100th home opener

1. thursday night was the habs' 100th home opener, and the 26th i've existed for, and the 18th or so i've cared about, and i didn't see it because i was working. infact, i haven't seen any games in their entirety except for the road loss v. calgary, which (apparently) is the best game we've played.

i like that the players introduced themselves (in french!) we are in the future, where americans and slovacs and anglo canadians all speak polite french. let the simple verbs fly.

most of the gillet-era ceremonies were incredibly long but wonderfully entertaining. there were neat-o projections on the ice and short films about habs glory and immortal legends of days long passed, and nice speeches by inductees and buddies or what-not. the fact that the game later played (sometimes, quite later) was always dull and instantly forgettable doesn't seem to bother any fans, who smile and laugh and twirl their commemerative beer-sponsored pennant around their fingers as they cue for the metro, the trains and the buses. and the truth is the habs could retire another half dozen numbers quite easily, almost instantly. how will the new-molson-era be different then than our former smiley skier billionaire puppetmaster.

anyhow, retirement ceremonies aren't home-openers. i would like a big homecoming party, will tailgaiting and a big screen set up outside and bad bands and all that shit, to accompany the home-opener. why don't we do that? that would be so nice.

going to a canadiens game and shopping at an expensive boutique are not as dissimilar as most fans would like to believe.