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MONTREAL — The commute for Montreal Canadiens head coach Guy Carbonneau from his west-end home to the Bell Centre takes 45 minutes.
Along the way, he encounters plenty of well-wishers. "I get honked at 150 times," he said on the eve of his team's first-round playoff series against the Boston Bruins.
To say the city of Montreal adores its Canadiens and has ratcheted that affection to a new level this season would be to state the obvious. That's why Carbonneau has his players sequestered in a downtown hotel for home games as the storied franchise takes a run at a 25th Stanley Cup championship.
"Everything you try to do in the playoffs, you do to keep the team together," the coach said. "We have a young team and there are a lot of distractions here. The city is excited."
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- Roman Hamrlik
- Christopher Higgins
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The buzz has been an eye-opening experience for young Canadiens players such as rookie goaltender Carey Price as well as veterans such as Alex Kovalev and Roman Hamrlik. Hamrlik had tours of duty with the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames, and he opined that nothing can top the craziness of the Montreal fans this season.
Kovalev thought he experienced the pinnacle of passionate fandom with the 1993-94 New York Rangers when they won the Stanley Cup to end a 52-year title drought. But then he was subjected to Montreal. The experience has been so moving this season that he persuaded his 68-year-old father, Viacheslav, to visit Canada for the first time.
"In the beginning, he didn't want to come," said Kovalev, whose father arrived a week ago. "He blamed old age and didn't want to travel the distance. This conversation started five months ago. I was hoping he would come in the regular season and eventually he did come in. I was so happy that he did.
"This is something different than he saw in Pittsburgh [where Kovalev also played] and in New York. It was something he should see. I was happy he could see the final two games of the regular season and the crowds here."
Now Kovalev's father will stay until the end. "He more excited than I am," said the son, who went on to relay a story about how his father has been drawing diagrams of plays during downtimes at home and saying, "Why don't you try this?"
Canadiens assistant coach Kirk Muller experienced the buzz in Montreal as a player when the Habs last won the Stanley Cup, in 1993. But he admits the atmosphere is even better 15 years later. Muller reasoned that the Bell Centre's capacity crowds of 21,273 have enlisted a new generation of Canadiens fanatics.
"The new arena is more exciting than ever because I think there is a new generation of fans," Muller said. "It's been 15 years here since we won. This is their team. The same thing happened in Calgary and Edmonton in their playoff runs [in 2004 and 2006, respectively], but to experience this — and the playoffs haven't even started yet — is something else.
"You used to see people in shirts and ties in the Forum, but now you see 40-year-olds wearing a Canadiens sweater dancing in the aisles. I'm biased, but it's the most exciting place to play."
Montreal's 27-goal scorer Christopher Higgins agrees. He was raised on Long Island and often made pilgrimages to Nassau Coliseum to watch New York Islanders games, long after the club's dynasty days in the early 1980s. Now the Coliseum is referred to as the mausoleum. He describes the Bell Centre environs as "electrifying."
"The fans are excited and the city has come alive with what we were able to accomplish in the regular season and it will only magnify in the playoffs," said Higgins, who was asked what it is like for him when he's out shopping or having dinner.
"There's a lot of back-patting going on, that's for sure. A lot of the people criticizing us last year are the same people who are patting us on the back this year. We understand that's the kind of city it is. They expect the best. Everybody is excited, but no more than the people in this [dressing] room."
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