Love for the Habs

While college students in Boston, I received my first gift from my future husband. It was a Montreal Canadiens hoodie, perhaps as a heads-up that hockey was about to become a part of my life. I soon learned that Canadiens is not misspelled but rather it’s the French spelling and that Habs is short for Les Habitants. My favorite joke when I sit down to watch a game with him is “Which one is Wayne Gretzky?” I also used to ask “When do the Habs play the Indianapolis Ice?” but I retired that joke many years ago. We once risked our lives by wearing our Canadiens shirts in Boston when they came to town to play the Bruins (very serious rivalry, luckily no one was hurt but fortunately my future husband had a very intimidating beard at the time).

So I have been watching since the years of Koivu and Kovalev and through the exciting Halák craze, the terrible hit Pacioretty took from Chara where we thought he was dead, these Price years, the bummer trade of PK Subban, and a lot in between.

I was surprised to learn Paul Newman made a hockey movie called Slap Shot that’s quite good. The three Hanson brothers are hilarious, especially during the scene where they start a brawl before the game even starts and then during the National Anthem, when the ref is lecturing them about having a clean game, one of them yells in his face, “I’m listening to the f*ckin’ song!”

And I have learned about the greats like Maurice Richard and Jean Béliveau and Guy Lafleur and the hockey dynasty that is the Canadiens. Crash course: They have won the Stanley Cup more than any other team in history (24 times, 5 of them a row).

So it’s a lot to live up to and things aren’t looking good right now (Tampa Bay leads the series 2-0, and they are currently winning game three 6-3). But hey, they have a good Midwest boy from Wisconsin, Cole Caufield, and Midwesterns are always very helpful. I believe in the Habs and really want them to win. But I also stick around for the games because my husband says ridiculous things like, “I don’t like this commentator. Who does he think he is with that hair? Mozart?”