for the first time on June 6 “because they wanted to see it.”

“I felt proud, I felt good,” said Demers, who only wears his Cup ring on special occasions. “A lot of stuff going on at the Senate now and I didn’t feel like a Senator (that day), I felt like the Montreal coach who in 1993 on June 9 won the Cup. It was very special for me.

“I’m a very proud man,” Demers continued. “I feel so good, so special about winning it for the fans, for (general manager) Serge Savard, who gave me an opportunity to come to Montreal, for the
Molson family that treated me with the greatest respect. I wish Geoff (Molson) the best because I remember working for the father and as rich and as important as they are in society they have never showed anything but respect for me and that makes me feel good.”

Demers recalled brothers Eric and Stephen Molson flying with the team to Los Angeles for Games 3 and 4 of the Cup final and Eric asking the coach if it was OK to have a beer on the plane.

“I answered him: ‘Mr. Molson, this is your team. You can do whatever you want.’ But it just shows what kind of people the Molsons are. I can never forget the way the Molson family treated me and treated my wife.”

I also spoke with Guy Carbonneau, the last Canadiens captain to hoist the Cup, and asked him if he could put into words what that felt like for a French-Canadian kid who grew up dreaming of that day.

“It’s everybody’s dream if you ask everybody that played hockey, especially in Canada,” Carbonneau said. “Here we play hockey in the streets and you dream of scoring the wining goal in the Stanley Cup final and hoisting the Cup. To be able to do it for me was unbelievable in ’86 and even better in ’93 because we were able to do it here in Montreal and I was the captain. It was fun. For me having the chance to win the Cup the second time and the third time (with Dallas in 1999) kind of made me reflect on it. I was able to sit back a little and enjoy it a lot more than I did the first one.”

You can read my column on the 20th anniversary of the last Habs’ Cup win by clicking here.

To relive that night by reading the columns by Red Fisher and Michael Farber that were published in The Gazette following Game 5 in 1993 click here.

Demers spoke about that 1993 championship team when he was a guest on The Gazette’s Hockey Inside/Out show this year. You can watch the show by clicking here.
Below is a column I wrote on a book by Todd Denault on the 1992-93 season titled
A Season In Time: Super Mario, Killer, St. Patrick, the Great One, and the Unforgettable 1992-93 NHL Season.