Marc and Stefan's Venture to the Bell Centre

Monday morning, a good buddy of mine (Marc, a creature also commonly referred to as a Senators fan) and I saddled up and drove the 200km's northeast to the Bell Centre for the Habs game against Ottawa. First, a little background. My friend had never been to a game outside the confines of Ottawa, be it the Civic Centre or Corel Centre, Paladium, Scotiabank Place whatever they call it this year. I have been to the Bell Centre on numerous occasions, as well as every other arena in the Northeast Division save for Boston.

I'm always excited to show off the pride of Habs fans, which is a home game in our cathedral. Upon explaining some Habs grammar to my buddy, such as "Les Canadiens" when referred to as the franchise as a whole are known as "Le Canadien", and our jersey being known as "Le Sainte Flannelle" (The Holy Flannel), we were ready to embark towards the beauty on De Le Gauchetiere.

So you know what means, pre-drinking on the Metro:

Upon our arrival, I had to let him in on what it's like to sit down in the 100 level. I found an usher kind enough to allow us in to take a picture, momentarily ignoring the absolutlely ridiculous policy of 100 level ticket holders ONLY being allowed down there, EVER.

Once the lights when down for the intro with 13 minutes to puck drop, it's game time. Anybody who's a Habs regular knows the feeling. After watching the numerous intro videos on the glorious monstrousity of a new HD scoreboard, the Habs came out onto the ice in their always-intimidating intro to the background of a not intimidating in the least band, Coldplay. Once it was time to award Patty "The Breeze" Brisebois with his silver stick for his 1000 games, presented by none other than Henri "Pocket Rocket" Richard to the usual plentiful standing ovation, Marc leans to me and says "Shit, this place is loud." You're telling me?

When we sat in our seats, much to the delight of Marc was a large native man attired in a Wade "Cokehead" Redden Senators jersey. It was their old goofey (but not goofier than the current) third jersey. So Marc figures he's got support nearby, which is a bonus. Turns out the moron is a Habs fan wearing a Senators jersey? What a cross-dresser. I hope to god the guy wasn't wearing women's undies too. But ya, he wins tool of the game - easily.

Well him, and Mikhail Grabovski for ruining the Habs offensive game completely with the removal of Andrei Markov from our lineup. But that's another story (see story above...). All in all, a great time was had and I hope I showed the Bell Centre proud to my guest.

The greatest compliment I was paid was when Marc told me Habs goals were "one of the most intimidating experiences ever". His words couldn't be true enough, it's always fun to watch your team on the road in a good environment, but when that team happens to have good fans it can be quite the experience seeing your team get scored on, in any sport. Being used to games in Toronto and Ottawa, where you're lucky if three out of every four fans stands to cheer for a home team goal, the Bell Centre can be quite a culture-shock.

I almost forgot to mention our seats were sick (view pictured above), we sat in row CC whites which is the third row of the upper level balcony. The Bell Centre has very steep seating and as a result, it feels like you're almost sitting on top of the play. It's a great way to take in a game.

Anyways, other than the Habs 38 second brain fart which saw Jailbird Heatley score twice for the tying and winning goal, it was a great time. I look forward to doing it again.

Go Habs Go.