First Impressions - The Rebuild: Inside the Montreal Canadiens

After months of being taunted by news release and advertisement, the new Crave docuseries about the Montreal Canadiens finally launched today. The first two episodes (out of eight) of The Rebuild: Inside the Montreal Canadiens are now available to stream and it’s must watch material for any Habs fan worth its salt. 

It doesn’t have the same feel as RDS’ 24 CH did, it’s a more in depth look at the team and doesn’t look back at the events of the previous weeks, but brings you right back to the start of the 2023-24 season.

It covers Geoff Molson’s decision to undertake a rebuild and the moves that have led the team to where it is right now. We are indeed taken briefly behind the scenes of the storied franchise. For instance, at last year’s golf tournament, we see VP of communications Chantal Machabee brief GM Kent Hughes as he’s walking to the podium to speak to the media. 

The fans are also shown parts of the business side of things, such as marketing and sales as well as the work that goes into preparing the home opener. Speaking of which, we follow Geoff Molson during the opener as he’s working the crowd in the sky boxes « shaking hands and kissing babies » as he puts it and we even see his reaction when a fan tells him the players’ introduction was the worst he’s ever seen. It’s interesting that this made the cut and wasn’t scrapped. 

Of course, the documentary also allows you to learn a bit more about the players and you’ll hear various anecdotes. Spoiler warning - stop reading if you haven’t seen it and plan on watching it. Kaiden Guhle explains how at the opening face-off of a game against the Buffalo Sabres, captain Nick Suzuki told him it would be a good time to score his first goal and lo and behold, he did. 

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMEcfoCqUU4[/embed]

In the footage of last year’s golf tournament, coach Martin St-Louis is asked what he’s looking forward to the most and he replies « Seeing Kirby Dach take another step ». Little did he know but Dach would suffer a season ending injury three weeks later. As for Kent Hughes, he opts for the progression of Suzuki and Mike Matheson in his first season as a number one blueliner. At least, one of them got their wish.

The series also gives some room to loyal fans. In the first episode, we get to hear the thoughts of Pierre Levesque as he watches the season opener with friends in a pub. In the second one, we get to meet season ticket holder Eric Couvrette. There are also comments from fans at the team’s training complex in Brossard. 

While George Stroumboulopoulos narrates the show, we also get to hear the views of various members of the media such as now BPM Sports’ Tony Marinaro, Radio-Canada’s Marc-Antoine Godin and TSN’s Mitch Gallo are featured. 

There’s also a part of St-Louis’ interview with Paul Arcand in which the bench boss says how he loves hockey and how it’s his passion, but that if one day he loses his job, he’ll just go back to his previous life which was pretty great. It was the perfect opportunity to plug his declaration about how he’d want to have his last day on earth be in the Bell Centre on a Saturday night.

We also see quite a bit of Molson and you can’t help but smile when he says he needs to win a Stanley Cup since he’s the only one in the family who hasn’t won one. He adds the Molsons have won 14 Cups at the helm of the team.

The second episode finishes with the home opener and you see what Carey Price thinks about Samuel Montembeault’s performance and the camera also films Hughes and Geoff Gorton as Kirby Dach heads to the bench visibly hurt. The injury diagnosis isn’t given in this helping though, you’ll have to wait until episode three to see how the team handled the news from within. 

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