MONTREAL SAYS GOODBYE TO FORUM\League won't be the same without its hallowed shrine.

Byline: Tim Trepany

Rogie Vachon sounds like he is describing his first kiss the way he talks about being a nervous teen-ager with chills running down his spine and emotion bursting out of him.

But this was a much more significant event. The first visit to the Montreal Forum locker room as a player always is.

"It was very overwhelming," said Vachon, who played for the Canadiens from 1966-72. "It's an absolutely incredible feeling, especially for a young French-Canadian player. . . . I was raised on a farm 400 miles outside of Montreal and I always dreamed of one day playing for the Canadiens.

"The old Montreal Forum is like a shrine. There's so much history. I think it's really a sad day today."

Vachon was speaking Monday, about six hours before the Canadiens played their final game at the Forum after 72 years. They play their first game in their new arena, the Molson Centre, on Saturday.

The Molson Centre is being billed as a state-of-the-art facility, which means it will have the same sterile atmosphere enjoyed at the Anaheim Arena, Kiel Center in St. Louis, Chicago's United Center and any other modern arena that caters to the big bucks corporations offer and makes fans uncomfortable if they spill even one kernel of popcorn on the carpet.

Those multi-million dollar arenas combined won't be able to match the history housed in one brick of the Montreal Forum.

The Forum, at a price tag of $1.5 million, was the first building in North America built exclusively for hockey. The Canadiens played their first game there on Nov. 29, 1924, and have clinched 12 of their 24 Stanley Cups on its ice.

"Yankee Stadium might be the only other stadium in the world that is as famous as the Montreal Forum," said former Montreal coach Jacques Demers.

Some of hockey's most memorable moments have occurred on its ice, including the NHL's longest game, a six-overtime epic that began at 8:30 p.m. on March 24, 1936 and ended on March 25 at 2:25 a.m.; Maurice "Rocket" Richard getting a league record eight points on Dec. 28, 1944, a mark that stood for 32 years; and Jean Beliveau scoring three goals in 44 seconds on Nov. 5, 1955.

It also had a reputation for ghosts similar to the fabled leprechauns in Boston Garden because of unusual occurrences that always seemed to favor the home team.

With about two minutes left in Game 7 of the 1979 Stanley Cup semifinals, the Boston Bruins were called for too many men on the ice while they held a one-goal lead. Guy Lafleur scored a power-play goal to tie the game and Montreal's Yvon Lambert got the game-winner in overtime to win the series.

And there was the game no Kings fan will forget, when Marty McSorley's illegally curved stick put the Canadiens on a power play with 1:40 left in the third period and Montreal trailing 2-1 in the 1993 Stanley Cup finals. The Canadiens scored to force overtime, won it in the extra period and went on to win the series, four games to one.

"The ghosts were really Rocket Richard, Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur and the others," Demers said. "The Canadiens have always had great players who could perform when it was needed most."

The Canadiens are interwoven into the Montreal culture. Fans come dressed to the hilt, with most men wearing suit coats and ties, and the women in dresses and furs, and losses are province-wide emergencies.

"It's unique because of the tradition," said Kings coach Larry Robinson, a former Canadiens great who had tickets to attend the final game but decided he didn't want to miss conducting two practices. "You like to carry on the tradition, but at the same time, the city is very demanding on its athletes to play well.

"They have very knowledgeable fans and if you think the media is hard here, it's very tough there. You're always under the microscope there."

Said Vachon: "The Montreal Canadiens should not lose. If we ever lost two games in a row, it was total panic in town."

One of the most historic events to occur at the Forum had nothing to do with hockey. In 1976, gymnast Nadia Comaneci recorded the first 10 in Olympic history, and the Forum put its special imprint on the event. Because the imperfect scoreboard only went up to 9.99, her score was registered as 1.00.

"To myself, it's not the physical parts that create the Forum atmosphere, it's the tradition of the franchise that makes it so special," said Canadiens general manager Rejean Houle.

But the Forum, with its historic locker room, with pictures of former Canadiens greats on the walls, was such a big part of that.

That's not to say a new, successful chapter can be started at the new building. It's just that what took place in the confines of the Forum will never be approached. The Stanley Cup games, the great players and Olympic perfection will never be topped.

A sad day indeed.