Palchak

From my HabsHQ.com Archive

Another piece of Habs mystique passed away last week in Eddie Palchak. Ed always had a story to tell and I had the privilege to meet him during the Montreal All-Star game a few years back and the stories were aplenty especially when it came to those Habs dynasties. I thought I’d share one with you guys today.

Claude Provost shares more than a few things with the man now wearing his old number 14, Tomas Plekanec. Palchak once told me he wouldn’t be amazed if both players finished their careers with similar numbers playing their entire careers in Montreal.

“Plekanec’s got more talent, but Provost played on better teams,” laughed Palchak.

“He was ahead of his time.”

Besides his and Plekanec’s brilliant two-way play, Provost is one of those forgotten Canadiens who always managed to find a way to shine on loaded teams. He retired in true modern NHLer fashion in 1970 after a 14-year career spent in a Canadiens jersey and 8 Stanley cups.

“No one could figure it out,” complained then-North Stars GM Bud Poile. “Every year he claims to be retiring but he’s back in camp in September, and I’m getting tired of this.”

Very few fans remember the man NHL historians had called the prototypical Selke-winning forward. Provost died young, at the age of 51 in Florida where he spent winters when not on the ice of Paul Sauvé arena training youth and old alike.

Despite his Plekanec-like size on the ice, Provost was serious when it came to conditioning and strength and arguably started the trend that shifted the norm from of beer-bellied NHLers to their now pro-athlete form.

“He had devoted his entire life to training, it was the most important thing of all to him,” said Jacques Lemaire.

Henri Richard has great memories of Provost as well: “He wasn’t really skilled but worked incredibly hard, he used to park himself in front of the net and eventually became a pretty good scorer,” the Pocket Rocket said. “We used to kid him that more goals went off his ass than his stick.”

A lot of people don’t know how Provost got the name ‘Cowboy Joe’ but that came courtesy of equipment manger Eddie Palchak.

“People talk about how bad the bow is in a guy like Datsyuk, but the bow in Provost’s legs used to dig into the ice surface so hard that I had to sharpen his skates after every period,” Palchak remembered.

“That’s why we started calling him Cowboy Joe.”