Gazette journalists share their memories of 2012.

MONTREAL - I had no answer for those who began asking me this question on Sept. 15, the day the National Hockey League locked out its players and suspended its 2012-13 season:

“So what are you going to write about with no hockey?”

More than three months later, I can reply by saying I’ve never been busier writing about the Canadiens.

There have been no games, no post-game news conferences, no dressing-room scrums, no practices in their usual form.

But there have been one-on-one talks with many players. A lengthy, private interview over lunch. A casual, delightful Moishes dinner with seven Canadiens that raised nearly $3,500 for The Gazette Christmas Fund.

There have been phone calls and text-message exchanges with Habs players throughout Canada, the U.S., Switzerland, Russia, the Czech Republic and Finland.

There has been the deepening of trust I have developed over many seasons with many players. About a dozen Canadiens have shared their cellphone numbers and for more than three months we have chatted by voice and text at all hours of day and night, across many time zones.

Sometimes, for no story at all.

(In normal times, it could be virtually impossible to find even a moment with quiet Habs defenceman Andrei Markov in his dressing-room media traffic jam. Now, I almost easily reach him in his car in Moscow or on the road deep in Russia during his Kontinental Hockey League season, should I choose to rise before 5 a.m. to call him around noon his time.)

In Montreal, the demands on the time of the Canadiens are extraordinary; this often erects roadblocks when you’re a columnist and feature writer, working off the beaten path.

But without the team managing interview requests during the lockout, the proverbial genie has escaped the bottle.

The trust I’ve built with players has opened many doors during the lockout and afforded me the opportunity to write human and behind-the-scenes stories about the players that surely would not have been done during a normal season.

Challenged by the lack of routine, I’ve been grateful for an openness I’ve been shown by players who know that what they tell me off the record, often with just tacit understanding, will remain that way. And I’ve enjoyed getting to know these men on an entirely different level, away from the rink.

However, I’m as eager to cover Canadiens games again as they are to play them. And I’m eager to see how these relationships will evolve once the players’ lives, and mine, return to normal and the puck is dropped once more.

dstubbs@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: @Dave_Stubbs