|
|
|
|
Quebec Nordiques
|
| |
|
| |
The Quebec Nordiques (pronounced in Quebec French, in Canadian English; translated into English as "Northmen" or "Northerners") were a professional ice hockey team based in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The Nordiques played in the World Hockey Association (19721979) and the National Hockey League (19791995). The franchise was relocated to Denver, Colorado in 1995 and renamed the Colorado Avalanche.
Quebec Nordiques formed as one of the original World Hockey Association teams in 1972. The franchise was originally awarded to a group in San Francisco, as the San Francisco Sharks. However, the San Francisco group's funding collapsed prior to the start of the first season, and the WHA hastily sold the organization to a Quebec City-based group headed by Paul Racine and Marcel Aubut.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Quebec Nordiques' Start a new discussion about 'Quebec Nordiques' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
The Quebec Nordiques (pronounced in Quebec French, in Canadian English; translated into English as "Northmen" or "Northerners") were a professional ice hockey team based in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The Nordiques played in the World Hockey Association (19721979) and the National Hockey League (19791995). The franchise was relocated to Denver, Colorado in 1995 and renamed the Colorado Avalanche.
Beginnings in the WHA
The Quebec Nordiques formed as one of the original World Hockey Association teams in 1972. The franchise was originally awarded to a group in San Francisco, as the San Francisco Sharks. However, the San Francisco group's funding collapsed prior to the start of the first season, and the WHA hastily sold the organization to a Quebec City-based group headed by Paul Racine and Marcel Aubut. They were named the Nordiques because they were one of the northernmost teams in professional sports in North America. Quebec City is located at 46 degrees north latitude; the only WHA teams located further north were the Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Cowboys, Vancouver Blazers and Winnipeg Jets.
The Nordiques' first head coach was the legendary Maurice "Rocket" Richard but he only lasted one game, a 32 loss to the Cleveland Crusaders. The "Rocket" decided coaching wasn't his forte and stepped down.
The Nordiques' first star was two-way defenceman J. C. Tremblay, who led the WHA in assists in the league's first season and would be named a league All-Star for his first four years in Quebec. The next season Serge Bernier and Rejean Houle joined the Nordiques. In 197475, they finally made the playoffs with the help of the high-scoring Marc Tardif; the year also saw the debut of Real Cloutier, who would be one of the WHA's great stars. They beat the Phoenix Roadrunners and the Minnesota Fighting Saints to reach the finals, where they were swept in four games by the Gordie Howe-led Houston Aeros.
The next season saw the squad become a high-flying offensive juggernaut, becoming the only team in major professional history to have five players break 100 points (Tardif, Cloutier, Chris Bordeleau, Bernier and Houle). The season ended in disappointment as the Nordiques lost to the Calgary Cowboys in the first round of the playoffs, after losing Marc Tardif to injury after a controversial hit by the Cowboys' Rick Jodzio.
Despite injuries to Tardif and an aging Tremblay, the Nordiques finally captured the Avco World Trophy in 197677 as they took out the New England Whalers and the Indianapolis Racers in five games before beating the Winnipeg Jets in seven, behind Bernier's record 36 points in 17 playoff games. They represented Canada at the Izvestia Hockey Tournament in Moscow, finishing last with an 031 record.
By 1978, the WHA was on shaky ground, and Aubut, by then the team's President under ownership of the Carling-O'Keefe Brewery, began putting out feelers to the NHL. The Nordiques were unable to defend their title and fell in the playoffs to the New England Whalers. The 197879 season would be the final one for the WHA and for J. C. Tremblay, who retired at the end of the season and had his number #3 jersey retired.
The 1980s
The WHA insisted on including all of its surviving Canadian teams, including the Nordiques, among the teams taken into the NHL at the end of the 197879 season. As a result, the Nordiques entered the NHL along with the Whalers, Oilers and Jets.
Forced to let all but three players go in a dispersal draft, the Nordiques sank to the bottom of the standings. They finished the 197980 NHL season last in their division despite the play of promising rookie left winger Michel Goulet. An early highlight to the otherwise dreary season came when Real Cloutier became the second (following Alex Smart) NHL player ever to score a hat trick in his first NHL game.
In 1980 the Nordiques signed Anton Stastny, a member of the Czechoslovak national team, and a Nordiques' draft choice, who defected earlier that year. His brothers, Peter and Marian, would soon follow and also sign with Quebec. The following season, led by Peter Stastny's 109-point Calder Trophy-winning performance, the Nordiques made the NHL playoffs for the first time, but fell in the best-of-five opening round in five games to the Philadelphia Flyers.
Led by Goulet and Peter Stastny, the Nordiques made the playoffs eight years in a row. In 198182, despite notching only 82 points in the regular season, they defeated the Montreal Canadiens and then the Boston Bruins, both in winner-take-all games on the road. Their Cinderella run ended when they were swept by the New York Islanders in the conference finals.
The rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens intensified during the 198384 NHL season culminating in the infamous "Vendredi Saint" brawl during the 1984 playoffs. The Habs scored five unanswered goals in the third period of Game 6 at the Montreal Forum to eliminate the Nordiques. The goals all came after Peter Stastny and Dale Hunter were ejected in the brawl.
In 198485, Montreal and Quebec battled for the Adams Division championship. The Nordiques finished with 91 points, at the time their highest point total as an NHL team. However, the Habs won the division by three points - solidified by a 71 Canadiens trashing of the Nordiques at The Forum in the final week of the regular season. The Nordiques would exact revenge in the Adams finals with a seven-game victory, which was clinched by Peter Stastny's overtime goal at the Forum. They then took the powerful Philadelphia Flyers, who had the league's best record, to six games.
They won their first NHL division title in 198586 (and as it turned out, their only division title in Quebec), but a defensive collapse in the playoffs allowed the Hartford Whalers to sweep the Nordiques in three games.
The next season saw more of the Nords-Habs rivalry as the playoff series went to seven games, with the Canadiens coming out on top. In that same season, when Quebec hosted Rendez-Vous '87, an alteration of the All-Star Game to include the Soviet national team, the Nordiques became the first NHL team to employ a costumed mascot when Badaboum - a fuzzy, roly-poly blue creature - began entertaining fans at the Colisιe with his bizarre dance routines. Badaboum was created just for Rendez-Vous, but generated such a following that the Nordiques made it a permanent fixture at home games.
Decline began the following season. The Nordiques finished last in their division--the first of five straight years of finishing at the bottom of the Adams Division--and missed the playoffs for the first time in eight years. The slide continued in 198889 they had the league's worst record.
Michel Bergeron, who had coached the team from 1980 to 1987, returned for 198990. The season was also highlighted by the arrival of Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur, who turned down a lucrative offer from the Los Angeles Kings so he could finish his career in his home province. It soon became clear Lafleur's best years were far behind him. "The Flower" managed only 24 goals in 98 games with Quebec over two seasons, but the 38-year-old was still among the team's best players while receiving diminished ice time. The season saw the Nords hit rock bottom; they finished with a hideous record of 12617 (31 points)--the second of three straight seasons with the worst record in the league, and still the worst record in franchise history.
Both Michel Goulet and Peter Stastny were traded in 1990, winding up with the Chicago Blackhawks and New Jersey Devils respectively. Despite the stellar play of young forward Joe Sakic, the Nordiques struggled throughout the late '80s and early '90s. However, in that year's draft they drafted Swedish prospect Mats Sundin, making him the first European to be selected first overall in the NHL draft. The following year Quebec chose first again, taking Owen Nolan.
The 1990s
The Lindros draft and trade
In 1991, the Nordiques once again had the first overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft. They picked amateur star Eric Lindros, even though he had let it be known well in advance that he would never play in Quebec. Among the reasons, Lindros cited distance, lack of marketing potential, and having to speak French. After the Nordiques selected him anyway, Lindros then refused to wear the team jersey on Draft Day and only held it for press photographs. Lindros, on advice of his mother Bonnie, refused to sign with the team and began a holdout that would last over a year. The Nordiques president publicly announced that they would make Lindros the centerpiece of their franchise turnaround, and refused to trade Lindros, saying that he would not have a career in the NHL as long as he held out. Meanwhile, the Nordiques finished with another dreadful season in 199192, missing the 70-point barrier for the fifth year in a row.
Because of Lindros' popularity, the Nordiques soon came under significant pressure to trade him, allegedly from the league president, as it would otherwise damage the image of the NHL. Finally on June 30, 1992, after confusion over whether Quebec had traded Lindros' rights to the Philadelphia Flyers or New York Rangers was settled by an arbitrator, the Nordiques sent Lindros to the Flyers in exchange for forward Mike Ricci, goaltender Ron Hextall, defencemen Steve Duchesne and Kerry Huffman, "future considerations" which eventually became enforcer Chris Simon, two first-round picks and US$15 million. One of the draft picks was used by the Nordiques to select goaltender Jocelyn Thibault, the other was traded twice and ultimately used by the Washington Capitals to select Nolan Baumgartner. Also in the trade were the rights to a Swedish teenage prospect named Peter Forsberg. While Lindros had been initially hyped at the most valuable amateur player in North America, being nicknamed "The Next One" as a nod to Wayne Gretzky's moniker "The Great One", the deal has since been considered by many columnists as the most significant NHL transaction of the decade, as well as one of the most lopsided trades in NHL history.
