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J.S. Giguere’s perfect run as a Toronto Maple Leaf is over.

Through a series of deflections and funny bounces, the San Jose Sharks snapped Giguere’s shutout streak and handed him his first loss wearing the blue and white, a 3-2 decision on Monday in Toronto.

Tied 2-2 into the late stages of the third period, the Sharks’ Ryan Clowe scored the winner with 6:39 to go, also giving the Leafs (19-30-11) their eighth loss in their last 10 games.

It was the fourth win in five games for San Jose (39-11-9).

Despite the loss to one of the NHL’s top road teams — the Sharks now boast a record of nine straight wins as the visitors — Toronto came out firing on all cylinders, out-shooting, out-hitting and out-scoring the Sharks in the first period.

That extra jump may have been due to some of the young blood in the Leafs’ lineup. With forwards Fredrik Sjostrom and Christian Hanson out sick with the flu, Nazem Kadri was called up for his first NHL appearance, and he made an immediate impression.

On the 19-year-old’s very first shift — which happened to be on the starting line — Kadri launched a no-look pass from just inside the Toronto blue-line to Viktor Stalberg in the neutral zone. Stalberg, sprung on a partial breakaway, was the first to test Evgeni Nabokov with a hard slapper that the Russian goalie smothered.

It was the beginning of a busy period for Nabokov, who faced 13 shots compared to the seven sent toward Giguere in the opening frame.

As for the physical play, Dion Phaneuf acquainted himself with San Jose stars early by laying out Dany Heatley with a big shoulder check in the Leafs zone just minutes into the game.

By the midway point of the period, Toronto’s Colton Orr and San Jose’s Jody Shelley got into a tussle off a face-off in the Leafs end. Shelley may have knocked down the Leafs’ tough-guy in short order with a booming right hand, but mere seconds after that dust up, the Leafs were the first ones on the scoreboard.

With Alexei Ponikarovski pressuring Rob Blake behind the Sharks’ goal, Phil Kessel picked up the turnover, made his way to the front of the net and slid a quick pass over to a wide-open Tyler Bozak.

The rookie centre tapped the puck into the empty half of the net for his third goal of the season and a 1-0 lead at the 10:43 mark of the first.

Bozak almost had his second point of the night just over a minute into the second period when he delivered a pass to Ponikarovsky, whose slapper bounced off the crossbar and dribbled out of the crease.

Bad bounces erase Giguere’s streak, Leafs’ lead

A span of less than three minutes saw both the Leafs lead and the shutout streak of Giguere erased. A deflected shot by Sharks defenceman Dan Boyle snapped the Toronto goalie’s unbeaten mark at 143:17.

The 32-year-old netminder is the first person in Leafs history to post shutouts in both of his first two matches, beating New Jersey Devils 3-0 and the Ottawa 5-0

Boyle’s shot from the blue-line bounced off the stick of Toronto’s John Mitchell and over the glove of Giguere to tie the game, and 2:23 later the Sharks doubled their goal total when Joe Pavelski was the beneficiary of a giveaway by Kessel in the Toronto zone.

As Kessel lost a pass in his skates, San Jose’s Ryan Clowe picked up the puck and sent it to Pavelski, whose low shot from the high-slot eluded Giguere on the blocker side.

Some good pressure by the Leafs top line with just over four minutes to go nearly knotted the game at two, but Nabokov was able to deny Ponikarovski from point blank.

As a Tomas Kaberle shot from the point was knocked down by the Sharks ‘keeper, the rebound was picked up by Ponikarovski at the side of the goal, who tried to deke around the prone goalie but a poke check dispatched that scoring chance.

Phaneuf’s physical play made an impact in the late stages of the second period, stepping into Jody Shelley at the Sharks bench and drawing an important penalty.

With the Sharks down a man, Kessel scored off a rebound chance that beat Nabokov under the blocker to make it 2-2 with 40 seconds to go in the middle frame, setting up a tight third period.

