Brind'Amour cherishes memories of Montreal as player, Hurricanes coach

MONTREAL -- Rod Brind'Amour stepped onto Bell Centre ice just before 11 a.m. ET on Monday, five days after arthroscopic surgery, and ran the Carolina Hurricanes through an hour-long practice.

"Lower body, day to day," the injury report might have read.

The coach was fashionably late for his media session after practice, having sat in the training room with his right knee up, released only when a timer told him his ice treatment was done.

"I don't know, I'm just getting old," the 54-year-old said with a tight grin, uncertain how he'd injured the joint. "A little meniscus. It is what it is.

"That was my first time on the ice since the operation. It wasn't great, but I'm just standing out there, it's not like I'm skating. That's the one thing about being a coach, you don't really have to do anything on the ice."

Carolina Hurricanes captain Rod Brind'Amour jumps onto Bell Centre ice before a game against the Montreal Canadiens on Oct. 13, 2007.

Brind'Amour did a quick inventory of his surgeries, not that it was a definitive list.

"Too many," he joked. "Three on the left knee, one on the right, hand, wrist, nose… seven or eight. I've got some screws in here."

Brind'Amour will be back at Bell Centre for the morning skate and then for the game against the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET, RDS, TSN2, FDSNSO). He has fond memories of this city, having played here and before that the Montreal Forum, 30 rink lengths and seemingly a lifetime away.

Rod Brind'Amour of the Philadelphia Flyers in close against Montreal Canadiens goalie Andy Moog during a 3-2 Montreal win at Philadelphia's CoreStates Center on Jan. 29, 1998.

Brind'Amour scored three hat tricks during his 20-season NHL career, one for the Philadelphia Flyers in 1992 and two more for the Hurricanes in 2001 and 2007. His first should have been as a rookie for the St. Louis Blues at the Forum on Nov. 6, 1989, but to suggest he's lost sleep over the one that got away the first time he played in this city, the 14th of his 1,484 regular-season games, might be to exaggerate.

"Was I the first star in that game?" Brind'Amour asked, and he most certainly was. "It was such a special day for me to come in here and play.

"My idol growing up was (late Canadiens legend) Guy Lafleur. To know of the whole Forum thing… then to experience it? This building is nice, but it's not the Forum and you can't really explain that to your players.

"I remember walking into the Forum as a kid and feeling it. It was unbelievable. I'd been to Montreal as a 15-year-old, for a tournament that I watched. It was surreal. I remember as a kid watching the three stars on 'Hockey Night in Canada.' You always stayed for that, seeing the players take a lap. That's a good memory."

Carolina's Rod Brind'Amour skates against Richard Zednik of the Montreal Canadiens during Game 4 of the 2006 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals at Bell Centre in Montreal.

Brind'Amour's maiden hat trick wasn't quite to be on Forum ice. For the Blues, he scored the eighth and ninth goals of the 26 he'd have in his rookie season, twice beating Canadiens goalie Brian Hayward before the game was 10 minutes old. Then he had No. 10 on the blade of his blue-shaft Sherwood early in the second and St. Louis on the power play.

In a flurry, Hayward stopped Blues forward Peter Zezel twice, sprawling out of position after stopping the rebound, but the goalie somehow swatted his stick at the loose puck when Brind'Amour moved in to finish off the attack, shoving it away.

Rod Brind'Amour kisses the Stanley Cup after the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of the 2006 NHL Stanley Cup Final at RBC Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. At right, Brind'Amour with the 2006-07 Frank J. Selke Trophy voted as the NHL's outstanding defensive forward.

"The puck was laying there, and I poked at it," Brind'Amour muttered to reporters after the 3-3 tie. "That was brutal. [Hayward] was down. I should have buried it."

Brind'Amour laughs today at the 36-year-old play-by-play.

Thirty years ago, he had an assist for the Flyers in a 7-0 win against the Canadiens at the Forum, Philadelphia lighting up Hockey Hall of Fame-bound goalie Patrick Roy on Feb. 25, 1995. During practice Monday, and every time he walks into an NHL arena, Brind'Amour drinks in the history, a fan of hockey's roots and those who played before him.

His No. 17 was retired by the Hurricanes on Feb. 18, 2011, the third of four numbers honored by the franchise since relocating to North Carolina for the 1997-98 season (Glen Wesley, No. 2; Ron Francis, No. 10; Eric Staal, No. 12). On Monday, he skated beneath 15 Canadiens banners hung for the 18 legends who wore them for Montreal.

Carolina Hurricanes captain Rod Brind'Amour awaits puck drop during a game at HSBC Arena in Buffalo on Feb. 15, 2009.

Among them is Lafleur's No. 10.

Brind'Amour's connection to "The Flower" is among his most cherished memories. The coach's parents were from Buckingham, Quebec, about 10 miles from Lafleur's birthplace of Thurso, their son born in Ottawa and still a baby when the family moved to British Columbia.

Brind'Amour vividly recalls a pinch-me moment when, with the Blues, he lined up across from Lafleur, then with the Quebec Nordiques, at Le Colisee in Quebec City.

"That's still one of my best memories," he said. "I was in Guy's fan club as a kid. Here we were lined up at center ice and he was standing beside me. It was surreal. I got his stick after the game, signed. I still have it. That was pretty cool."

Rod Brind'Amour skates for the St. Louis Blues on Dec. 28, 1989, in Uniondale, New York; and in a 1996 Philadelphia Flyers' portrait.

You'd think that his name comes up when the Hall of Fame selection committee meets each year, the rugged two-way center having scored 1,184 points (452 goals, 732 assists), with another 111 (51 goals, 60 assists) coming in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He captained the Hurricanes to their 2006 Stanley Cup win and twice, in consecutive years, won the Frank J. Selke Trophy voted as the NHL's best defensive forward (2006, 2007).

Now in his seventh season as coach of Carolina, Brind'Amour brings a .658 winning percentage (311-150-48) into the game Tuesday. The Hurricanes have qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in each of his six seasons, going 38-36 and advancing to the Eastern Conference Final in 2019 and 2023. He enjoyed good numbers against the Canadiens (57 points; 19 goals, 38 assists in 75 regular-season games) and was better than a point per game during the playoffs (13 points; six goals, seven assists) in 12 games.

Brind'Amour played 38 NHL games in Montreal, 13 at the Forum before March 16, 1996, and 25 at Molson/Bell Centre (35 points; 13 goals, 22 assists). He skated six games against the Canadiens in the 2002 and 2006 playoffs and had six points (four goals, two assists) in the first-round win that set the Hurricanes toward their Stanley Cup victory.

Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour speaks with players during a break in his team's March 31, 2022, game against the Montreal Canadiens in Raleigh, North Carolina.

On Monday, 24 Stanley Cup banners hung over Bell Centre ice when Brind'Amour ran his team through practice. The history of hockey, whether hanging from the rafters or displayed around arenas, captivates Brind'Amour at every turn. There is plenty of it in Montreal. He would follow his players back to the team hotel but seemed to be in no hurry early in the afternoon. Reminders of the legends are more easily absorbed on a quiet practice day than in the hours before and during a game.

"I love looking at the history," Brind'Amour said. "I did that as a kid in the NHL, thinking that someday you'd love to have a banner like that, but it's also a reminder that these guys are now retired, or they're gone.

"It goes quick, so take every day and try to enjoy it. You're going to be up there if you've had a very, very good career, but it's also a reminder that you're done."

Top photo: Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour behind the bench during his team's March 7, 2024, game at PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina.