Habs : Wearing the Habs jersey was a goal for Brière

Source : Montrealgazette.com

One of the first conversations Daniel Brière might want to have with his new Canadiens teammates will be with goaltender Carey Price, a gentle apology for a villainous act Brière doesn’t even remember committing.

It was Feb. 16, 2008, and Price had just earned his first career NHL shutout, 34 stops blanking Brière’s Philadelphia Flyers 1-0 at the Bell Centre. And before a Canadien could retrieve the final-buzzer puck for Price’s trophy case, a frustrated Brière flipped it lazily over the glass and into the crowd where it would disappear forever.

“Really?” Brière said Tuesday evening from Arizona, his first of many laughs punctuating a wide-ranging talk. “I did that? I had no clue.

“I don’t remember it, but I can assure you, it was not done on purpose. I’m very respectful of things like that. Had I known it was Carey’s first shutout, I’d have been the first to send the puck down the ice to him.

“Flipping it over the glass was a total accident.”

Price, Brière should know, is not big on collecting souvenirs from his NHL shutouts, currently 22 and counting; he’s never thought a thing about Brière’s breach of etiquette. The Canadiens took another puck from the game to mount on a plaque for Price and, probably until now, the goalie has known nothing about it not being “the” game puck.

With this mea culpa out of the way, Brière could get down to the business of building relationships in the Canadiens dressing room, his home for the next two seasons following the signing last Thursday of his two-year, $8-million contract as an unrestricted free agent.

The 35-year-old Gatineau native will arrive in Montreal in a fishbowl as much as on a sheet of ice, a highly scrutinized francophone forward who is determined to prove to his team, to its often mind-bent fans and even to himself that he has not yet reached his best-before date.

His production dipped to a career low in lockout-shortened 2012-13, totalling six goals and 10 assists in 34 games; the year before shows a thin 49 points on 16 goals in 70 games.

There have been extenuating circumstances. Brière suffered concussions in both seasons and arrived with the Flyers following the lockout with a wrist mending from a fracture suffered in Germany.

You suggest to Brière that 2013-14 could be viewed as a comeback season for him and he replies: “I think that’s fair to say. I know there’s a lot left in the tank, there’s no doubt in my mind. I can’t wait to get out there and show everyone and be a part of the greatest franchise in hockey.”

With 847 NHL games to his name through 15 seasons, another 108 in nine playoff campaigns, you’d think that Brière was beyond feeling that he needed to prove anything to anyone.

“I do,” he contradicted. “Oh yeah, I do. I want to prove that last year was just a fluke, that I can still play at the same level that I did the season before in the playoffs (with eight goals and five assists in 11 postseason games).

“It was a rough season,” Brière admitted of 2012-13. “But I’ve also been someone who always bounces back from adversity and that doesn’t scare me. I use that as motivation and that’s what I’m going to do.

“One thing I know for sure is that when I have the chance to play with that Montreal jersey on my back, there’s no better motivation than to be a Canadien. That’s going to give me a shot of adrenalin every single night that I put it on.”

He will wear the No. 48 that’s been on his back since he arrived in Buffalo from Phoenix a decade ago. And he laughs when he’s told that the number in Montreal was last worn on Nov. 28, 2009 by J.T. Wyman, the most recent goal scored by a player in that jersey coming on Oct. 9, 1999, off the stick of Miroslav Guren.

“It’s got a lot of goals left in it,” Brière joked, “so that’s good.”

Of course, the 5-foot-10, 180-pounder had the opportunity six years ago to play for the Canadiens, the team he worshipped as a boy. But he chose in the summer of 2007, as he left the Sabres as a UFA, to sign an eight-year, $52-million contract with the Flyers.

When Philadelphia elected last month to buy him out of the final two years of that pact, freeing him to sign anywhere, the Canadiens again came calling. And they found a different mindset in Brière than when they unsuccessfully courted him in 2007.

With more than a dozen other teams intrigued at various levels, Brière this time opted for Montreal, leaving longer terms and bigger dollars on other tables.

“We’d talked to 16 different teams and it was very flattering. But at the end of the day, it always came back to Montreal and having the chance to wear that jersey,” he said. “There was nowhere else I could get the same kind of feeling.

“I think we spoke first with the Canadiens (on July 3). I remember hanging up and thinking, ‘Wow, whoever I’m going to talk to next, it’s going to be tough to match what (GM) Marc Bergevin and (coach) Michel Therrien said.

“They did a fantastic job of explaining where they were going and what they thought of their team. I was very impressed with both of them, how they view their team and where they’re going with it. There was no turning back after that — especially starting with the fact that I wanted to be there in
the first place.”

Brière has been booed relentlessly by Canadiens fans the past half-dozen years for having previously spurned the Habs advances. And now, he says he quite frankly doesn’t know how the cheers will sound to him.

“I don’t know exactly. I’d by lying to you if I said I do,” Brière said lightly. “That’s part of the reason why I’m here — I want to see what it’s like.