The winner came 6:39 into the third when Devin Setoguchi tried to centre the puck from behind the Toronto goal but had the puck bounce off the skate of Toronto’s Carl Gunnarsson. That funny bounce sent the puck right onto the stick of Clowe, who snapped it past Giguere.

With the net empty, Kaberle saved a shot into the Leafs goal and allowed Stalberg to get two great chances right in front of the Sharks’ goal, but Nabokov denied both with 10 seconds remaining to cement the win.

Alexei Morozov, right, and Ilya Kovalchuk embrace after Russia beat Canada for its second straight IIHF world championship on May 10, 2009. (Alexander Nemenov/Getty Images)

When it comes to global puck, Canada’s men and women are second best, according to the International Ice Hockey Federation.

The federation released its pre-Olympic rankings on Monday, just days before the Vancouver Olympics begin.

Russia sits on tops of the totals with 2,925 points, while Canada sits in second position with 2,905.

Sweden, the defending champion from the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, is third with 2,795. Finland and the United States round out the top five.

In the women’s pre-Olympic report, the United States is ranked first with 1,790 points, ahead of Canada (1,750 points) and Sweden (1,675 points).

The federation based its rankings on points awarded for the final positions in the last four IIHF world championships. The team that wins the world championship or an Olympic gold medal receives 1,200 points.

On the men’s side, Russia won the two consecutive world championships, edging out the Canadians 2-1 last year and knocking them off in a 5-4 overtime in 2008.

Canada won the tournament in 2007, and Sweden won in 2006.

The IIHF will release its “final” world rankings after the Vancouver Olympics and will also factor in the results from the 2006 Olympics, which were excluded from the pre-Olympic rankings.

The system uses a four-year cycle.

According the IIHF’s calculations, Canada will overtake Russia in the overall rankings if it wins a gold medal in Vancouver.

Col. Russell Williams, centre, and Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk, left, speak to Defence Minister Peter MacKay during his visit to CFB Trenton on Jan. 17. (Department of National Defence)

A military commander from Canadian Forces Base Trenton in eastern Ontario has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of two women.

Col. Russell Williams, 46, of Tweed, the top commander at 8 wing CFB Trenton, was arrested Sunday in Ottawa, Ontario Provincial Police Det.-Insp. Chris Nicholas said at a news conference Monday.

Williams has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jessica Lloyd, 27, whose body was found Monday off Cary Road in the municipality of Tweed.

Lloyd had been missing since Jan. 28 from her home outside Tweed, about 30 kilometres north of Belleville.

Ontario’s chief coroner is to conduct an autopsy on Lloyd’s body, which arrived in Toronto late Monday afternoon.

Williams was also charged in the death of Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38, of Brighton, Ont., who was killed in her home Nov. 25. Comeau served with the 437 Squadron at CFB Trenton.

Nicholas said police linked the two slayings because of similarities in the cases. They do not expect to make any other arrests.

In addition to the murder charges, Williams faces counts of forcible confinement, break and enter, and sexual assault in relation to two home invasions in the Tweed area in September.

As wing commander at CFB Trenton, Williams oversaw operations at the air force base, which according to the Department of National Defence is “the heart of Canada’s air mobility forces.”

“He was just a shining, bright star,” said Maj.-Gen. Yvan Blondin, the commander of 1 Canadian Air division and Williams’s immediate superior.

“And if you talk to people on the [base], they will probably tell you that they admired the wing commander. He was involved in everything in the community here. Nobody had one thought that something like this could be possible,” he said at a Monday afternoon news conference.

Williams now in custody

Williams made a court appearance Monday afternoon for a bail hearing, walking confidently into the provincial courthouse in Belleville, Ont. His hands and legs were shackled and he wore a blue prison-issue jumpsuit and blue booties.

Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38, left, was slain Nov. 25, 2009. The body of Jessica Lloyd, 27, right, was found by police Monday morning. (Canadian Press)

When asked, he said he understood the proceedings against him. He was remanded in custody and will appear in court by video on Feb. 18.