The deal transformed the Nordiques from league doormats to a legitimate Stanley Cup contender almost overnight. Forsberg won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 1995, his first season with the Nordiques, and would be one of the cornerstones of the Nordiques/Avalanche franchise for almost a decade. Ricci would give three useful seasons to the franchise before being traded, while Hextall was moved after a single season to the New York Islanders. In return, the franchise got Mark Fitzpatrick (who would go on to be left unprotected in the 1993 NHL Expansion Draft in which he got claimed by the Florida Panthers) and a first round pick, which they used to select Adam Deadmarsh , who would be a key member of the Avalanche Cup-winning teams. Thibault would be traded for Montreal goalie Patrick Roy, after the franchise moved to Denver.
During the 199293 NHL season, these new players, along with Sakic now a bona fide NHL All-Star and the rapidly developing Sundin and Nolan, led Quebec to the biggest single-season turnaround in NHL history. They leaped from 52 points in the previous season to 104--in the process, going from the second-worst record in the league to the fourth-best, as well as notching the franchise's first 100-point season as an NHL team. They made the playoffs for the first time in six seasons, but fell to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Canadiens in the first round, winning the first two games but then losing the next four. Sakic and Sundin both scored over 100 points each, and head coach Pierre Page was a finalist for the Jack Adams Award.
The Nordiques missed the playoffs in 199394 as they struggled with injuries. After that season, Sundin was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return for Wendel Clark. This trade was controversial for both teams, as Sundin was one of the Nordiques' rising talents, while Clark was the Leafs captain and fan favorite. While Clark performed respectably, he then became embroiled in a contract dispute after the season ended and was sent to the New York Islanders.
The move to Denver
For the 199495 season, Marc Crawford was hired as the new head coach, and Forsberg was deemed ready to finally join the team, but first there was the problem of a lockout. In the shortened season of 48 games, the Nordiques played well and finished with the best record in the Eastern Conference. However, the team faltered in the postseason and was eliminated in the first round by the defending Stanley Cup champion New York Rangers.
The playoff loss proved to be the Nordiques' swan song in the NHL as the team's financial troubles increasingly took centre stage, even in the face of renewed fan support over the previous three years. The league's Canadian teams (with the exception of Montreal, Toronto, and to a lesser extent, Vancouver) found it difficult to compete in a new age of rising player salaries, which was made even more difficult by a weakening Canadian dollar (these teams' revenues are earned in Canadian, but salaries are paid in US). Quebec City was by far the smallest market in the NHL, and the second-smallest market in North America to host a major league team (behind only Green Bay, Wisconsin). It didn't help that even in their best years, they were unable to escape the long shadow of the Canadiens. Additionally, Quebec City is a virtually monolingual Francophone city. Unlike in Montreal, nearly all public address announcements were only given in French. Then as now, there were no privately-owned English-language radio stations, and the only English-language newspaper was a weekly. All of these factors severely limited the Nords' marketability, and made free agents and draftees (most notably Lindros) skeptical about playing for them.
Aubut asked for a bailout from Quebec's provincial government, but the request was turned down, as the politicians did not want to be seen to be subsidizing a hockey club that paid multimillion-dollar salaries. In May 1995, shortly after the Nordiques were eliminated from the playoffs, Aubut explained that he had no other choice but to sell the team to a group of investors in Denver, Colorado. The franchise was moved to Denver where it was renamed the Colorado Avalanche. The Avalanche would win the Stanley Cup in their first season after the move, and add another in 2001.
The Nordiques had planned to change their logo, colours, and uniforms for the 199596 season, and the new design had already appeared in the Canadian press.
A committee of local citizens and businesses has been formed in an attempt to bring an NHL franchise back to Quebec City.
A number of former Nordiques are still active in professional hockey, including Mats Sundin, Peter Forsberg, Owen Nolan, Jocelyn Thibault, Chris Simon, Martin Rucinsky and Martin Gelinas. Joe Sakic and Adam Foote are the only Nordiques still with the Quebec/Colorado franchise, although Milan Hejduk was selected #87 overall by the Nordiques at the 1994 NHL Entry Draft, and Foote briefly left the franchise after the 200405 NHL Lockout before returning in the 200708 season. Chris Drury, currently playing for the New York Rangers, was also drafted by the Nordiques in 1994, but didn't play for the franchise until the 19981999 season, after the team had already moved to Colorado.
