It was a beautiful weekend for sports in Montreal.
The Alouettes took a lead, blew it, and came storming back to win their playoff game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and book a spot in the East final against Hamilton.
The Canadiens took a lead, blew it, and came storming back to beat Ottawa in overtime and run their startling season record to 9-3.
(Regrettably, the Montreal Roses lost their playoff game to AFC Toronto but most folks are not yet aware that the Northern Super League exists so for now, we’re just glad they’re here.)
And props to the Toronto Blue Jays for taking a great Dodgers team to the brink — but we will never forget or forgive the Jays’ role in killing the Expos. Meanwhile, here at home, what are we to make of these very young Habs and that sparkling 9-3 record?
The Canadiens are the Cardiac Kids, but they’re quickly reaching the point where, when they fall behind, we aren’t nursing vague hopes that they might come back — you expect it. What’s more, they deliver. The only surprise Saturday night against Ottawa was that Alex Newhook got the OT winner rather than Cole Caufield, but Newhook is off to a solid start himself.
Not only are the Habs 9-3, but the three losses were down to a broken stick in Toronto, some woeful goaltending from Samuel Montembeault at home against the Rangers, and incompetent officiating in Edmonton. Scratch that and you have a jaw-dropping 12-0 record for the youngest team in the league.
Can they sustain it? The simple answer is no, especially not if Montembeault continues to struggle and the entire load is left to Jakub Dobes. But they don’t have to sustain it. Their winning percentage is .750 when .600 is a comfortable playoff berth. Only 10 teams were over that mark last season.
The real question is not whether this is a playoff team but whether Martin St. Louis’s charges (some too young to grow that ugly Movember moustache) are ready to contend for a Stanley Cup. If they are, adding a playoff-hardened second-line centre might make sense.
It may come down to how close Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes feel this team really is. If they have a legitimate shot at the Stanley Cup now, it makes sense to go for broke. If not, then why block the path for young talent like Oliver Kapanen and Michael Hage and mortgage a part of your future?
To be brutally honest, I don’t have the answer to that one. I don’t believe anyone outside the team’s brain trust really does. It’s a tough call either way — but the Habs have the right people in charge.
Doing the right thing: We believe quite strongly in sports institutions doing the right thing, even if it puts them at a competitive disadvantage. It means not acquiring Carter Hart, for instance.
It means reporting a team employee who has sexually abused a young player. And it means cutting loose a key defensive lineman who had already drawn a suspension from the CFL.
Shawn Oakman wasn’t going to play in Saturday’s playoff game against Winnipeg anyway, but the Alouettes didn’t hesitate. They did what the Toronto Argos failed to do in the drawn-out Chad Kelly sexual harassment case — they cut Oakman loose immediately.
Alouettes quarterback Davis Alexander celebrates during second half Eastern semifinal action against the Blue Bombers at Molson Stadium on Sat., Nov. 1, 2025.
As it happened, the Alouettes were able to win without Oakman and without another key defensive lineman, Mustafa Johnson, who was injured. They won because Davis Alexander played an amazing game apart from one interception that helped the Blue Bombers get back in the game and because, like the Habs, they’re a scrappy bunch and they don’t quit.
So yes, we’re picking them to beat Hamilton and advance to the Grey Cup.
Incidentally, in two CFL playoff games, the Alouettes were 42-33 winners in the East and the B.C. Lions downed the Calgary Stampeders, 33-30. Yet commissioner Stewart Johnston thinks the CFL has to be retooled in the image of the NFL, which gives us 13-10 stinkers week after week?
The Netflix Expos documentary revisited: I was disgusted last week when I received a note from Stephen Bronfman saying that he had not been contacted by the people making the documentary Who Killed the Montreal Expos?
Worse, after Bronfman reached out to the filmmakers, he was still not interviewed.
It’s inexcusable. I had some serious reservations about that documentary before hearing from Bronfman. It has so many omissions that it’s at best a skewed view of things.
And this programming note: I will be away next weekend getting some more metal added to my aging carcass. Should be back typing with columns online Nov. 14 and Nov. 17.
Heroes: Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovsky, Ivan Demidov, Lane Hutson, Jakub Dobes,  Danny Maciocia, Davis Alexander, Tyson Philpot, Victoria Mboko, Stephen Bronfman, Yoshinobu Yamamoto &&&& last but not least, Women’s Cricket World Cup champions India for battling decades of brutal misogyny to win it all.
Zeros: The Netflix documentary on the Expos, Shawn Oakman, Stewart Johnston, Nazem Kadri, Deion Sanders, Brian Kelly, Ja Morant, Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.
Now and forever.
Related