Centennial celebration reminds me why I loved hockey, Habs in first place
Burnside Video Blog: 100th Home Opener In Montreal
We lived in northern Ontario when I was a small boy. My parents farmed in an area known as the Clay Belt, and it was a tough go for them. Short growing season. Long brutal winters. It wasn't all that uncommon to have snow on the ground on my birthday in May.
From our porch, looking across Lake Temiscaming, you could see the lights of Ville Marie, Quebec. Maybe it was the notion of a different province, one where they spoke French, that captured my imagination. Maybe it was just that my father, who grew up in rural eastern Ontario, was a die-hard Toronto Maple Leafs fan.
But I fell in love with the Montreal Canadiens.
We had a table hockey game with the old metal men. Naturally, the two teams were Montreal and Toronto. Sometimes, we used a marble; other times, we used the black wooden puck that came with the game. We played for hours, my father sitting on a chair while I stood so I could better manipulate the metal rods that directed the players.
My father never let me win, which was just fine with me, even though I know my mother quietly scolded him.
In the spring of 1971, I turned 8 and had a sense of the magic that was Montreal's upset of the powerful Boston Bruins with young Ken Dryden in goal.
Even though I did not yet own a pair of skates, I immediately adopted Dryden's casual pose, resting my chin on my stick when playing hockey in the house or driveway. I dreamed, briefly, of becoming a goaltender, thanks to Dryden's coolness, an experiment that was mercifully short.
We moved to southern Ontario that spring, and I watched with my father the next fall as Canada and the Russians squared off in the Summit Series. I recall my uncle throwing his slipper at the television when the Russians routed Canada in the first game of the series at the Forum.
Those were good times to be a Canadiens fan. I began actually playing hockey -- not well, but playing -- and my love of the Canadiens seemed to become part of my identity. Although most of my friends were Toronto fans, I lorded over them the Habs' success and the Leafs' ineptitude. It was a particularly unpleasant trait I would carry well into adulthood.
I recall weeping when the Canadiens were eliminated from the playoffs and waking up the next morning hoping I had imagined the whole thing.
Near our home, there was a cement pad where an old building once stood. My brother and I would play, taking out a tattered old net and a tennis ball that had grown bald from use (don't ask me where we actually got a tennis ball). Sometimes, I would go out myself, chasing the tennis ball around with a hockey stick sporting a blade that had been worn to a sharp sliver from use. I provided my own commentary. I was always a Hab playing with Yvan Cournoyer and Guy Lafleur and Maurice Richard. And we never lost.
I went to university in Ottawa, and among my friends was a Quebec native named Steve Coughlin, who ended up working as a representative of Molson brewery, which, for many years, owned the Canadiens. It was Steve who arranged for my first visit to the Forum. I remember it was a midseason game against the New York Rangers. I remember the excitement of going, and I kept the ticket stub for a long time. But, strangely, I remember little of the game itself. Maybe I was trying to drink too much of it in. Maybe it was the quart bottles of beer. Steve died of cancer a couple of years after we graduated.
Although I was allegedly an adult, and a working one at that, my friends were often reticent to join me when I suggested going out to watch a Canadiens game. This was especially true in the playoffs. They knew I would be impossible until the game was over, often hurling obscenities at the television, berating officials, and bemoaning missed chances or chances given up. That kind of behavior is always attractive no matter where you see it, so often I would end up watching alone or simply staying in.
During the 1993 Cup finals, I recall commandeering a TV screen in a corner of a bar in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., where my sister and brother-in-law lived at the time. It was a college town, so the hockey game was a low priority; but it was there that I watched with dread as the Los Angeles Kings prepared to take a 2-0 series lead. Dread turned to jubilation in a matter of moments, though, as Marty McSorley was whistled for an illegal stick, setting the stage for Eric Desjardins to tie the score and then win in overtime.
Later in the series, I would watch with equal disbelief as Patrick Roy gave a sly wink to Tomas Sandstrom, and I asked out loud, "Did you just see that?!"
In the late 1990s, I left the "hard news" business to become a sports writer and, after that, became simply a hockey writer. My view of the world is narrow but pleasing. I wondered whether it would become difficult to put aside the part of me that had felt so strongly about the sport in general, and the Canadiens in particular, but it was surprisingly easy.
I run across figures from my childhood days every now and again.
I had the privilege of spending the day with Scotty Bowman and his family when he hosted the Stanley Cup this summer. One of the highlights of the day was Bowman's generous tour of his museumlike basement.
I try to get Ken Dryden on the phone every once in a while, although it's much more difficult now that he's a politico and not a hockey guy anymore.
I spent some time with Roy in Quebec City shortly before his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
I am neither spellbound nor particularly jaded about all of that.
That I am no longer the boy who lived and breathed the Canadiens isn't surprising. What is it they say about putting aside things of childhood? That's not to say that the memories of those days, those emotions, are any less strong all these years later.
They remain vivid parts not just of my past but of my identity.
Scott Burnside covers the NHL for ESPN.com.
