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| The Bell Centre, 7 hours before puck drop After months of planning, booking flights, booking hotels and being pumped up, this past Thursday, I finally departed for Montreal, with the goal of seeing my first Ranger/Habs game at the Bell Center. I went with one of my long time friends Ray (@borgataray on the twitter) and one of my friends who is huge blueshirt diehard and hates social media, a fine young man that we call Tommy. The three of us were foreigners in a different land. While Canada has always been an ally of America, Quebec, the province that hosts Montreal, is in its own different world.
With gameday on Saturday, the three of us had time to explore one of Canada’s greatest cities. What many people might not know is that Quebec wanted to secede from Canada and become its own country. Quebec, with Montreal being its capital, embraces French as the official language, where everywhere else in Canada, English is the official language.
Unfortunately, a national tragedy occurred in Canada the day of my trip, as a Canadian soldier was killed by a low life disgusting cowardly Isis scumbag in the nations capital of Ottawa. What I did enjoy about my trip in Canada was learning Canada’s history. For instance, the reason Montreal or Toronto, the two biggest Canadian cities are not the capital of Canada is because back in the old days, Canada would be attacked by the English or the Indians. Canadians made Ottawa the capital because it was more inland and harder to get to. Cities more coastal would be attacked and Canada did not want to risk a major attack on their capital.
The Ottawa tragedy would play later on into our trip. Where English speaking Canadians were friendly and embraced us coming up for the game, the snooty French Frog Fuckers gave us looks of disdain, spoke about us behind our backs in French and were generally just miserable people. However, I have to give a shout out to Marcos, the bartender at Bier Markt, right outside the Bell Center. We visited his bar three times during our trip because it was the best bar around. His hospitality and conversation won’t be forgotten. Thanks for the round trip flights of beer!
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| I would’ve loved to punch some Isis & French Fucks too!
After exploring the “Little Ireland’ section of Montreal on Thursday night, where we found out real quick that the beer was stronger and bigger than in the States, we had to take a look at what one of the things Montreal was known for, its strip clubs. Not being a big strip club guy, as I think it’s all a work, but not one to miss out on a male bonding experience, I visited one of the many strip clubs that littered St. Catherine’s Street. While in there I also noticed that despite the free health care, Canadian women, or at least the ones that ply their trade in nudity, don’t really have one hell of a dental plan. Either that, or they play hockey when they are not asking for $1 Canadian coins.
On Friday, we did some sight seeing, as we took in Old Montreal. We also took in the Casino, which took about $250 from Ray and myself. I guess some things never change, but we had fun doing it. However, it was the worst casino I’ve ever been to. Too small, no energy and worst of all, no free drinks. I’ve been to casinos in Oklahoma where you had to pay for the right to play blackjack (25 cents a hand), but at least you got a Heineken for your trouble. I will say, the $10 Bloody Mary I had while playing was the best bloody mary I’ve had in a long time.
Old Montreal also hosts some interesting architecture if you’re into that. Not only is Olympic Stadium and Notre Dame Basilica there, Old Montreal hosts some building that was built in the 60s, that was supposed to be the future of condos, but wound up looking like a Jenga project.
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| At least you can’t miss the place when looking for it
After sight seeing, we tried out the national dish of Montreal, this cheesy-curdy gravy contraption over fries called poutine. It tasted like horse shit. I should state, I’ve never consumed horse shit before, but I can’t imagine it being any worse than this. It just looked like yeast infected french fries. These French fucks loved it though, as everywhere we went, people were shoveling this shit down their mouths. They were eating this crap so fast, they had to lift up their snobby noses just to make more room to throw this poutine stuff down their gullet.
The real highlight of Friday, was going to this Brazilian Rodizio steakhouse, called “La Milsa”. The three of us chowed down on steaks, pulled pork, turkey-bacon (I can still taste it), lamb, roast beef and any other animal these Brazilians could kill. We went back to our room to decompress and hoping to shit our brains out, because after that meal, we couldn’t move.
La Milsa claimed one victim, as Ray could not do anything for the rest of the night. Sharing a room with Tommy, we decided it was time to go back out and let our room air out, as there was more gas in our room than a Nazi shower. (Relax, it happened 70 years ago, it’s ok to make jokes.) After cracking open all the windows, it was time to explore the town again.
We decided to bar-hop around St. Catherine street. After a few Carlsbergs, we made our way to a place called “Charlie’s American Pub”, which looked like an American dive outside and was one inside. Finally, home sweet home! That was until the bartender revealed she was a Habs fan and wasn’t a fan of us in our Ranger gear. Making matters hairy was that there were 6 Samoan looking motherfuckers, drunk and blitzed out of their gourd. They were staring angrily at us and speaking something in their loser language about us. It was time to make a decision.