A publication ban was ordered, as is typical in bail hearings, and the names of the sex assault victims cannot be published either.

Lloyd was last heard from on the night of Jan. 28, when she sent a text message to a family friend. She did not report for work in Napanee the next morning.

Her disappearance prompted a massive air and ground search by police, the military and more than 100 volunteers. It was called off by police after two days.

A handful of distraught-looking people were in the courtroom for the bail hearing Monday, and one man uttered an obscenity as as Williams got up to leave.

The mayor of Quinte West, the region where the military base is located, said his community is in disbelief over the charges.

“Well, it’s just shock,” Mayor John Williams said, speaking about his own reaction. The mayor is not related to the accused.

The mayor said he was in Williams’ office last Thursday.

‘He was just a shining, bright star’ —Maj.-Gen. Yvan Blondin

“I deal with the wing commander on a fairly regular basis and the best word to describe it is shock,” the mayor told CBC News.

Nicholas said Williams was brought to the attention of police based on evidence gathered while questioning people along Highway 37 last Thursday night.

Police would not comment on possible links among the cases other than to say they took place within the same geographic area. They said they were looking at where Williams has been for the past several years and were continuing their investigation.

OPP at accused’s Ottawa home

As of 3 p.m. Monday, OPP officers were parked outside a home that Williams and his wife own in Ottawa’s Westboro neighbourhood, waiting for a search warrant that would allow them to enter.

Police said his wife was at home at the time of his arrest.

“We were actually getting ready to invite them for dinner,” Michael Gennis, who lives next to Williams and his wife, Mary Elizabeth, on Edison Avenue. Gennis said the two had been living next door to him and his partner for about a month.

“They were lovely people in my encounters — with Mary Elizabeth more [so] — but even with Russ,” Gennis told CBC News.

“It’s very surprising. I just texted my partner to say … ‘Oh my God, you wouldn’t believe what’s going on here.’”

On Monday morning, police searched their second home in Tweed.

Lt.-Gen. André Deschamps, chief of air staff for the Canadian Forces, issued a statement that “although one is considered innocent until proven guilty, in light of the seriousness of the charges, and in consideration of the high level of responsibilities” attached to Williams’ position, an interim wing commander for 8 Wing Trenton will be appointed to replace him.

A review will also be done by 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg to determine the most appropriate action pending the outcome of his trial, said the statement from Deschamps.

It was not immediately clear if the military has suspended Williams in the meantime, or if he will continue to be paid while he is relieved of his duties.

With files from The Canadian Press

An Ontario man was among the five people killed in Sunday’s explosion at a power plant under construction in Middleton, Conn.

U.S. authorities have identified him as Roy Rushton of Hamilton.

Also killed in the blast were:

• Peter Chetulis of Thomaston, Conn.
• Ronald Crabb of Colchester, Conn.
• Raymond Dobratz of Old Saybrook, Conn.
• Chris Walters of Florissant, Mo.

The explosion at the Kleen Energy plant in Middletown, Conn., on Sunday shook houses for kilometres. Five died in the blast, but it’s not clear if other workers are accounted for. (Catherine Avalone/Associated Press/The Middletown Press)More than two dozen people were injured in the powerful explosion, which shook houses kilometres away. Hospital officials said most were treated and released.

A fire official said no one is believed to be in the rubble of the Kleen Energy Systems plant in Middletown, about 32 kilometres south of Hartford.

However, Middletown Mayor Sebastian Guiliano said rescue crews have been unable to get to all areas of the plant and he could not say for certain that no more victims would be found.

Authorities said one section of the plant was too unstable to search on Monday. They were also missing an exact roster of everyone on duty when the blast occurred.

The explosion happened as workers were clearing gas lines of air, but the exact cause remains under investigation. Authorities also launched a criminal investigation Monday, saying they could not rule out criminal negligence.

