While he may have been out of the NHL coaching ranks for two years ahead of helming the Habs, Demers hadn’t lost his ability to lead a hockey team when he arrived on the scene in June 1992. Proof of that was in the fact that the Canadiens posted the sixth best record in the league in his first season behind the bench. Despite their impressive campaign, however, the Habs were not among the favorites to capture the precious trophy, most notably after they dropped five of their last seven regular season games.
“There were clubs like Boston and Pittsburgh who were more heavily favored than us to win it. Still, I told the players that we were going to shock the hockey world. I had a great deal of confidence in that group of players,” explained Demers, who was the last head coach to claim the Stanley Cup in Montreal, in a sit-down with canadiens.com in 2013 to mark the 20th anniversary of the conquest. “It has to be said that I had the best goaltender in the NHL [Patrick Roy], I had an extraordinary captain in Guy Carbonneau, and another thing I had was a team that was full of character. Guys like Eric Desjardins, Jean-Jacques Daigneault, Mike Keane, Kirk Muller, guys who would not accept defeat.”
Looking to further exploit their standing as an underdog, Demers found a rather uncommon source of inspiration just prior to the start of the NHL’s second season. While he determined that the idea was a perfect motivator for his troops, he wanted to ensure that the players would be accepting of the concept as well, as a family.
“I heard the song Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now by Jefferson Starship on the radio,” recalled Demers regarding the 1987 hit track. “I went to see my captains and I asked them what they thought about playing that song before we headed out on the ice prior to each one of our games. Like the song said, we’re going to build this together, nothing is going to stop us. The guys were all on board.”
