Go Habs Go!

We're leaving Montreal in November, so we thought a great way to bid the city farewell would be to attend a sermon at the Church of Bell, enjoying Canada's national religion-ice hockey. I don't know if its the price of merchandise, but here you see many more ice hockey team t-shirt, jacket and hats per person than rugby in New Zealand. They are devout here.

Violence in ice hockey and enforcers
I find the violence in ice hockey intriguing. The Canadians are such a friendly and peaceful bunch (especially compared to some neighbours), but by my understanding, the discussion on eliminating fighting in hockey to bring the sport into the modern age, is mostly dismissed. "Fighting is an established tradition of ice hockey in North America, with a long history in both amateur and professional play." I think I like this, both because it feels ridiculous, and as fights only happen when two people consent to it ("enforcers"), why not.

Enforcers explained: Imagine, for arguments sake, the first game of hockey. Some players are better than others, thus pose a bigger threat to the other team. As a response, in the next game, each team assigns one player the job to take out the other teams leading player. In the following game, each team assigns another player to defend against the players trying to target their lead player. From my understanding, this is kind of the evolution/justification for existence of the enforcers (a kind of escalating arms race). The ultimate result is mostly safe star players, and constant fighting between enforcers (who are kind of playing two games at once). Brilliant.

The Habs
Montreal's hockey team (or sect of the religion) are the "Canadiens". Their nickname is Les Habitants or the Habitants (of Montreal). For a while I thought both their name, and nickname, were embarrassingly unimaginative. But then I read this (from Wikipedia, bold mine):

They have won more Stanley Cups (24, the first in 1916, before the NHL existed) than any other NHL team.^[1] On a percentage basis, as of 2006, this makes them the third most historically successful major pro sports team in North America, having won 25% of all NHL/NHA Stanley Cup championships. Only the Boston Celtics of the NBA (26.2%) and the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (25.2%) have higher success rates.

If you're that successful, you can call yourself what ever you like. My feelings are now that their names are awesomely unimaginative (although, they haven't actually won since 92-93, and up until the game, I hadn't heard many good things said about them on sports shows).

Because they heard we were coming, the Habs pulled out all the stops. While no big fights unfolded, they hammered the Boston Bruins 6-1.