Scheifele gets 4 games. There hasn't been a 4 game suspension in the NHL for charging in 5 years. Never underestimate the NHL's desire to advance the interests of the Montreal Canadiens. It's almost like Sammy Pollock* still runs everything. I hate Montreal so much when they play the Russians I have to flip a coin for someone to cheer for. Those bastards -ed up the NHL for decades with their "regional draft protection" which assigned the top two juniors from Quebec every year to the Canadiens so they could "protect their habitant tradition." every last one of them. They're a pox on the NHL.
* "If it's good for the Montreal Canadiens, it's good for the NHL."
Cowtown makes a blatantly false historical claim, and makes a correction.
And it is still wrong. Time to correct him again with another history lesson
Cowtown's new corrected claim is that Montreal had the exclusive protection ability to get the top 2 kids from Quebec for decades. And that is somehow a major reason for their success. These so called "French Canadian Rule" occured in two situations. Between 1937-1942 and 1963-1969. It didn't really add any players in either era as existing sponsorship rules made the pool of players available to Montreal essentially non exist.
Let's start with 1937-1942. This is an article from Liam Mcguire who is a hockey historian.
"In 1936 the Montreal Canadiens nearly folded. The Depression had already claimed several franchises including the Ottawa Senators. What the NHL's brain trust decided to do was they would attempt to help Montreal's attendance and thereby hopefully their bottom line financially. So they decided that the Montreal Canadiens could take any two players from the province of Quebec in a special draft. There was one rider however. None of these players could have already been previously signed which in those days meant to an A, B or C form. The letters meant different levels of commitment to a team but either way, those players already signed to those forms were not eligible."
"Unfortunately for Montreal none of the players who I definitively could find that were signed due to this rule ever played a minute in the NHL. Reason being, anybody who could tie their skates and chew gum at the same time were already long signed by other NHL teams including the Canadiens who certainly weren't going to survive solely with this rule. The hope was that there would be a spark from signing a French Canadian kid, even better if he could play a bit. The thought was that this could help attendance and thereby help Montreal. It never did. What really helped Montreal at that time were two shrewd moves. One, a trade with the Montreal Maroons which brought them Toe Blake and two, the signing of Elmer Lach to a C form, who was from Saskatchewan by the way"
So its pretty clear that in the first version of the "French Canadian Rule" it was granted with the other teams realizing it was not much of a benefit nor did it add much benefit to the Canadiens. Yes the Canadiens were getting a lot of Quebec born players to sign with their sponsored teams, because shockingly a Quebec born kid given the free choice wanted to sign with Montreal. Its almost like asking why doesn't that kid go to Rutgers instead of Kentucky or Duke?
Now let's move forward.
Prior to 1963, all six teams in the NHL had sponsorship teams and could get whomever they want. The two teams that obviously benefitted the most from this were Montreal and Toronto as there were not many American players. Montreal also sponsored the most kids. That was their choice.
This just wasn't a Montreal rule nor was it anywhere close to the entire province of Quebec, nor did it give rights to Montreal to the two top players in the province of Quebec. The majority of Quebec players however were available to sign up and be sponsored by anybody in the league in the Original 6 era. But who would have thought that a Quebec kid would like to play for Montreal or an Ontario kid would like to sign up with Toronto if given a choice. The sponsorship era greatly benefitted Montreal and Toronto because guess what, kids from Ontario and Quebec wanted to play for the Leafs and Habs. It appears that I may have even erred in claiming there was a small radius around each NHL city -- thought that was the case but I cannot find anything clear on that especially based on the article below.
So let's get to 1963. "The amateur draft was instituted by NHL President
Clarence Campbell as a means of phasing out the sponsorship of amateur teams by the league's member clubs. The NHL wanted to create what Campbell called "a uniform opportunity for each team to acquire a star player". Prior to the creation of the draft NHL teams would sponsor amateur teams and players, pre-empting other NHL clubs from acquiring new, young talent, and limiting amateur players' prospects in the NHL to the team which sponsored them"
"This first draft consisted of four rounds, however few top prospects were available to the draft in the early years as most of hockey's top junior players had already been assigned to NHL clubs through sponsored junior teams."
en.wikipedia.org
The draft era was obviously going to hurt Montreal and Toronto the most as they benefitted the most from the sponsorship era. And it was the correct thing for the NHL to do. Like it was the correct thing for MLB to do around that time (Due to Yankees dominance).
Members of the league had to agree to the change in the draft. Both Montreal and Toronto had to agree to the draft. While I suspect Toronto was likely compensated in other manners to agree to the draft, Montreal appears to have got a version of the "French Canadian Rule" implemented from 1963-1969 as a means to agree to the change.
Former writer Mike Moore lays out why the Montreal Canadiens historical Stanley Cup wins weren't because of the "French Canadian" rule.
thehockeywriters.com
From the above noted article
"Having built an unequaled and powerful empire of feeder teams across North America, the Montreal Canadiens stood to lose the most by the institution of the new draft system. In recognition and as compensation, the NHL granted the Canadiens the choice of either drafting in turn with other teams or selecting the two French Canadian players of their choice before any other team drafted."
"This may seem like an outrageously biased allowance, given the importance of the NHL’s Entry draft of today. How could they grant so much leverage to one team? But this was 1963, don’t forget — all of the valuable junior talent was already signed and wrapped up through sponsorship. There simply wasn’t much highly desirable talent left to be drafted. Nobody raised an eyebrow. In fact, the Canadiens didn’t even make use of their French Canadian privilege in the inaugural draft"
In fact the Canadiens didn't use the rule in 1964 either. Or 1965, or 1966, or 1967. Finally in 1968 the Canadiens used the exception to draft two players.
Michel Plasse and Roger Belisle.
Statistics of Roger Belisle, a hockey player from Val-d'Or, PQ born Oct 31 1947 who was active from 1966 to 1969.
www.hockeydb.com
Above is a link to the esteemed career of Roger Belisle. He played 11 games in the IHL. That was his pro career.
Statistics of Michel Plasse, a hockey player from Montreal, PQ born Jun 1 1949 who was active from 1968 to 1982.
www.hockeydb.com
Michel Plasse had a servicable NHL career playing 300 games.
In 1969 they used the exemption on two players that were decent NHLer's. But neither really added to the dynasty era of the 1970's. Rejean Houle was a decent player.
Statistics of Marc Tardif, a hockey player from Granby, PQ born Jun 12 1949 who was active from 1966 to 1983.
www.hockeydb.com
Statistics of Rejean Houle, a hockey player from Rouyn-Noranda, PQ born Oct 25 1949 who was active from 1966 to 1983.
www.hockeydb.com
If you want me to admit that it was fair that Houle and Tardif came to the Canadiens in 1969. No it was not fair. But these were not difference makers - Tardif left early on and Houle was a role player for the Habs.
You can claim that these two things were unfair. I can live with that. But in the case of the 1963 draft it was likely negotiated compensation. But to claim the "French Canadian Rules" propped up their success for decades is totally ludicrous. All it propped us was Rejean Houle who unfortunately stuck around and became an awful GM.
Fact is the team that dominated the sponsorship era, was the first team to become a dynasty in the draft era (unless you consider Philly to be a dynasty). That first dynasty in the draft era had nothing to do with any protections.