Let me reiterate, I believe in fighting when the situation calls for it. Someone hits a kid. Someone shoves you first. Someone tries to rob you. But my philosophy on fighting over sports is an easy one. Athletes aren’t fighting over my job, I’m not fighting over theirs. I’ve witnessed many bar fights over Yankee/Mets, Ranger/Islanders, Jets/Giants and every time, both people are retarded. Derek Jeter & Mike Piazza never slugged it out over the death over your crappy job and after they were finished at work, they shook hands. So yea, I’m not one to fight over sports, unless it is verbally.
So these Samoan french fuckers were chomping at the bit to go. We were drinking warm shitty beer in this place, and despite being called an American bar, the place was full of these floppy headed Canadians. (South Park reference anyone?) So I had to pull the veteran move. I put a cigarette in my mouth (Who said smoking kills?) and said I’d be right back. These no-smoking in bars law saved us what could’ve been a situation. We went up for a smoke, and kept it moving.
Now you might say that’s a pussy move, but 6 vs 2 in a foreign land while I’m on vacation? If you want that fight, I’m sure those people are still there. Enjoy.
Laughing at the stupidity of people, young Thomas and myself kept it cruising along. It was at this time where we saw a black pimp smacking the shit out of his white hooker. Now where we were was on the biggest street in Montreal. Just imagine being in Canada’s Times Square. Everyone was watching this black surly malcontent slapping this trashy methy white girl. I couldn’t understand what they were saying due to them speaking that French shit, but I understand what punching a woman is. A group ahead of us went to break it up, but got swung at for their troubles. Everyone just gawked and watched. There is no police presence in Montreal, as this went on for 5 minutes and not one siren or cop. Maybe they were at the local Tim Horton’s.
While this was going on, across the street a gaggle of teenagers were going at it as well. The drinking age is 18, so you can imagine what that was like. I should also mention that several black men kept trying to sell cocaine to us as we walked around St. Catherine’s Street, which just smelt like Willie Nelson, all the time.
Not wanting to get a second hand high or purchase any French cocaine, considering that both of us are union guys, don’t do drugs and get drug tested at work, we decided it was time to wrap it up, get a good night’s sleep and get ready for RANGERS HOCKEY.
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| The boys during warm-ups
Finally it was Saturday, game-day! The town was abuzz as every bar, restaurant and street was full of people in Habs gear. We saw several people wearing Ranger apparel and swapped stories about our time in French land. Since we were up early, we decided to check out the Bell Center, which was conveniently a block’s walk away from our hotel. We visited the Montreal Canadiens museum, which for Ranger fans, picture RANGERSTOWN during last year’s playoffs on super-duper jacked out of this world steroids. The place was amazing & I’m glad I had the opportunity to check it out.
After killing some time in Bier Markt, it was time to head into the Bell Center. Several razzes went on, the best one was some 2 toothed scalper telling me it wasn’t Halloween, as I was wearing my Jeff Beukeboom jersey. Ironically enough, for 4 Halloween’s in a row, I wore a Ranger jersey & said I was a Ranger for Halloween. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Walking into the Bell Center was an amazing experience. This mecca of hockey is about 1.5 bigger than MSG. The history of the franchise is plastered all over the place. It is just something every hockey fan should do. The place lived up to it’s billing. Even better, our seats were 2 rows off the ice and we were enthralled during every minute of our experience.
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| Marty practicing his signature shot from the circle
Watching pre-game warm-ups was an experience as we got to watch every player practice their moves. We were sitting where Lundqvist would defend twice, so we got to see the Rangers practice on our end.
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| Hank, not realizing how his defense would let him down ever so quickly
Due to the tragedy in Ottawa, the NHL did this cool thing for all games played in Canada. The scoreboard showed us a live feed of the Devils-Senators game. From there, they had a ceremony and did both the US & Canadian national anthem there. It was a really surreal and important experience that I was glad to be a part of.
The game eventually started, and if you’re a Ranger fan, you know what happened. Cary Price was just unbelievable, stoning two sure-fire goals, where the Rangers defense let Henry down & Henry couldn’t make a play. It sucked to hear shit from Habs fan while the Rangers were playing one of their dump-in-the-pants games. I mean, they couldn’t extend this win streak to 4? It was a great time, even if the score left me sore and sour.
I’m not worried about the Rangers this season. Only the Islander fans, who come out of hibernation from their April-October slumber talk about Ranger losses with such fervor. Rangers will work it out and they will be in the playoffs again. I would’ve liked to see two points to make my trip to Montreal perfect, but what can you do?
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| The Montreal Wreckin’ Crew, before we were watching clips of Tony Soprano getting his weasel greased!
After the game, the trip was approaching its fast end. As I write you this now, I’m back home and debating if I should go see the Rangers play the Wild tonight. Games may come and go, but experiences like this last a life-time. I’m ecstatic to have finally gone to the mecca of hockey, French Frog Fucks and all.
LET’S GO RANGERS!
And Jet fans, I’ll leave you alone today during your period of mourning.
Sean McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com
NYCTheMiC on the twitter
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