Some Habs, some Hab-nots

WILMINGTON - Once was the time, so provincial our thinking, that we believed everyone in Canada must be, had to be, just lived to be a Montreal Canadiens fan. All those Canadien Cups, and so few Canadians.

What self-respecting Canadian could think of being anything else?

Take Bruins rookie Milan Lucic, the proud son of bucolic British Columbia in the Pacific Northwest, considered merely the outer west side in Habs Nation.

"No!" said Lucic, not really sounding like he could ever warm up to the idea of embracing that CH sweater, unless, of course, he were clutching a current Hab by the collar for a bareknuckled bonjour.

But, surely, as one of only some 33 million Canadians, and with a team that has as rich a history as the Canadiens . . .

"No!" said Lucic.

Hey, no point in really pressing the matter, I suppose. For the record, Lucic grew up a Canucks fan, with a special affection for the likes of Todd Bertuzzi, Ed Jovanovski, and Markus Naslund.

"Really, about all I remember of the Canadiens is Vincent Damphousse," mused Lucic. "He had that big bucket covering his head, with the visor, eh? We had three teams in Western Canada - the Canucks, Flames, and Oilers. To me, Montreal was just another team."

The CH club the Bruins will face in Round 1 of the playoffs starting tonight is not the hallowed Canadiens bunch of old. Les Glorieux had their last great hurrah - and a good number of hardy-har-hars at Boston's expense - at the end of the '70s with Ken Dryden in their net and Guy Lafleur flying down their wing. The Habs are flying this year, what with their No. 1 seeding in the Eastern Conference, but they are no longer, nor will they ever be again, the Flying Frenchmen who deftly blended mystique and near magical talent into a string of Stanley Cup championships.

Bruins coach Claude Julien grew up in Ontario, not Quebec, but he did grow up with French his first language, which is not uncommon around his home near Ottawa, the nation's capital. Julien went on to coach the Canadiens, his first NHL job, and he vividly remembers growing up in a house that revered all things Habs.

"The Montreal Canadiens are the New York Yankees of hockey," said Julien. "Say what you want, but the record shows it. They built their ability and their reputation . . . and now it's up to us to build ours."

Realizing that he had, as he said, "just shot myself two times!" the 47-year-old Julien quickly asked for a do-over. He wouldn't deny that he grew up a Habs fan (self-inflicted wound No. 1), but he had to revise the baseball comparison (self-inflicted wound No. 2).

"By the way, guys," he said to a small pack of print media after yesterday's practice, "it's not the Yankees, it's the Red Sox. How could I make that mistake?"

For those who have witnessed, say, too many men on the ice at a crucial moment in the Montreal Forum, what's a little Pinstriped faux pas?

Marc Savard also grew up just outside Ottawa, and his was a house divided. His father worshiped the Habs, while Marc, who was out of the house at age 15 to pursue his pro career, grew up a Maple Leafs fan. When he suited up for street hockey games in the neighborhood, he preferred to play goal, and was meticulous in painting his pads to match those of Leafs goalie Felix Potvin.

"My dad, he just loved the Canadiens," said Savard, remembering how the split allegiance would simmer on Saturday night whenever "Hockey Night in Canada" would broadcast a Leafs-Canadiens battle. "I guess you'd say my dad had a couple of wins on me. I was all Blue and White, and the Canadiens in those days, well, that's when Patty Roy was in his heyday, you know."

Uh, duly noted.

Back in Finland, said Bruins forward Petteri Nokelainen, none of the NHL teams has a very high profile. But the Habs, he said, draw a bit more interest because of their star Finnish captain, Saku Koivu. Nokelainen, by the way, was unaware that Koivu and mild-mannered Ted Donato, once a Boston forward and now the Harvard coach, fought in a battle royal when they were playing for rival clubs in Turku, Finland, during the NHL's 1994-95 lockout.

"Montreal wasn't one of my favorite teams, or anything like that," said Nokelainen. "But Koivu was one of my favorite players, and his going to the Canadiens was a big deal, for sure."

Veteran winger Glen Murray, proud son of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, at age 35 is old enough to remember some of the lore that surrounded the great Hab dynasty. However, when Murray was a teen in the mid-'80s, the Wayne Gretzky-led Oilers were the talk of the hockey world, including all areas north, west, south, and east of the Forum.

The Maritimes in general, said Murray, have a mixed allegiance. He grew up around a lot of Bruins and Leafs fans, but he recalled a good number of folks were ardent followers of the Red Wings, too.

"I was really young when Lafleur was around . . . that was the '70s," said Murray, born in November 1972, only weeks after the Flower began his second season with Montreal. "And when I was 12, that's when Edmonton started to win everything, and so those were really the guys I followed - guys like [Mark] Messier, [Jari] Kurri, and [Paul] Coffey."

Glen Metropolit and Shawn Thornton, both Toronto guys, didn't pay much attention to the CH center of the universe.

"Leafs were big in my neighborhood, and the Red Wings, too," said Metropolit. "But I was all Leafs, when about all they had was Darryl Sittler. They weren't good years . . . you know, the Harold Ballard years, when people came to the games with bags over their heads. Really, I hated the Canadiens . . . uh-uh, not a big fan."

"Leafs fan for me," added Thornton. "Blue and White, all the way. But even then, I never watched the games . . . and I'm the same today. I loved playing it, and obviously still do, but I can take or leave it when it comes to watching it."

Patrice Bergeron. French his first language, and a Quebec kid, he had to be a Habs fan, no?

No.

Born in Quebec City in the summer of '85, he was baptized in a culture that was all Nordiques, the ex-WHA club that entered the NHL as an orphan in 1979. The Nordiques, who relocated to Denver in 1995, were his team.

"I was all Nordiques," said Bergeron, "and it was a huge rivalry with the Canadiens. You'd go to Le Colisee, and half the building would be in Montreal sweaters, and the other half in Nordiques. Just an unbelievable rivalry. I got to go twice to the playoffs in '93 - sat way up the white seats with my uncle and brother - and that was as a Christmas present."

The Stastny brothers, Peter and Anton and Marian, were the heart and soul of those Nordiques teams. To the south, the haughty Habs were backed by the legendary Roy.

"We had a lot of respect for Patrick Roy," said Bergeron. "Every time we played them, he was there, making miracles. We didn't like him, but that was because he was so good."

So good, like the Habs, 23 Cups in all. The last came in 1993, and 14 seasons gone by, the center of the Canadian hockey universe no longer seems to be in Montreal. For some, it was never there anyway.

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com.