Can you believe Team 990 hired Toronto Marlies guy John Bartlett to do Habs games?

Let’s make one thing clear right away. I have nothing against John Bartlett personally and I’m not familiar with his work as a play-by-play man. Full disclosure – I have not ever watched – or heard – a Toronto Marlies game.

But I think it’s a huge mistake to have hired Bartlett to do the play-by-play for the Habs games on Team 990. Why? Cos Team 990 should’ve hired a Montrealer. We’re real sensitive about these sorts of things ’round these parts. Montreal Habs fans have long felt slighted by the Toronto media – with good reason. CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada has long treated Habs fans poorly – though to be fair, they finally realized a few years back that they should be airing more Habs games for the very simple reason that the Leafs suck so badly every year and the Canadiens always bring a great storyline to the table. Now Hockey Night in Canada has way more Habs games.

Still many, many English-Montrealers continue to watch their Habs games on RDS because they remain so peeved with Hockey Night in Canada. And that gives you a sense of how sensitive local Habs boosters are about the Toronto media not doing justice to our team.

Which is why you don’t go and hire a guy connected to Toronto – and worse the Leafs – to do the Habs play-by-play. My theory is that it’s gotta have been folks in Toronto at BCE – which now owns Team 990, following BCE’s take-over of CTVglobemedia - who made the call to hire Bartlett. Because I can’t imagine there are many people in Montreal who think it’s a swell idea.

So who’s winning tonight? The Canucks or the Bruins?

I, as you know, am a Habs fan and in spite of what my son Keane thinks, I am not cheering for the Boston Bruins in this series. But I do think they’re going to win game seven Wednesday and quite frankly they deserve to take home the Cup for the first time in four decades.

In a word – okay a few words – the ‘Nucks have been downright schizoid in this series and, if they do happen to get the proverbial game-seven lucky bounce and win it all, they will be one of the least deserving Cup winners in years. The Sedin twins have been invisible and Roberto Luongo has been both brilliant and amongst the worst goalies in the history of Stanley Cup finals.

I still don’t much like the Bruins but I think you’d have to be one major Canucks fan to suggest that Vancouver has been the better team here. Now Boston has the momentum, though you could argue that this bizarre series hasn’t had anything resembling momentum in either direction.

In the end, it’s impossible to really know what will happen in any game seven. Look at that strange game seven in the Tampa Bay Bruins series where the Lightning simply didn’t show any intensity in the most important game of the year for the team.

But if I had to bet, I’d put my money – like let’s say a quarter – on the Bruins lifting Lord Stanley’s trophy higher than it’s ever been before (thanks to the not-so-gentle giant Zdeno Chara, as a caller to Team 990 pointed out a few hours back). And no I won’t be cheering.

- Brendan