- Bob Gainey, Jim Roberts and Doug Jarvis each paid about $100 for a suit in the spring of 1976
- Scotty Bowman remembers Ralph Backstrom spending his first paycheck on three of them
- Read below for Gainey’s full story and video from his No. 23 night at the Bell Centre
Bob Gainey wore a $100 suit through the first Stanley Cup run of the last great Canadiens dynasty.
Montreal’s Hall of Fame captain sat down with NHL.com’s Dave Stubbs on Friday and looked over his own ad in the Montreal Star from March 11, 1976, the one where a 22-year-old Gainey tells readers a spring suit from Tony the Tailor “scores high in styling and quality.”
Jim Roberts got the same treatment six weeks later. Doug Jarvis made it three on May 6.
All three came through the Peterborough Petes in junior, and Roberts had the connection to the shop. Gainey walked through how they ended up in Old Montreal that day.
“Jimmy likely already had a connection with Tony, so he took Doug and me along with him one day to the shop in Old Montreal. We made a deal that day and we all got suits for about $100 each.”
A few weeks later the suits were on the road for Montreal’s sweep of the two-time defending champion Flyers in the Final. It was the first of four straight titles.
Asked what they picked out, Gainey laughed and said there might have been some plaids. He also explained why durability mattered more than variety.
“You needed something that was durable because when you went on the road for a few games, you’d take just one suit. Not like today, with guys wearing a different outfit every night.”
Tony the Tailor had been running hockey ads in Montreal papers since 1948. Maurice Richard posed for one in 1952 that ranked him among Canada’s 10 best dressed men, and on the full-page team promotions the shop always sponsored the head coach.
Bowman, in the same story, brought up Ralph Backstrom, who boarded with Bowman’s father in the late 1950s.
“Ralph took his first Canadiens paycheck to Tony’s and had three suits made. He brought them back to my dad’s and showed them off, asking which one he liked best.”
Jack Bowman’s verdict: “They’re all beautiful suits, Ralph, but you can only wear one at a time.”
That career ran 1,160 games, all with Montreal, and produced five Cups. Gainey took the Conn Smythe in 1979 and won the Selke in each of the award’s first four years.
Take a look at the NHL on the only man to do that:
His No. 23 went to the Bell Centre rafters in February 2008. The Kings are doing the same for Anze Kopitar this season.
Here is the banner going up in Montreal:
Whatever the three of them walked out with in 1976, it carried Tony’s logo inside the breast pocket, a stylized T under a knight in armor.