“I lost a couple of good friends up there,” Michael Rosario, a business representative with the local Plumbers and Pipefitters union, said as he broke down crying Monday. “I’m just so sorry something like this happened.

“There’s still a lot of unanswered questions,” Rosario added.

Welders and other workers were at the site Monday, preparing to make it safer for emergency personnel, said Ed Reilly, president of the Greater Hartford-New Britain Building Trades Council.

Roster needed to confirm victims

Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Monday morning that officials still haven’t received rosters of workers who were at the Kleen Energy Systems plant Sunday.

“There are a number of contractors who do the work at the building,” Rell told WTNH-TV.

“Until we actually have a roster of the names of those individuals that are in each of those groups and who was working on Sunday, we need that before we can do anything else. We’re still confirming the number of people,” she said.

“There’s still uncertainty about who came in and who didn’t come in yesterday,” Middletown Deputy Fire Marshal Al Santostefano added.

Michael Rosario, centre, business representative for the Plumbers and Pipefitters union, is comforted after telling reporters about losing three friends in the explosion. (Seth Wenig/Associated Press)

Santostefano also said there were “piles of rubble everywhere, debris everywhere. In some places the debris is as high as 10 feet.”

Local fire investigators and federal authorities on Monday were expected to begin their investigation into what caused the explosion at the nearly completed 620-megawatt plant.

It was being built to produce energy primarily using natural gas, which accounts for about a fifth of the country’s electricity. Workers for the construction company, O&G Industries, were purging a gas line, clearing it of air, when the explosion occurred around 11:15 a.m. Sunday, Santostefano said.

The blast left huge pieces of metal that once encased the plant peeling off its sides. A large swath of the structure was blackened and surrounded by debris, but the building, its roof and its two smokestacks were still standing at the site.

About 50 to 60 people were in the area at the time, he said.

With files from The Associated Press

Michael Jackson’s physician, Conrad Murray, right, arrives for his arraignment at the Airport Branch Courthouse in Los Angeles on Monday.
(Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press)

Dr. Conrad Murray, who was caring for Michael Jackson at the time of the pop star’s death, has pleaded not guilty after being charged Monday with involuntary manslaughter.

Los Angeles prosecutors announced the long-awaited charge against Murray, a cardiologist with practices in Houston and Las Vegas, early Monday.

Murray surrendered to police, appearing in a Los Angeles court in the morning, to enter his plea. Bail was set at $75,000 US.

Jackson’s father, Joe, his mother, Katherine, and siblings LaToya, Jermaine, Tito, Jackie and Randy sat behind prosecutors during the court appearance.

Jackson’s family members have said publicly they wanted the doctor to face the more serious charge of second-degree murder.

Jackson was preparing for a string of sold-out appearances in London, England, when he died last June in Los Angeles at age 50.

Plagued by sleeplessness, he had hired Murray as a personal physician as he took on a tough schedule ahead of his comeback concerts.

Prosecutors allege he gave Jackson the powerful anesthetic propofol to help him sleep, but that instead led to his death.

Los Angeles investigators were methodical in building a case against Murray, taking six months to investigate the doctor’s actions and where he obtained the drugs found in the pop star’s Los Angeles home.

They may have been wary after observing the missteps in prosecuting high-profile cases like O.J. Simpson and actor Robert Blake, both of whom were acquitted of murder.

Coroner rules homicide

A coroner ruled last summer that Jackson’s death was a homicide caused by acute intoxication of propofol, with other sedatives a contributing factor. However, they said he was otherwise healthy, a factor that may weigh against Murray in court.

Detectives spoke to more than 10 medical experts in the course of their investigation to see if his behaviour fell outside the boundaries of reasonable medical practice.

Court documents show Murray told police he administered the drug to the singer. He also was with Jackson when household staff called for paramedics.

Murray appears to have obtained the drug legally and its use is not in itself a crime. Part of the case may rest on what happened between the administration of the drugs and when emergency help was summoned.

Prosecutors allege Murray spent part of that time on his cellphone, making non-emergency calls.

