The Rebuild (2024): Early Impressions

One Crave subscription and countless unskippable ads later, I made it through the first two episodes of The Rebuild: Inside The Montreal Canadiens. The new docuseries gives an in-depth look at the 22-23 Habs season, focusing on the team's rebuilding journey after rough goodbyes to many of the key players in that unforgettable 2021 Cup run.

As a fan petty enough to hate-watch the Amazon Prime All or Nothing series spotlighting the Toronto Maple Leafs, I was pretty excited when Crave announced The Rebuild. The sports industry has always been fascinating to me. It stands as an interesting parallel to Hollywood, except the people involved actually put their blood sweat, and tears into achieving something. I joke, of course, but this show has been delivering what I wanted from it so far: a look into the inner workings of a billion-dollar franchise.

The truth is, my curiosity about the GM'ing of it all kept me thoroughly entertained during All or Nothing (or as we Canadiens fans like to call it, "All for Nothing"). It's refreshing to see that The Rebuild doesn't just leave the camera with Kent Hughes (like what the Amazon series did with Dubas), but goes deep into the cubicles at the Bell Centre, showing us sales, marketing, and other intimate logistics about how the team is run. We see calls made to season ticket holders, events to raise funds, and even a rehearsal for the home opener with Michel Lacroix.

As far as I can tell from the first two episodes, the Inside the Montreal Canadiens part of it is definitely there. The intricacies it shows about Montreal Canadiens as a business are very comprehensive and dare I even say, eye-opening. Players, coaches, and GM interviews are fairly captivating with a few hidden gems (we get a fun little resolution to a subplot about how Kaiden Guhle broke his car window). I'm just happy that players actually look like they have their hearts in it when talking to the camera. This would have been much harder to swallow if they had just opted for the robotic, monotone, and default-answer personality they usually have for post-game interviews.

That said, perhaps they're just easing us into it in the first two pieces of this eight-parter, but I found myself wanting to learn more about what the entire show is titled after: the rebuild. Yes, Molson does address it in the first episode, but only in about two sentences. There are hints of it splattered across the episodes; every ten minutes we hear voices worrying about how bumpy the upcoming season will be. It makes for great atmosphere building: we see doubts in the air before the season even begins, but I would have liked for the issue to be tackled more head-on. How was the message of a rebuild conveyed to the rest of the organization? How was it received by each department? What are different corners of the office doing to address it? Maybe I'll get my answers in the episodes that follow. Still, I hope the show remembers what it's named after instead of evolving into another "follow the team throughout the season" plot like All or Nothing.

Credit where it's due, they picked a great timeframe to release this in. The show already got my heart racing for the upcoming Habs season after it's been shattered by the underperforming Blue Jays. I'm excited to see where the series takes us (wishful thinking, but possibly the Demidov draft?). Maybe another comprehensive review of the show is in order when it concludes.