Dropping the puck on new HIO section

All we need now is for season to start

Like all hockey fans, I’m hoping that the NHL and the players’ association can come to an agreement to avoid a lockout that would start at 11:59 p.m. Saturday.

As a sports editor, I hope there isn’t a long lockout because I’m really looking forward to putting together our new weekly Hockey Inside/Out sections as we drop the puck on the first one today and will continue every Thursday throughout the hockey season.

That’s going to be a tougher job without the NHL.

We’ll also have all the latest Habs news — both on and off the ice — on our hockeyinsideout.com website, where you can join the conversation 24/7 and post your comments about the team.

There’s reason for optimism for Habs fans after an off-season that saw a complete overhaul of the front office and coaching staff following an embarrassing last-place finish in the Eastern Conference and 28th place overall in the NHL. Those off-ice changes are the focus of our first HIO section today with feature stories on new GM Marc Bergevin and assistant GM Rick Dudley by Pat Hickey, new/old head coach Michel Therrien by Dave Stubbs, and new Hamilton Bulldogs coach Sylvain Lefebvre and Martin Lapointe, the Habs’ new director of player development, by Brenda Branswell. Next week we plan to look at some of the new players who joined the Habs during the offseason.

Branswell is a new face in the sports department, but she’s not new to The Gazette. She has been at the paper since 2003 and spent the past six years on the education beat — but she knows her hockey. Like many Gazette readers, she grew up watching the Canadiens win six Stanley Cups in the 1970s and is looking forward to her new assignment writing about the team.

Mike Boone will no longer be writing about the Canadiens in print for The Gazette after announcing his retirement following 38 years in the business on Sept. 1. But as Mike wrote in his farewell column: “I should explain there’s an asterisk beside my ‘retirement.’ I will continue to write a live game blog and About Last Night wrap-ups for The Gazette’s Hockey Inside/Out website. I’ll still be tapping away with two fingers 82 times during the Canadiens’ season, plus exhibitions and, inshallah, playoffs.”

Red Fisher, who started writing about the Canadiens in 1955, also retired this summer after covering 17 Stanley Cup teams, 15 Hockey Hall of Famers and winning three National Newspaper Awards. But you can read Red again this month as he writes the last four stories in his eight-part feature series on the 40th anniversary of the Summit Series. Red’s series will resume on Sept. 22 as he looks back on Game 5, the first one Team Canada played in the Soviet Union.

It would be nice if the NHL was also back in business by that time.