Season 12: 1987-88
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Season 12: 1987-88 |
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In Montreal, a hockey player’s
life includes everything from the sublime to the ridiculous. As
far as Guy Carbonneau’s Montreal experience, the 87-88 season
illustrates this as well as any.
If the reader is not familiar with the Québécois
attitude about hockey, suffice it to say that in this province
the sport is a religion and its players are demigods. There is
tremendous pressure to perform both on and off the ice, to be
a hero in every aspect of life. So while Carbonneau’s focus
was on the game, on continuing to do his best as a checker and
penalty killer, on chasing another Stanley Cup and his first Selke
Trophy, there was so much more to being a Canadien than that.
Let’s review some of Carbo’s adventures during the 87-88
season:
During the summer months, the Habs donned bleu-blanc-et-rouge
pinstripes and participated in the NHL’s annual softball
tournament. This was followed by a 10 game softball series across
Quebec, to raise money for local sports groups; the attendance
at these local games was never less than 4,000 people. And then,
before hockey started again, there was the annual Canadiens Charity
Golf Tournament. This was one of the years in which Guy won, with
a score of 82—no surprise to anyone familiar with his skill
on the links.
In December the Habs held an Open House at the Forum,
when fans could visit the dressing room and skate with their heroes.
The players also made their two annual Christmas visits to patients
in local hospitals, and their wives held a holiday food drive.
In February Guy literally bled for the team at the annual Canadiens
Blood Drive. Meanwhile, his wife Line was in charge of organizing
a fashion show; among the Habs kids modeling to raise money for
charity was little Anne-Marie Carbonneau. The day after the show,
poor Line gave birth to their second daughter! The trials of being
a hockey wife in Montreal…
Throughout the season, the producers of Hockey Night in Canada
presented a post-game show—"Hors-Jeu"—every
Wednesday night on Quebec TV. Each program focused on a particular
player. This was no ordinary talk show, although hosts Mario Tremblay
and Michel Beaudry did do interviews (for example, they interviewed
Guy’s parents about their "rogue" of a son). But
the real focus of the show was the crazy improvisational skits
the players were required to perform. Carbo got to play a lawyer
while his beautiful secretary was portrayed by Mario. The show’s
director later said, "Of all the Canadiens, Guy seems the
be most gifted for the stage. He’s a great comedian. Of 
course,
he’s practiced these talents a long time on the ice, in his
discussions with the referees."
Personal appearances, TV…and then there was print. Over the
Montreal years Carbonneau’s image and/or autograph appeared
not only in the expected places—magazine articles, trading
cards, stickers, posters, calendars, schedules—but on a spiral
notebook, a "credit card" from 7 Eleven, placemats from
both Pepsi and Coke, a sports watch, a coffee mug from Nescafe,
a life-size growth chart from Kraft, advertisements galore, and
a plastic figurine distributed by Provigo supermarkets. This season
Guy even got to star in his own coloring book, in which two fabulously
lucky neighbor kids get to help him wash the family car. (The
little girl is rewarded for her efforts with a kiss on the forehead
from her hero—no doubt many a young Québécoise
daydreamed about that!)
The team’s official magazine, Les Canadiens, devoted itself
to revealing every possible tidbit about the players’ lives
(fortunately for us latter-day biographers without access to the
man himself, who really need to know he is good at making cheese
omelettes). The magazine was also a forum for educating its readers
about hockey, and this year Guy was featured in a photo story
on faceoffs. Les Canadiens also presented truly goofy comic strips
and live-action photo skits featuring Canadiens players. In 1987
Guy got to participate with Claude Lemieux and Patrick Roy in
a comedy sketch with Quebec’s answer to the MacKenzie Brothers,
Ding and Dong. The photos certainly look like Carbo was having
fun.
But of course it wasn’t all fun…sometimes the high exposure,
pressure of public opinion, and lack of privacy had to be 
truly
trying, especially to a man who at heart was an introvert and
treasured his private life. Carbonneau managed to achieve a difficult
balance between fulfilling his expected extroverted role as a
Canadien and being true to his own introverted, private character.
Glenn Cole, who covered the Canadiens for CJAD-Radio, put it this
way: "While there are some players in the NHL who will try
to buddy up to the pencil and microphone pushers, Carbonneau is
not one of them. He will sit patiently and answer questions on
most nights. The answers are thoughtful, interesting, and provide
an excellent analysis of what has happened on the ice. There have
been nights, however, when Carbonneau snapped a few answers to
the media cluster, but that usually happened only after a particularly
frustrating evening. He has not been an easy man to get close
to."
Despite this whirlwind life of charitable events, photo shoots,
sketch comedy, and the birth of a new baby, Guy managed to accomplish
one other thing this particular season:
He won his first Selke Trophy.
Resources:
Les Canadiens, Oct./Nov. 1987
Les Canadiens, Nov./Dec. 1987
Les Canadiens, Jan./Feb. 1988
Les Canadiens, Apr./May 1988
"Who is Guy Carbonneau?," by Glenn Cole, Goal,
February 1987
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