Go Habs Go!

Thursday 5/20:
The Toronto event went much smoother, but Montreal was still good and far from disaster. Lots of things went wrong, but in the end we pulled it off. There was a wealth management event going on as well, so it was very crowded. I stuck with Kurt and Gene again, and had a few fascinating discussions and a few stinkers.
At one point during a break, one of the engineers showed us his Montreal Canadiens playoff ticket for tonight. He bought it off a scalper for $225. I was jealous, but there was no way I was paying that much. Luckily, Dean later showed up and said he found tickets for 100 each on Stub Hub. They were kind of in a nosebleed section, but I leapt at the chance. How often am I going to be in a city with playoff hockey and be able to go to a game?!
I finished all my duties, helped pack up, then raced back to my hotel to quickly change and grab my camera for the game. I met back up with Dean at the Fairmont Queen E,and we were off. It was just a short few blocks down the road.
When we picked up our tickets, we were offered a free upgrade to the $190 seats for no reason. How cool!
The center is neat. Outside the main entrance it has statues of all the great Montreal players throughout the years.

I don't even know how to describe the game. It was such an incredible experience from start to finish. Both national anthems were played by a small group from the Montreal Symphony, without any singer. It quickly became apparent why no singer was needed. The entire stadium erupted into O' Canada. I've never seen anything like it, it was extremely powerful. The closest thing I've ever seen resemble the experience of the crowd was the Ohio St vs Penn St game at Penn St I went to a few years ago, but it didn't really come close. The promo was a towel, and most of the game you could look out into the stands and just see a blanket of white with the Canadiens logo twirling around. It didn't take long for us to join into the cheering.
I had an overprice hotdog, split the cost of 4 beers each with Dean, shared his popcorn, and bought 2 donuts randomly on a bathroom break.
I'm so glad the Canadiens won 5-1. It was such a fantastic feeling to experience the home team winning a playoff game. This was also my first NHL game. It's going to be hard to top that! I'm officially a Canadiens fan now.
I texted Gregg a few times during the game to rub it in. It's too bad the Bruins blew the series against Philly or else I would have had a chance to see them play.
I looked into prices for game 4 on Saturday, but since they won and the series is now 2-1 Philly, the tickets jumped in price to $300, so sadly I will not be experiencing the incredible crowd again.
Walking back to my hotel after the game was also fun. Lots of horn honking and cheering, the whole city was just loud! What an atmosphere! My voice is sore from all the cheering