Back in the spring of 2004, my daughter Betsy and I pulled up to the Marriott in downtown Montreal and felt a difference. A decade earlier, I’d been in Montreal to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs and got the distinct impression that many folks really, really wanted to separate from Canada.
To a Western Anglophone uni-lingual like me, Montreal was cold.
But 10 years later, Montreal was exactly the way I’d remembered it in the mid-1970s. Vibrant, diverse, happy and extremely welcoming, it was fun again. Without question, sovereignty was still top of mind for many, if not most, Montrealers, but the folks walking on Ste-Catherine and Crescent and St. Antoine just seemed friendlier, more confident and above all else, ready to make a sale.
While French was certainly the language of the city, anything you wanted to speak – from Arabic to Swahili – was the language of business. If you wanted to buy a watch, a sport coat or a pair of slacks, Montreal shopkeepers were ready speak any language you felt like speaking. And many of them could.
That night, after I finished work in the press box and my 21-year-old daughter had enjoyed a couple of $8 plastic cups of Molson Export with a few thousand of her newest friends in the upper deck at the Bell Centre, we both went out to a pub that a group of journalists often frequented. It was a terrific night – great hockey, good friends, plenty of fun. I had fallen in love with Montreal again and have enjoyed my return trips ever since.
That’s why I also enjoyed a piece by Graeme Hamilton in the National Post this past week entitled Taking the ‘Habitants’ out of the Canadiens. (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=423049)
The premise was: "The Montreal Canadiens are no longer a bastion of Frenchness, but does anyone care?"
Evidently folks don’t. Sports fans, both casual and crazy, like winners and in Montreal, the fans desperately want the Stanley Cup to return to the city. Not one of them could give a damn that only five members of the Canadiens are from Quebec while four are Americans, three are from Ontario, two are from B.C., two are from Czech Republic, two are from Russia, the Kostitsyn brothers are from Belarus, and one player each comes from Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany, Finland and Newfoundland.
Like every other hockey fan on the planet, they want THEIR team to win the Cup and if the captain is from Finland and the leading scorer is from Russia and the goalie is an Aboriginal from B.C., as long as they win, nobody complains.
Last night, after the Habs’ starting lineup was announced, one couldn’t help but get the feeling that although they aren’t the "Flying Frenchmen" anymore, they are Montreal. They are, unquestionably, representative of a city that is as diverse as any single place in Canada.
The starters?
Sergei Kostitsyn – Novopolotsk, Belarus.
Michael Ryder – Bonavista, Newfoundland.
Patrice Brisebois – Montreal, Quebec.
Christopher Higgins – Smithtown, N.Y.
Roman Hamrlik – Zlin, Czech Republic.
Carey Price – Ulkatcho First Nation (Williams Lake), B.C.
That’s Montreal in 2008.
Then, just to make the pre-game complete, almost everyone in the building sang O Canada.
Then they sang "Ole, ole, ole ole!"
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=beWKml7IlPA]
And then watched as their boys scored two quick goals to put the Bruins, a team they’ve manhandled for the past 18 months, back on their heels. By the way, each Kostitsyn brother – Andrei and Serghei – scored.
Before the first period ended, our good friend, Bruins defenceman Shane (The Sheriff of Neepawa) Hnidy made it 2-1, but the Habs were just too much.
Bryan Smolinski, from Toledo, Ohio, made it 3-1 in the second period and the Habs were in control.
In the third Tom Kostopoulos, from Mississauga, Ont., scored Montreal’s fourth goal, from Mark Streit of Englisberg, Switzerland, and Maxim Lapierre from Saint-Leonard, Quebec. How perfect.
As Bruins coach Cluade Julien suggested after the first period, Boston appeared a lot more nervous than Montreal. They made mistakes early and it cost them dearly. They also missed the injured Patrice Bergeron whose offensive skills could have been useful in Game 1.
Because of that, I’m still not sure Montreal will sweep this series. But I don’t believe for one second it’s going to last very long.
Regardless of where these guys came from, ‘le bleu, blanc et rouge,’ is a very, very good hockey team. They also played a lot tougher than many of us expected.
Here’s to Montreal and to its interesting and diverse hockey team – a team that just might restore the glory.