If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, he could face a maximum of four years in prison.

With files from The Associated Press

Ricky Gervais poses on Jan. 11, 2009, for a photo backstage at the 66th annual Golden Globe Awards. He’s accepted an invitation to Banff in June. (Mark J.Terrill/Associated Press)

Ricky Gervais, the British comedian who created The Office, will be presented with the Sir Peter Ustinov Comedy Award at this year’s Banff Television Festival.

Gervais will be in Banff, Alta., in June to receive the award and participate in an interview about his career and success to date.

The Ustinov award is given annually at the TV festival to recognize outstanding comedic performance. Previous winners include John Cleese, Bob Newhart and Martin Short.

Gervais won two Emmys and three Golden Globes for The Office, his acerbic comedy about office life that debuted in Britain in 2001. The U.S. version of the show adapted his original scripts.

Gervais has also had success as a standup comedian and with his online series The Ricky Gervais Show. He starred in films The Invention of Lying and A Night in the Museum and hosted this year’s Golden Globes.

Banff TV Festival organizers called him “the most influential British comedian since Charlie Chaplin.”

The much-decorated Gervais waxed comedic about his trip to Banff.

“This is probably the greatest honour of my career. Only the Nobel Peace Prize can top this, but I will only accept that in person if the ceremony is held somewhere as beautiful as Banff,” he said in a statement released Monday.

The Banff TV festival is taking place at the same time as digital media conference NextMEDIA, June 13-16.

Astronaut Robert Thirsk told University of Calgary students and faculty on Monday that ‘dreams don’t come true by wishing on a star.’ (Terri Trembath/CBC) Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk visited his old alma mater Monday to pick up the degree he was awarded while in orbit.

Thirsk was living on the International Space Station for six months when he was awarded the doctor of laws degree last July.

The University of Calgary engineering graduate travelled more than 125 million kilometres and established a Canadian record for time spent in space. He returned to Earth last Dec. 1 on a Russian spacecraft, which landed in Kazakhstan.

Robert Thirsk, top, of Canada, Frank De Winne of Belgium, centre, and Roman Romanenko of Russia board the Soyuz-FG rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan last May as they set out for the International Space Station.
(Anatoly Maltsev, pool/Associated Press)In Calgary on Monday, Thirsk told faculty and students that the benefits of Canada’s involvement in space exploration can be found far and wide.

“We make money in space,” he said. “In a typical year the Canadian government invests $300 million on space programs. In a typical year … space companies reap revenues of $3 billion.”

And the investment in space-related technologies has benefits that aren’t limited to the aerospace sector, Thirsk said.

“You don’t have to look any further than Calgary,” he said. “Go to Foothills Hospital. You’ll find NeuroArm there. NeuroArm is a surgical instrument, which performs surgery on patients’ brains which surgeons with their limited dexterity cannot do.”

Thirsk encouraged students to dream big dreams — and to build them on a sold education.

“Dreams don’t come true by wishing on a star,” the astronaut said. “I’d encourage young Canadians to launch their dreams on a solid educational foundation.”

“It’s not unrealistic that a graduate of University of Calgary should fly aboard the International Space Station and perhaps one day walk on the surface of Mar. It’s easily within the realm of possibility.”

Thirsk said six months is a long time to spend in space and he is happy to be back on Earth. He said he watched the lights of Calgary pass by beneath him many times while he was in orbit.

Dongfan “Greg” Chung was convicted in July of six counts of economic espionage and other federal charges for having 300,000 pages of sensitive papers in his home. (Christina House/The Orange County Register/Associated Press)

A Chinese-born engineer was sentenced Monday to more than 15 years in prison for hoarding sensitive information about the U.S. space shuttle that prosecutors say he intended to share with China.

The case against Dongfan “Greg” Chung was the United States’ first trial on economic espionage charges. The 74-year-old former Boeing Co. engineer was convicted in July of six counts of economic espionage and other federal charges for keeping 300,000 pages of sensitive papers in his home.

