The Montreal Canadiens have a long history of employing star goalies. And in this THN Archive story, goalie Jose Theodore was profiled after a breakout year.
The Montreal Canadiens are famous for their ability to produce outstanding goaltenders. And in this THN Archive feature story, writer Mark Brender profiled Habs star goalie Jose Theodore after his breakout year in which he won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL's top netminder and the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player:
TOAST OF THE TOWN
By Mark Brender
You might say goalies are in the deprivation business. They deprive pucks of the right to enter the net and opponents of the joy that comes with scoring goals. By this definition, Montreal Canadiens stopper Jose Theodore is a Vezina Trophy natural. His four older brothers say he has been practicing as a hockey killjoy as long as they can remember. Young Jose, it seems, had a unique way of ensuring road hockey goal celebrations took on the tone of funeral dirges.
“I couldn’t bug him or say anything,” says his brother Rock, “because he’d throw his stick at me. He’s still like that. If he plays anything he always has to win. If he loses, he goes in the house.”
The kid had to stand up for himself, after all. Jose (pronounced joh-SAY) got put in net years ago because that’s where his elder siblings wanted him. Fine, he said, just watch me go. And they have. Everyone has. After Theodore’s heady performance last year, an entire city is watching the hometown boy with a fervor and passion that had been painfully absent from the Montreal hockey scene the previous few seasons - and brothers. Rock, Nick, Frank and Teddy are celebrating to their hearts’ content.
Theodore, 25, had a truly historic time of it in 2001-02, leading the league in save percentage (.931) to go with a 2.11 goals-against average, 30-24-10 record and seven shutouts; leading his unsung, underdog Canadiens to the playoffs for the first time in four seasons; and becoming just the third goalie in NHL history after Dominik Hasek and Jacques Plante to capture the Vezina and Hart in the same season - and in a contract year, no less.
In the process, Theodore bucked an NHL trend that says when it comes to No. 1 stoppers, the more experience the better. Consider the average age of all NHL players last season was 27.2. At the end of the year, the average age of No. 1 goalies was 30.3. Suddenly, though, we have a Vezina and Hart winner who remembers Wayne Gretzky more on television than from playing against him - and who perhaps remembers Gretzky more in Los Angeles than Edmonton.
There is irony, too, in the fact that Theodore was the only player at June’s NHL awards ceremony not wearing a tie, given that he tied Roy for the Vezina and Jarome Iginla for the Hart. (He won both trophies because he had more firstplace votes.) But the open-button look is an expression of Theodore’s relaxed hipness, his fast and loose style. He drives a $120,000 Porsche convertible. (Ask him what you get for $120,000, he says: “Big engine, that’s the main thing.”)
He plays electric guitar for relaxation. He most recently performed with Quebec musician Eric Lapointe in front of 200,000 people this summer on St-Jean-Baptiste Day, Quebec’s national holiday, and with the California punk band Good Riddance during a summer gig in Montreal. Note to Habs management: you might want to include “no stage diving” in the fine print of that contract.
And during hockey season, his pre-game routine, once as rigid as his goalposts, has become downright enjoyable. He plays lacrosse or handball in the hallway with teammate Stephane Robidas to get loose and doesn’t begin to focus in on the game until the pre-game warm-up.
"When you’re young you try too hard,” Theodore says. “The game is 60 minutes. It’s already hard enough to stay concentrated for 60 minutes, so just imagine trying to be focussed for two hours before a game. For me it would be too much.”
Sometimes even paying attention to what’s going on around the league is too much. Rock, the family stats guy, sometimes briefs Jose on which opposing players have been hot, who Jose needs to watch. “He loves to play,” Rock says, “but when he’s not playing he’s not that big of a fan.”
Until recently, he wasn’t that big of a goalie, either. That was one of his problems. Indeed, the biggest explanation for Theodore’s emergence over the past five seasons stems from his work with Montreal goalie coach Roland Melanson, who has changed Theodore from small and quick to big and quick without touching his diet or DNA. No growth hormone needed, thanks: it’s all in the technique.
To the trained eye, Theodore was the left-handed version of Ken Danby’s goalie in the famous In the Crease painting. He looked fierce in his low-to-the-ice crouch, but the pads-touching-chin look isn’t big on practicality. With knees bent at such an acute angle and his weight too far over his skates, falling to the ice in the early days became not just the best way for Theodore to make a save, but often the only way Melanson didn’t have to play the Burton Cummings song “Stand Tall” during practices.
“The biggest thing was to try to get him, as a small goaltender, to play big,” Melanson says. “We had to straighten up his back and move his hands back, teach him how to turn his feet properly… You add that up with his mental toughness and the way he loves to compete, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s achieving what he’sdoing right now."
Says Theodore: “Working with Rollie was the biggest thing for my career, for sure. I just feel like (in 2001-02) all the details that we worked on finally bonded together. Two years ago I had a good season, but this year I felt I could play 60. 70 games and just do the same thing over and over again.”
Theodore must do it all over again in 2002-03 if the Canadiens are to build on their success. The improved New York Rangers should earn an Eastern Conference playoff spot and it’s difficult to imagine Washington missing out again Theodore may well have to go on another unbeatable stretch such as he did late last season - seven game win streak in March and April during which he allowed more than one goal in a game just once-pull the Habs through.
“For sure there’s going to be pressure, but it’s pressure you want,” Theodore says. “We worked so hard last year to create that pressure.”
Theodore first felt something special last year during his first invitation to the All-Star Game, meeting such veteran stars as Mario Lemieux and Joe Sakic. Better yet, when he tried to introduce himself. they already knew who he was.
“(Sakic) came up to me…and recognized me and he joked about a save I made earlier in the season,” Theodore says. “As a young guy this is a moment that you find pretty cool. I hope when I’m older I can do the same thing with a younger guy”
His major moment for recognition at home came in the dying moments of Montreal’s 4-2 second round playoff loss to Carolina. Game 6 was already a rout by the end of the first period and soon Theodore was stewing on the bench in favor of Stephane Fiset. Late in the third, Montreal coach Michel Therrien gave Theodore the option to go back in.
Theodore wasn’t sure. Then Donald Audette leaned over and said he should do it. Doug Gilmour and Gino Odjick said the same thing, so Theodore headed out. By the time he reached his crease, the Molson Centre was in a thunderous, all-standing roar. When he turned to face the play, he saw Carolina’s players standing on the bench along with everyone else, banging their sticks in salute.
“I’m not a big emotional guy, but I saw that and I thought, 'Wow, I must have done something good,’” Theodore said. “It was fun to see both teams standing up. I didn’t expect that. And to see the fans’ reaction, we were down 8-2 and nobody left the building. I was really impressedand really moved.”
He’s impressed? Theodore has a whole city impressed. He is the Toast of the Town…for a summer at least. He may be Montreal’s first Vezina winner since Patrick Roy and their first Hart winner since Guy Lafleur in 1978, but in the most fickle of hockey cities he doesn’t have Roy-Lafleur hero status. Yet.
“I think to be a hero he has to play a couple more good years,” Rock says. “But he’s starting to get really big.”
That goes for in the net and out of it.