Game #84- Montreal Canadiens

Montreal Canadiens vs. Los Angeles Kings Bell Center (or Centre Bell if you like) December 12, 2014 What a great week in Canada. Knowing full well the weather wouldn’t be perfect, under the circumstances it could have been a lot worse. Montreal got about a foot of snow while I was in town, and besides getting completely lost leaving the metro while trying to find my hotel, the white stuff didn’t bother me too much. I just drove back from Ottawa last night where the Kings put away the Senators and I was hoping for much of the same tonight…too bad that didn’t happen. I started the night off early because I needed to return my rental car which happened to be a block from the stadium. I had several hours to kill before the puck was dropped and I didn’t want to drink since I had a really long day of travel on Saturday, so I decided to go to the Canadiens Hall of Fame. The first person that greeted me, the ticket taker, saw my old school Kings jersey and gave me a big thumbs down sign. In fact three people that worked there did the same thing until I walked by and they saw it was a Dionne sweater, then they screamed “Marcel! OK, OK, good!”. I guess I can’t complain about that, Dionne was and is a legend in French Canada. The hall of fame was cool, lots of old memorabilia ranging from jerseys, skates, pads, sticks and trophies. They put together a life size replica of the old Montreal Stadium locker room, had very early hockey cards dating back to the teens, and had a life size statue of Maurice “The Rocket” Richard. This was a good way to waste about an hour, stay out of the cold snow, and get me closer to game time. To be completely honest, I was expecting much more from the Bell Center. With so much history, the most celebrated team in the NHL, I really thought the city would go all out. In fact, it felt really old in the way it was set up. Yes the rafters were filled with retired jerseys and past Stanley Cup Championships, but just like the Saddle Dome in Calgary they have the announcers in a catwalk that completely blocks the scoreboard for the upper deck areas. You almost feel like you are watching the game on TV rather than being there in person. The only pleasure I got from my seat was the fact that I saw Bob Miller and screamed his name. He looked around a bit, I yelled again and when he found me he gave a great big thumbs up. I love that guy. Game time…it was rough. The Kings looked tired from last nights game. Quick couldn’t go back to back in goal and Martin Jones played really bad. Combine that with a very talented Montreal team lead by superstar PK Subban, and Carey Price who was a stellar in net, we had no chance. Three of the Canadien goals were cross ice passes that were slapped in perfectly, nothing Jones could have done, but Quick being the better goaltender might have had a chance at the saves. Before I knew it the game was over and Montreal won 6-2. A good experience, but the best way to describe Canadien fans…at least on a Friday night game…is drunk Boston Redsox fans times three. They were nuts!