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Michel Therrien driving to practice during training camp. From the pilot for the series 24CH. Photo courtesy of RDS.
So you heard the Canadiens have this new reality series 24CH? I had a column on it in The Gazette Tuesday. So I was wondering if the show would shy away from controversy or would it play up conflicts the way the real cool HBO series 24/7 did? Or will the all-controlling Habs organization turn it into a whitebread Go-Habs-Go infomercial?
Well we’ll find out with the first edition of 24CH this Saturday night on RDS. If the show is really gonna tell it like it is behind the scenes, the star of the premiere episode will be Danish Flash Lars Eller and we’ll see him reacting to the news that he’s been benched just one game into this shortened season. If the show has any juice, we’ll see Therrien telling Eller he’s in the press box for the second game of the season at the Bell Centre, making room for the young Brendan Gallagher.
Come to think of it, 24CH should also have even more drama with the running soap opera called As P.K. Subban Turns. If the show has cojones, they’ll go meet up with King P.K. – that’s what my pal Tom Burke is calling him – and ask him what he thinks about 17,000 fans chanting ‘We want P.K.’ at that open-to-the-public scrimmage the other night. They might also interview Ron ‘Ron Ron’ Fournier who was raving on his open-line show earlier in the week that it was an outrage that the fans would dare tell Habs GM Marc Bergevin how to do his job.
But I’m not sure if we’ll see any of that Saturday. As Francis Bouillon told me Monday, if there’s anything the Habs don’t like, “they can ask to have the things taken out.” Yup the Canadiens execs have final cut on this baby.
So what about the Eller crisis? Well I can’t get super upset about this one. Therrien wants to see Gallagher in the line-up and who can blame him? I’m already loving the Brendan/Brandon line (for obvious reasons) – good names and good talent in the trio of Brendan Gallagher/Brandon Prust/Alex Galchenyuk. Of course, knowing the way things work in Habsville, the kindly ol’ coach will have juggled all the lines by the second period. Frankly Eller has to do more if he wants me to recover from the Halak trade – something that won’t happen unless he suddenly becomes a 40-goal scorer.
And P.K.? Well obviously the team needs him. He would’ve looked good Saturday night – in fact he did look good in that commercial on Hockey Night in Canada, for I can’t remember what. But he’s not going to turn this middling team around single-handedly.
The funniest thing about 24CH is that the team has always been a walking reality show. So they don’t really need their own reality show.
– Brendan
Josh Gorges in 24CH. Photo courtesy of
RDS.
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