Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of the Montreal Canadiens/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 21:50, 29 September 2009 [1].

History of the Montreal Canadiens[edit]

Nominator(s): Resolute 17:35, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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With the Montreal Canadiens' centennial anniversary fast approaching, it was my hope to bring a related article up to featured status in the hopes that it can appear on the main page on December 4. The team article has already appeared in the past, so this article became my choice. It discusses the 100 year history of the franchise, and should be complete, has plenty of images, well cited, and yes, uses alt text.  ;). It has gone through a peer review, and I'd like to thank Steve Smith and Isaac Lin for their assistance in copyediting. I look forward to all comments. Thanks, Resolute 17:35, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Well written, well researched. Will be perfect for the Main Page on December 4. Maxim(talk) 20:26, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image review Image alt text and copyright status are all OK. Stifle (talk) 12:19, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – My usual batch of prose nit-picks is below, but I also have a couple of possible additions that could be interesting. As a sports history buff, I must confess to knowing a few things about the Canadiens, even though my allegances lie with the New York Rangers. I am happy that you included the crucial penalties in 1979 and 1993, along with the Patrick Roy incident.

  • Please define NHA in the first paragraph.
  • "and is regarded as one of the first manifestations of the Quebec's Quiet Revolution." Remove second "the"?
  • Founding: "The Canadiens stocked their team with stars including Newsy Lalonde, Georges Poulin and Didier Pitre. Pitre...". Try moving Pitre's name to the middle of the group to eliminate some repetition.
  • Creamery Kings have two links in very short order. Perhaps chop the second.
  • One of these with+-ing sentences that the FAC prose crew always jumps on: "with the winner being the team with the highest (most?) total goals."
  • The Original Six: "70 people were arrested, 37 were injured, 50 stores were looted and $100,000 in property damage was reported as a result of the melee". Change the first figure to a word so a sentence doesn't start with a number.
  • Could a brief mention be made of what the Original Six means? I have a feeling non-hockey fans will have trouble understanding that.
  • Expansion era: "including Henri Richard. Richard...". Another sentence repetitive in structure, similar to the one above. This can just be one sentence, I believe.
  • Another one a couple sentences later involving Scotty Bowman.
  • One thing I remember from an article in the History of the NHL series is that Montreal received a special dispensation in the draft in the late 1960s, which allowed them to take French-Canadian players with the first selections. Is this worthy of a brief mention?
  • One of my numerous sports books makes the claim (paraphrased) that Canada's military bypassed numerous Canadiens players, including Rocket Richard, for WWII service, to provide entertainment to those in the country. If this is true, and in your sources, it should definitely be placed in the article. If nothing else, it provides a great explanation for why the team turned around so quickly (their roster wasn't decimated like other teams'). Giants2008 (17–14) 00:00, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definitely not Richard -- he tried to enlist but was refused because he had previously broken an arm and it didn't properly heal. Maxim(talk) 00:02, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have made changes to address these comments, except for the one on Richard, and the one on the Creamery Kings. Usually I will link the first reference in a section. I can remove the second link if it seems too close to the first one, in spite of being in a separate section. Regarding Richard, there is a third-hand reference on the CBC web site saying that the Canadiens GM made sure his players got jobs in vital war industries to avoid being drafted. I would feel more comfortable if someone could check the quoted reference. Isaac Lin (talk) 00:38, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would consider the CBC to be reliable in this case, even if the reference is third hand. Unfortunately, without knowing what book Hunter made that statement in, it is hard to tell. Jenish does say that in the summer of 1943, the Canadiens had lost only one key player (Ken Reardon) to the war, vs nine Red Wings and six Maple Leafs, but doesn't say why. MacFarlane says that the Rangers wanted to fold for the duration of the war, and that Phil Watson of the Rangers was stuck in Montreal in an essential war job, and ended up being traded to the Canadiens as a result. I will add a line or two about this. Resolute 01:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Or an entire paragraph, lol. Thanks for getting to Giants' other issues. Resolute 01:29, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Few more things from the rest of the article:
  • "Another rookie, Brian Skrudland scored the game-winning goal...". Comma after Skrudland.
  • The bit about the 1993 team being the last Canadian club to win the Stanley Cup is in the lead, but not the body. It should probably be added to the main text.
  • "before retiring 2003 with more wins than any goaltender NHL history." Missing two-letter word.
  • "with many of the franchise's greatest players step onto the ice." "step" is ungrammatical. Giants2008 (17–14) 00:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • All fixed. Thanks for the review! Resolute 04:22, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – This is a great read all the way through, with good prose quality, fine sourcing, plenty of images, and everything else to be expected from our best work. Giants2008 (17–14) 23:30, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:00, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have made changes to address these comments. Isaac Lin (talk) 18:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, 1a. But do me a favour and don't link both elements of such doubles as "Cleveland, Ohio"? It's a "chain" link: if the reader clicks on "Cleveland", they get a link to the much more general "Ohio" at the top. Same with "industrialist Ambrose O'Brien of Renfrew, Ontario". Better: "industrialist Ambrose O'Brien of Renfrew, Ontario.
  • "World War II" might be a link-target in a MilHist article. This is hockey.
  • Why is the lead pic so small, with so much detail? 300px the normal max. I've enlarged it. Group pics are tiny, too, compared with the generous size given to single portraits. Bowman pic could have done with sharpening before uploading. Please, the era of squint has passed.
  • "1996:–"? It would be "–present", which I believe is inferior to "Since 1996". And why does a colon force a subsequent upper-case letter in the titles? I've fixed. Tony (talk) 07:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good suggestions. I will check for any other occurances and keep these in mind for future articles. Thanks, Resolute 18:55, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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