Lessons in Life at the Habs Game
As should have become apparent through other stories posted here in the past, Habs games at the Bell Center equal damaging, destructive drinking nights for myself and whoever else is involved. This Saturday night in early January would be no different as BrownTown and I had tickets to watch our beloved Canadiens play those shit shoveling Bruins. It was very much the alcohol riddled disaster we’d knew it’d be, but this time we’d leave with a valuable lesson learned in sport.
We headed downtown about an hour before the game. I was driving and BrownTown was swigging some rum and coke from a water bottle I had supplied him. We parked downtown, finished the rum and made our way to the Esso across the street from the Bell Center for a king can of beer before the game. It is imperative to do this if you wish to curb the amount of 10$ Molson Ex you consume inside.
At the Esso, we bumped into Samu, an old buddy from high school. He was dressed up like a Habs player. He had the blue player helmet, red jersey, blue shorts and the red socks. He looked phenomenal. He was with a few guys I had played ball hockey with a few summers ago and they all had the same idea as we did; king can chugging.
When we were finished, we went inside, took our seats in the Molson Ex Zone (party town at the Bell Center) and kept on ordering beers. The game was tied 0-0 after the first and I got a text message from Samu saying “Esso beers?” Yes. Yes indeed.
Back at the Esso we chugged another round of Heineken king cans in about 10 minutes before heading back to our seats, where we ordered a few more rounds of beer. Boston scored two in that period and we were playing like shit. BrownTown looked like shit by the time we had to go meet Samu and the boys by the stairs for round 3.
For drunken competitive reasons, we all decided to run down the Bell Center stairs as quickly as possible. For reasons I can completely understand, Samu decided he could leap an entire flight of stairs to gain the necessary edge to win the race. It was a tragic decision. He somehow turned sideways while airborne and smashed into the metal railing at the bottom of the stairs. His helmet flew off, but not before it prevented his head from splitting open after the sickening noise it made as he crashed into the railing.
Samu was lying on the ground giggling in pain as we all stood around him genuinely worried. The amount of alcohol consumed and the helmet surely kept his spirits up.
At the Esso, BrownTown settled for a regular sized beer while I continued on the king can train. He had apparently aggravated an old knee injury during our race and had drank too much over the course of the night, with little to no food eaten prior. We finished our last beers and were headed back to the arena when BrownTown shouted he needed to puke and ran towards the hockey memorial to unleash hell.
There’s an area of the Bell Center, outdoors, called Centennial Plaza. There’s monuments of our past hockey legends and smaller pillars with all the retired players numbers off to the side. BrownTown was going warp speed towards those pillars and I knew he was ready to blow.
He ran to one and I shouted, “JESUS NO! NOT ON MAURICE!”
Maurice Richard is arguably the most legendary and special player of the bunch, due to his exploits on the ice and what he meant to a prominently French populace in the 1950’s and 60’s off the ice.
So, instead he yacked on, and next to, Doug Harvey’s pillar. Twice.
Once done, we went back inside and watched most of the rest of the game. He ordered a beer, which I drank, and declared he needed to go for a squirt after most of the game had passed. There was a little over 3 minutes left in the game, it was still 2-0 Boston and it didn’t look like much was going to happen.
We went to the washroom then left through the backdoor. It was then I got a text from this girl we were meeting after about how crazy this game was. What the fuck? She lived in Toronto but I always thought she was a Habs fan, not a Bruins fan. Then it hit me. I told BrownTown to check the score on his Blackberry immediately.
Sure enough, the Habs had scored 2 goals with under 3 minutes left to force overtime. Son of a bitch-bastard! We ran to the front of the arena and tried desperately to get back in. They refused and BrownTown lost his shit on the security guard, swearing and slapping doors and such. While trying to calm him down I heard the crowd erupt and knew we had won the game. I pulled him out of there into the street and started asking people coming out who had scored so we could cover our asses. We were those guys, the assholes who left early. It fucking sucked.
Stacy and her fiancé met us outside and were obviously thrilled with the game. Who wouldn’t be? We lied and said it was truly the greatest game we’d seen in a while. We all headed up the street to Ye Olde Orchard pub for a few pints, then off to Mad Hatters for some more. By the time it was 2am, we were both hammered and went back to the car.
BrownTown was a brand new member of 0.08 which is a taxi service for drunks where someone comes to pick you up and drives you home in your own car for a fee, which is substantially cheaper than the 60$ taxi home.
So we waited for this guy, me passed out in the drivers’ seat and BrownTown next to me. When the 0.08 guy showed up, I immediately got out, opened the back door and dove into the backseat to continue my slumber. He asked BrownTown if I was alright. BrownTown told him to ignore me. We got to BrownTown’s and immediately went to bed.
The next morning was shit. I was completely hung over but worse, I felt like the biggest dick for leaving that game when I did. What kind of rat-bag asshole prick leaves when his beloved team has the opportunity to win? Me. And my little Guyanese accomplice. That’s the fucking lesson through all this dribble. Stay until the end of the game, you never know what could happen. Shame and humiliation lurk around every corner.