Legendary Habs GM Pollock passes away

[Habsfan84]

MONTREAL (CP) - Sam Pollock, who built a hockey dynasty as vice president and general manager of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1960s and 1970s, has died. He was 81.
His death was confirmed to the RDS television network by his son, Sam Jr., on Wednesday and was noted on the Canadiens' website.
The Montreal native, born Dec. 25, 1925, won nine Stanley Cups during his tenure as general manager from 1964-65 to 1978.
Friends and colleagues said he had been ill for some time with cancer, but even they had few details.
''He was a very private man,'' said former Canadiens star Jean Beliveau. ''I'd bet that even his closest friends didn't know how sick he was.''

Beliveau first met Pollock when he ran the Junior Canadiens in 1949. He was a player when Pollock became the Canadiens' GM and they later worked together in the team's front office.
''He had great vision of what his team would look like in three or four years time,'' the former Canadiens captain said. ''He loved to win and he was such a hard worker.
''Even after hockey, I was on the board of a company with him and he knew every word of all of the information they sent us a couple of days before a meeting. He was the same in hockey. He wanted information right away. We'd see the coach calling him after games on the road.''
A moment of silence was held before the Toronto Blue Jays game at Rogers Centre on Wednesday in honour of Pollock, who was on the club's board of directors in the 1990's before serving as chairman and CEO from 1995-2000.
Pollock later served as vice-chairman on the Jays Care Foundation board.
''On behalf of the organization I would like to extend our sympathies to the Pollock family. His contributions to the Toronto Blue Jays were many,'' team president Paul Godfrey said in a statement. ''The Blue Jays organization has benefitted greatly from his leadership and vision. I was honoured to have worked alongside him. Sam brought the same fierce competitiveness and intelligence to baseball that made him a legend in hockey.''
Pollock is the standard against whom other National Hockey League general managers have come to be measured.
He was considered the shrewdest evaluator and dealer of talent of his era, pulling off brilliant moves to land greats like Guy Lafleur and Ken Dryden and build a team that was the class of the league.
''He always had the players ready and the coaching staff, too,'' said Rejean Houle, one of his former players. ''That way he helped us be a better team.
''I had a lot of respect for Mr. Pollock.''
In one of his oft-recalled moves, he sent two undistinguished prospects to the Boston Bruins for the rights to Dryden, then a relatively unknown goaltender at Cornell University who would grow into a Hall of Famer.
But it was the landing of Lafleur that cemented his reputation.