Tonight I watched a game that made my heart pound hard and frequently inside my chest. Tonight I watched the Habs BEAT OUT the Penguins (last year's Stanley Cup winners) 5-2, once again beating all possible odds! Tonight I sat with my parents and watched a GREAT game of hockey!

Look, I come from the country that invented hockey! And I get that if you aren't well-versed in the hockey world, it might seem ridiculously over-the-top for anyone to care this much about a bunch of guys who pass a puck around the ice with their sticks. I get that it can seem pointless to give a shit about this kind of thing, especially if you aren't into hockey or sports. But there's a kind of fever that takes over Montreal when something like this happens. And I think you really need to experience it!

Montreal hockey fans are fucking crazy, okay? I know that. I know tomorrow you're gonna read in your newspaper, or on Google news or whatever, that things got out of hand and riots broke out here in the city over the win. But those are a handful of assholes and some people who like to jump on the bandwagon of "Let's Destroy Cop Cars and Bust in Windows and Steal Shit", and not genuine, happy-about-the-outcome Habs fans. The majority of us are just fucking STOKED that we're entering into the Eastern Conference finals. We honk our horns at each other as we drive through the city, we shout at each other from across the street, we raise our drinks in toast and chant and cheer and jump to our feet and go NUTS because we're almost there. You have to understand that for a city that has been home to a hockey team for just over 100 years; for a team that has won 24 Stanley Cups in that time (more than any other league in the business), this is HUGE. For the first time since 1993, we just might do this! This could be our 25th Cup!

Tonight the Montreal Canadiens trounced the Pittsburgh Penguins in an incredible game of hockey, a feat NO ONE THOUGHT WE COULD PULL OFF. So, yeah, we're gonna celebrate! Why? Because we deserve to. This is important to us. And you may not get it; you may think it's stupid, but the truth of the matter is that this is a huge part of Canadian culture, and of Montreal, Quebec culture especially. This matters.

So, whatever the outcome of this playoff season, holy fuck am I glad I live in Montreal -- a city that is PASSIONATE about our sport!

Tonight's a good night!

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"We lived in three places - the school, the church and the skating rink - but our real life was on the skating rink."/"Nous vivions en trois lieux : l’école, l’église et la patinoire; mais la vraie vie était sur la patinoire."

The Hockey Sweater/Le Chandail de hockey, Roch Carrier