Season-by-season record
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals scored for, GA = Goals scored against, PIM = Penalty minutes
WHA era
| Season | GP | W | L | T | Pts | GF | GA | PIM | Finish | Playoffs | | 197273 | 78 | 33 | 40 | 5 | 71 | 276 | 313 | 1354 | fifth in Eastern | Did not qualify | 197374 | 78 | 38 | 36 | 4 | 80 | 306 | 280 | 909 | fifth in Eastern | Did not qualify | | 197475 | 78 | 46 | 32 | 0 | 92 | 331 | 299 | 1132 | first in Canadian | Won Quarterfinal (Phoenix)
Won Semifinal (Minnesota)
Lost Finals (Houston) | 197576 | 81 | 50 | 27 | 4 | 104 | 371 | 316 | 1654 | second in Canadian | Lost Quarterfinal (Calgary) | | 197677 | 81 | 47 | 31 | 3 | 97 | 353 | 295 | 1485 | first in Eastern | Won Quarterfinal (New England)
Won Semifinal (Indianapolis)
Won Finals (Winnipeg) | 197778 | 80 | 40 | 37 | 3 | 83 | 349 | 347 | 1185 | fourth in WHA | Won Quarterfinal (Houston)
Lost Semifinal (New England) | | 197879 | 80 | 41 | 34 | 5 | 87 | 288 | 271 | 1399 | second in WHA | Lost Semifinal (Winnipeg) | | WHA totals | 556 | 295 | 237 | 24 | 614 | 2,274 | 2,121 | 9,118
| | |
NHL era
| Season | GP | W | L | T | Pts | GF | GA | PIM | Finish | Playoffs | 197980 | 80 | 25 | 44 | 11 | 61 | 248 | 313 | 1062 | fifth, Adams | Did not qualify | | 198081 | 80 | 30 | 32 | 18 | 78 | 314 | 318 | 1524 | fourth, Adams | Lost in Preliminary Round (Philadelphia) | 198182 | 80 | 33 | 31 | 16 | 82 | 356 | 345 | 1757 | fourth, Adams | Won Adams Semifinal (Montreal),Won Adams Final (Boston),Lost Wales Conference Final (NY Islanders) | | 198283 | 80 | 34 | 34 | 12 | 80 | 343 | 336 | 1648 | fourth, Adams | Lost Adams Semifinal (Boston) | 198384 | 80 | 42 | 28 | 10 | 94 | 360 | 278 | 1600 | third, Adams | Won Adams Semifinal (Buffalo),Lost Adams Final (Montreal) | | 198485 | 80 | 41 | 30 | 9 | 91 | 323 | 275 | 1643 | second, Adams | Won Adams Semifinal (Buffalo)Won Adams Final (Montreal)Lost Wales Conference Final (Philadelphia) | 198586 | 80 | 43 | 31 | 6 | 92 | 330 | 289 | 1847 | first, Adams | Lost Adams Semifinal (Hartford) | | 198687 | 80 | 31 | 39 | 10 | 72 | 267 | 276 | 1741 | fourth, Adams | Won Adams Semifinal (Hartford)Lost Adams Final (Montreal) | 198788 | 80 | 32 | 43 | 5 | 69 | 271 | 306 | 2042 | fifth, Adams | Did not qualify | | 198889 | 80 | 27 | 46 | 7 | 61 | 269 | 342 | 2004 | fifth, Adams | Did not qualify | 198990 | 80 | 12 | 61 | 7 | 31 | 240 | 407 | 2104 | fifth, Adams | Did not qualify | | 199091 | 80 | 16 | 50 | 14 | 46 | 236 | 354 | 1741 | fifth, Adams | Did not qualify | 199192 | 80 | 20 | 48 | 12 | 52 | 255 | 318 | 2044 | fifth, Adams | Did not qualify | | 199293 | 84 | 47 | 27 | 10 | 104 | 351 | 300 | 1846 | second, Adams | Lost Adams Semifinal (Montreal) | 199394 | 84 | 34 | 42 | 8 | 76 | 277 | 292 | 1625 | fifth, Northeast | Did not qualify | | 1994951 | 48 | 30 | 13 | 5 | 65 | 185 | 134 | 770 | first, Northeast | Lost Eastern Quarterfinal (NY Rangers) | | NHL totals | 1,256 | 497 | 599 | 160 | 1,154 | 4,625 | 4,883 | 26,998
| | | | Grand total | 1,812 | 792 | 836 | 184 | 1768 | 6,899 | 7,004 | 36,116
| | |
- 1Season was shortened due to the 199495 NHL lockout.
Notable players
Team captains
Includes WHA captains
- Michel Goulet, LW, 19791990, inducted 1998
- Guy Lafleur, RW, 198991, inducted 1988
- Jacques Plante, coach, 19731974, inducted 1978
- Peter Stastny, C, 19801990, inducted 1998
- Maurice Richard, coach, 19721973, inducted 1961
Retired numbers
3 - J. C. Tremblay, D, 1972798 - Marc Tardif, LW, 19748316 - Michel Goulet, C, 19799026 - Peter Stastny, C, 198090
After the move to Denver, the Avalanche did not honor any of these numbers, all of which were returned to circulation.
First round draft picks
Note: This list does not include selections from the WHA.
See also
External links
- CBC Television on the dying days of the team from 1995.
|
| |
|
|
