Charges against former Hab withdrawn

Source : Montrealgazette.com

Assault charges laid more than two years ago against former Canadiens captain Vincent Damphousse were withdrawn Tuesday in Quebec Court.

Damphousse, 45, was subsequently acquitted.

The prosecution re-evaluated all of its evidence and decided to withdraw the charges, Crown prosecutor Sylvie Dulude told the court.

Damphousse had pleaded not guilty in 2011 to six charges alleging he assaulted his estranged wife, Allana Henderson, at different times between Jan. 1, 2008, and March 29, 2011.

Henderson was also charged in April 2011 with assaulting Damphousse. She faces charges alleging she stole an accordion file folder from Damphousse as well as assault with a weapon while driving a vehicle. (The alleged weapon being the vehicle)

She also pleaded not guilty.

The two charges against Henderson are still pending. A trial date for Henderson’s case was set on Tuesday for January 2015.

Damphousse, who appears as a panellist on the popular sports talk show L’antichambre on RDS, declined to speak to journalists following his acquittal after he left the Montreal courtroom.

 Carolyne Paquin, the crown prosecutor in Henderson’s case, said outside the courtroom the two cases have always been evaluated separately by prosecutors despite the fact that the two events intersected. For their part, Paquin said, they’ve never considered withdrawing the charges against Henderson.

Henderson’s lawyer Vincent Rose told reporters outside the courtroom that his client was very disappointed with the prosecution’s decision. Rose objected to the withdrawal of the charges against Damphousse, wanting Judge Sylvie Durand to postpone her decision to acquit.
“
I suggested that in this case the decision to withdraw (the charges) is reviewable and unfounded,” he said.

Rose said he is looking at the recourse that might be available to his client for possibly challenging the judge’s decision.

He also noted the Crown prosecutor decided in Henderson’s case to submit it to a judge to allow him or her to decide on innocence or guilt. “And we’re asking but why wasn’t the same thing done” with 
Damphousse, he said.

Damphousse played 18 seasons in the NHL. He was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round — 6th overall — of the 1986 NHL draft. Damphousse spent five seasons with the Leafs before being traded to the Edmonton Oilers, where he played for one season. He was with the Habs for seven seasons starting in 1992-93 when he put up 97 points and was part of the Canadiens’ last Stanley Cup victory. His final season in the NHL was in 2003-04 with the San Jose Sharks.

Former Habs coach says Price is declining

Source : Sportsnet.ca

Carey Price’s former goaltending coach says the Montreal Canadiens netminder has become progressively worse over the last few seasons due to bad guidance.

Roland Melanson, who is the current goaltending coach with the Vancouver Canucks, told L’Acadie Nouvelle _ a French daily newspaper in New Brunswick _ that Price has been in decline since Melanson left Montreal in 2009.

“Carey hasn’t stopped deteriorating since I left. He’s all over the place now,” said Melanson in a report posted Monday. “At some point, there has to be some accountability in the school yard. The position requires a lot of work and Carey hasn’t been consistent. He let things slide in practice and it caught up to him during games.”

Despite finishing the regular season first in the Northeast Division, Price and the Canadiens struggled down the stretch. The 25-year-old was pulled from back-to-back starts and went 2-6-0 in his last eight appearances, allowing 27 goals.

Price’s woes continued in the first round of playoffs as Montreal was eliminated in five games by Ottawa. Backup Peter Budaj started Game 5 and allowed six goals.

Last week the Canadiens fired Melanson’s successor, goaltending coach Pierre Groulx _ the only member of the coaching staff kept on when Michel Therrien was named head coach for the 2012-13 season.

According to Melanson, Groulx allowed Price to develop bad habits.

“He wanted to be his friend. A goalie doesn’t want you to be his friend _ he wants results. You’re not there to be his friend.”

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.