Before sentencing Chung in Santa Ana, Calif., U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney said he didn’t know exactly what information Chung passed to China. “But what I do know is what he did, and what he did pass, hurt our national security and it hurt Boeing,” the judge said.

Carney said Chung’s scheme with the Chinese government spanned 30 years. During brief remarks, Chung begged the judge to give him a lenient sentence.

“Your honour, I am not a spy, I am only an ordinary man,” he said, adding that he had brought the Boeing documents home to write a book.

“I love this country …Your honour, I beg your pardon and let me live with my family peacefully.”

Despite Chung’s age, prosecutors requested a 20-year sentence, in part to send a message to other would-be spies.

But the judge said he couldn’t put a value on the amount of information that Chung stole and couldn’t determine exactly how much the breaches hurt Boeing and the nation. He also cited the engineer’s age and frail health in going with a sentence of 15 years and eight months.

“It’s very difficult having to make a decision where someone is going to have to spend the rest of their adult life in prison,” Carney said. “I take no comfort or satisfaction in that.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Staples noted in sentencing papers that Chung amassed a personal wealth of more than $3 million US while betraying his adopted country.

“The [People's Republic of China] is bent on stealing sensitive information from the United States and shows no sign of relenting,” Staples wrote. “Only strong sentences offer any hope of dissuading others from helping the PRC get that technology.”

Chung’s attorney, Thomas Bienert Jr., has said his client will appeal.

The government said investigators found papers stacked throughout Chung’s house that included sensitive information about a booster rocket fuelling system — documents that employees were ordered to lock away at the end of each day. The government said Boeing invested $50 million in the technology over a five-year period.

During the non-jury trial, Chung’s lawyers argued that he may have violated Boeing policy by bringing the papers home, but he didn’t break any laws by doing so, and the U.S. government couldn’t prove he had given secret information to China.

In his ruling, Carney wrote that the notion that Chung was merely a pack rat was “ludicrous” and said the evidence showed that he had been passing information to Chinese officials as a spy.

The government believes Chung began spying for the Chinese in the late 1970s, a few years after he became a naturalized U.S. citizen and was hired by Rockwell.

Chung worked for Rockwell until it was bought by Boeing in 1996. He stayed with the company until he was laid off in 2002, then was brought back a year later as a consultant. He was fired when the FBI began its investigation in 2006.

Ian Brown won the 2010 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction on Monday for his book The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search For His Disabled Son. (Charles Taylor Prize)A personal tale about a father connecting with his son has triumphed over a trio of significant historical figures, as journalist Ian Brown’s The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son took the 2010 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction on Monday.

Toronto-based writer and broadcaster Brown was awarded the $25,000 honour for his acclaimed book, which tells the story of his disabled 13-year-old son, Walker, who has a rare genetic condition that — among its many symptoms — leaves him unable to speak or eat normally and prone to hitting himself.

“This is an enormous honour, pleasure, thrill. It’s impossible for me to actually think I have won next to these fine colleagues: Ken, Daniel and professor English,” Brown said at the downtown Toronto award gala on Monday, acknowledging his fellow nominees.

“Narrative non-fiction is being ignored these days in favour of faster, shorter blurts,” he noted. “I think that narrative non-fiction will come back and this prize keeps it there.”

In January, Brown also won the $40,000 British Columbia’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction — Canada’s richest non-fiction prize — for The Boy in the Moon.

Historical portraits

This year’s Charles Taylor Prize contest had initially appeared like a battle of major biographies, with works about former prime minister Pierre Trudeau (Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000 by John English), separatist leader René Lévesque (René Lévesque by Daniel Poliquin) and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst (The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst by Kenneth Whyte) competing.

The finalists for the 2010 Charles Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction, from left, The Boy in the Moon, Just Watch Me, Rene Levesque and The Uncrowned King. (Random House Canada, Knopf Canada, Penguin Group Canada, Random House)Brown’s The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son, was the only memoir. It was chosen by a three-member jury that included journalist Andrew Cohen, celebrated translator Sheila Fischman and historian Tim Cook, who was 2009’s winner.

