I find myself rather conflicted over the news that Les Canadiens broke with longstanding tradition by hiring as their head coach, a man who may stand an outside chance of actually knowing what he's doing. 

Not for the reasons you might suspect however.  I'm not feeling ill at ease because Jacques Martin is, by all accounts, a perfectly nice man who may not be entirely deserving of the inevitable barbs I will be firing his way next season.  Not at all.  If Dick Cheney has taught me anything, and he hasn't, it's that collateral damage is the inevitable byproduct of just and noble wars.

Nor am I all that discomfited by the fact that he was the stolid face behind the Senators franchise for seven years, but now toils for a divisional rival.  He did very well by us in his time with Ottawa, and owes us nothing.  As a matter of fact, I have all respect in the world for the man who showed nothing but class and aplomb each and every time (Four.  Four times...but who's counting, right?) Pat Quinn out coached him, outmatched him and generally made him the Leafs' prison bitch.

No, the real source of my conflict is this.  I simply don't know who I should feel sorry for the most. 

The Montreal press, ravenous jackals all, may well resort to eating their own young in the face of Jacques' monotone, cliche ridden post-game scrums, if only to relieve the boredom.  You can only hear "We have a little work to do", or "I thought the guys played real hard", or "We played a really good team tonight" after yet another 8-2 loss delivered with all of the emotion of a corpse before you go stark raving bonkers.  Trust me on that one, fellas.

But what about the fans?  What of those who were weaned on the likes of The Rocket, Guy Lafleur, Henri Richard, Mats Naslund, and yes, even Saku Koivu?  Fleet, offensively gifted players all?  How will they feel after the 32nd straight 2-1 game in which their deepest forechecker hung out by the scorer's table?  Will they resort to bragging to their friends and family that "Hey, great game last night!  Held Boston to eleven shots!" the way some of us once were?

Then there are the players themselves...or whatever remains of them (pssst...Jacques.  Bob did tell you about the five hundred and eleventeen free agents, right?).   God help you if you are a supernaturally gifted offensive player, with butter soft hands and creativity to make grown men weep who fails to backcheck once, or worse, misses one defensive assignment in a September exhibition game.  At best, you will spend an entire season in the press box.  At worst, you will immediately be branded a failure and consigned to toil in the minors for all eternity.  Just ask Jason Spezza (hmmm...on second thought, he may have had a point).

But I think I might be most concerned with the man himself.  For a head coach in any professional sport, nowhere on earth is the pressure to succeed now, now, like RIGHT FUCKING NOW! higher than it is in Montreal.  Stumble out of the gate next October and the press are stalking his kids, the fans are burning effigies on his lawn and his players are quite literally, throwing him under a bus to save their own homes from the torches and pitchforks.

Then again, what do I know, right Jacques?  As you can plainly see, Habs fans are only too happy to temper their expectations while you get settled in.  I'm sure everything will work out just fine. 

But...um...for your sake, I hope that's a Bouwmeester in your pocket and you're not just happy to see me. 

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