“I saw (booing) as a compliment,” he added, laughing. “If they ignored me, it would mean they probably didn’t care that I was somewhere else and I’m not so sure that would be a good thing. Montreal is one of the most passionate fan (bases) in the NHL. To have the chance to play in front of them, on their side, is something I’m really looking forward to.”

Brière chuckled again at the thought of the “welcome” awaiting him as a Canadien back in heckle-happy Philadelphia.

“All I know is I was treated great the whole time I was there by both the organization and the fans,” he said. “I honestly don’t think it will be an issue.

“It’s not like I left on my own terms. The Flyers had to make a tough decision and decided to buy me out. It’s not like I asked to go somewhere else. They made a decision and I have to move on. I’m sure the fans will understand that.”
Sure they will.

The Ottawa Senators would be the “hometown” team of most kids growing up in Gatineau, north of the national capital, but they weren’t much on Brière’s radar.

“Growing up, I watched the Canadiens,” he said. “I admired all those Canadiens players. I wanted to be one of them, and now I have the chance to be.

“I also believe that I’m in a good place in my life right now where I feel that I’m more ready to attack this chapter. I’m very excited about it. I just can’t wait for camp and the season to start to take it all in.”

If the Canadiens had been a dream since his youth, then, how much of Brière’s turning his back six years ago was a matter of perhaps not being ready or willing to play in a market that can suffocate its high-profile players, especially francophones?

“I don’t know,” he replied. “It was a tough decision back then also. My heart was with the Canadiens even back then. But this time around I feel it’s good timing.

“The team is in a good position to take it to the next level. It’s a new organization starting with (owner) Geoff Molson and Marc Bergevin. They’re heading in the right direction. I feel very fortunate that I have the chance to be part of their solution, as they see it.”

Brière was in Hearst, Ont., last Thursday, at Flyers teammate Claude Giroux’s charity golf tournament, when his Habs signing was announced. Telephone reception was sketchy at best. So he was connected that evening to a 20-minute media conference call on a land line in a bowling alley, falling pins echoing in the background.

“At least it wasn’t a pay phone,” he joked.

Brière’s cellphone had nearly melted, six or seven text or voice messages arriving for each to which he replied.

“For so long, so many people — friends and family — were trying to tell me to come to Montreal,” he said. “They’d do it in a nice manner, jokingly most of the time, but when they all realized it was for real. …

“I had a big grin on my face going to bed that night, thinking about all the players I used to watch growing up, thinking that now I would be one of them and that probably a lot of little kids would be going to be bed thinking about our team next year.

“It’s a pretty cool feeling. I think there’s no better place in the world, if you’re a hockey fan, than being in Montreal. Having the chance to put on that uniform is very, very special.”

If Brière has been too busy in the past week to spend time sifting through the Internet’s reaction to his signing — a great deal of it uncomplimentary, and worse — he gratefully received a handful of text message from new teammates.

“I can’t control what’s being said by fans,” he said. “They’re allowed their own opinion on it. It’s their right. It’s my job to convince the doubters that they’re wrong and to prove to everybody who’s behind me that they’re right.

“The reason I signed here is because I think it’s a good situation. I think it’s the right time and I also believe I can help this team.”

This week, Brière’s three young sons pulled on Canadiens jerseys they’ve had tucked away. Their father, who hasn’t yet worn one, smiled at the sight and photographed it for posterity.

“Seeing so many Canadiens fans with jerseys and hats coming out that night in Hearst, that was pretty cool,” he said. “But it was also a little different for me. It kind of brought me back to my younger days growing up cheering for the Canadiens. It felt like going back to my own childhood.”

Brière is back in the gym working to prepare for his return to skating early next month. He’ll soon find his way to Montreal to deal with the myriad issues of settling in a new hockey home, his fourth in the NHL.

And he will pause to recall what, until now, has been his most memorable moment in this city.

Brière knew, upon signing in Philadelphia in 2007, how difficult the fan abuse would be on his sensitive mother, Constance. So for his first two seasons as a Flyer, he found a way to have Mom in Philadelphia to help out with the boys, watching on TV while her son played at the Bell Centre.
But come his third season with the Flyers, both knew it was time.

“My mother met me at our Montreal hotel before the game (of Feb. 10, 2010),” Brière recalled, “and she said something that she’d never before said.

“She said to me, ‘Please, score a goal for me tonight, I think I’ll need it in that crowd.’ ”
Brière opened the scoring against Canadiens goalie Jaroslav Halak 4:37 into the first period. And then he scored again six seconds from the end of the second. And once more, this time against Carey Price, on a penalty shot midway through the third.

“I believe I gave a game puck to my mom,” Brière said.

Constance Brunet Brière passed away last summer, about 10 months before her son signed to play with the team whose pictures he harvested as a boy.

“But I know that somewhere my mom is laughing,” Brière said. “I’m sure she is very glad that I’m now a Montreal Canadien, and like me she’ll be very happy to see me put on that sweater.”