As finalists, English, Poliquin and Whyte each receive $2,000.

Presented annually, the Charles Taylor Prize recognizes a Canadian author who has written a book that “demonstrates a superb command of the English language, an elegance of style and a subtlety of thought and perception.”

Named for the late writer and former Globe and Mail correspondent who died in 1997, past winners have included Richard Gwyn, Carol Shields, Wayne Johnston, Isabel Huggan and J.B. MacKinnon.

Personal tale goes public

The Boy in the Moon had its origins in an essay about Walker and a 2007 multimedia series Brown, an award-winning newspaper and magazine writer, created for the Globe and Mail.

“It’s a scary book to pick up,” Brown acknowledged.

“You look at it and think ‘Man, I don’t know if I can get through this. It’s about some little kid who’s in a bad way.’ But then you realize that his struggle is in some ways parallel to our struggles,” he said.

‘With Walker, you can just be there and it is true. It reminded me that the truest story is the story that is right there: the story that you honestly experience as opposed to what you think you should experience.’— Ian Brown

The seasoned feature-writer, who often admits to toiling with the craft of writing, struggled against a mountain of material he had amassed — from frank descriptions of Walker’s many aliments and “ethnographic descriptions of the emergency department, because I’d been there so often,” to “interactions, visits to doctors, medical histories [and] genetic science,” he recounted.

“I didn’t know for a long time what to put in the book… I didn’t know whether it would be interesting to anybody. I finally solved that in writing it when I began to pay attention to what Walker did,” Brown said.

“With Walker, you can just be there and it is true. It reminded me that the truest story is the story that is right there: the story that you honestly experience as opposed to what you think you should experience.”

Brown said he has told Walker of the critical acclaim The Boy in the Moon has received and showed him images of the book.

“He’s not completely unaware of it,” he said.

“I just talk and he knows that we’re hanging out together, engaging. For that time, what I say is irrelevant, but that I am saying it and that he can hear it and that he can respond makes us equals. I don’t know if it’s a liberation for him, but for me, it’s fantastic liberation.”

Bob Gainey is stepping down as vice-president and general manager of the Montreal Canadians. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

Bob Gainey announced Monday that he is stepping down as vice-president and general manager of the Montreal Canadiens.

Assistant GM Pierre Gauthier will take over responsibilities on an interim basis. Gainey will stay on as a consultant to Gauthier.

Gainey, a former Canadien, began his managerial career within the Minnesota North Stars/Dallas Stars organization as a head coach and eventually took over as general manager.

In May 2003, Gainey returned to the Canadiens as vice-president and general manager.

Over his five seasons (241-176-46-7), Montreal made the playoffs four times.

However, the team failed to advance past the second round during his tenure as GM.

In 2007-08, Gainey’s best season as GM, the Canadiens captured both the Northeast Division and Eastern Conference titles.

Free agency moves questioned

But the team didn’t live up to high expectations in the post-season, barely defeating the eighth-seed Boston Bruins in seven games, then losing to the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

More recently, Gainey was questioned for his moves in free agency and on the trade market.

In the 2009 off-season, he was criticized for signing free agent forward Brian Gionta to a five-year, $25 US million contract and the eight-player deal that saw Scott Gomez and his salary of more than $7 million US land in Montreal.

During the current season, the Habs GM has taken considerable heat for his management of the Canadiens’ goaltending situation.

At the 2005 NHL entry draft, he selected Carey Price fifth overall, expecting the young backstop to be the next Patrick Roy.

But Price has struggled with discipline and consistency, giving way to backup Jaroslav Halak.

With two young and valuable goaltenders, Gainey continued to lean toward Price, even though his counterpart proved to be more consistent. The decision has drawn the ire of Canadiens fans throughout the season.

How he did

A look at the Canadiens’ record under Bob Gainey

*After 60 games