My first visit to the Montreal Forum

As young as I could remember, my dad and I would sit down every Saturday night to watch the Montreal Canadiens play on Hockey Night in Canada. My dad was a diehard Habs fan. I think it was one of his missions in life to make me a Habs fan too. He would always tell me stories about all the Stanley Cups the Canadiens won in the historic Montreal Forum. He told me about the amazing experience he had when he saw his first game at the Forum and he promised to take me there someday. Unfortunately, due to his illness, he wasn’t able to fulfill that promise. But my uncle, his brother, stepped in for him.

I’ll never forget it. It was January 29, 1993. The Montreal Canadiens were playing the Philadelphia Flyers. I remember the walk to the Forum. It was very cold and Montreal got slammed with a snow storm that weekend, which made traveling around pretty messy. The roads were full of snow and ice. However, this wasn’t going to stop me, my uncle and 19,000 other fans from packing the Forum. I remember hearing fans outside the arena chanting “Go Habs Go! Go Habs Go!” The atmosphere was electric. There was truly a buzz in the air. We waited in line for quite a while to get into the arena, but it was worth the wait.

It was like a dream come true walking through the Forum doors, seeing pictures of famous Canadiens players of years past, like Guy Lafleur, Jean Beliveau and my dad’s favorite Maurice “The Rocket” Richard. I honestly thought that I’d died and gone to heaven. I could feel the presence of those famous Forum ghosts. I thought the fans were loud on the walk to the Forum, but you should have heard them in the arena. People were yelling “Habs rule!” “Canadiens are number one!” Some of them even started the “Ole Ole Ole” chant. I was loving it. Hearing everyone’s excitement sent chills down me spine.

After soaking in the atmosphere for a while, my uncle took me to the canteen before we went to our seats. He swore by the famous Montreal smoked meat sandwiches. He was right. After taking my first bite, I knew that it was the best smoked meat sandwich I had ever eaten (even though it was my first ever). But enough about the sandwiches, I wanted to get to my seat for the warm-up.

My uncle and I had seats behind the goal that the Canadiens were going to defend twice. The warm-up was awesome to watch. There I could see Patrick Roy getting ready for the big game, doing all he could to stop every puck that was fired at him. His teammates were peppering him with shots.

All of sudden, some Flyers fans came and sat in front of us. Let me tell you, I wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing a Flyers jersey in there. The Flyers fans were being abused. Canadiens fans were booing and taunting them from the moment they sat down. They were yelling out “Flyers suck!” “Lindros is a bum!” (Along with other profanities that I won’t mention). I could hear my uncle laughing hysterically at them and I didn’t know what to think. I kind of felt bad for them at first, but then I started to get hungry again because I could smell the buttery popcorn that the people sitting next to us had. Man, they were wolfing it down. It looked like they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

Anyways, back to the game. Most of it was a blur for me. I think that I was too caught up in the atmosphere of the building. I was still waiting for someone to pinch me. All I remember is my uncle giving me a big hug because the Canadiens had scored the winning goal in overtime. I was going home to Halifax a happy boy.

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to watch my Montreal Canadiens play in the historical Montreal Forum, especially since they moved into a new building shortly after.

Like my father, now I have a story to pass on to my future children – about the time I went to my first ever Montreal Canadiens game.