game 1 round 1: vancouver 3 - l.a. 2 (OT)

Oh what a day to be alive!

It doesn't get much better than playoff hockey and I'm finding out that all the hyperbolic grand tales I've been told about Montreal and this time of year are not exaggerated.

This city really is gaga over their Habs. It's all over the papers. Everyone talks about the game. And tonight, it was somewhat surreal, as I ventured from spot to spot in Centreville and the Plateau and saw how deserted the streets were during game time.

On St. Catherine's, bums peaked in through cafe and pub windows to watch the games. At the Sports Superstation or whatever the hell it's called, people cheered and chanted with every play in the game like they were watching it live, in person. I caught a part of the second period -- since our cable is (still) cut -- at an old school diner near Beaubien Metro beside a guy who would curse 'sacrement' each time a Habs player fanned on a shot. At one point he turned to me and stated 'c'est du vrai hockey, ca.'

The diner was a beauty. Everyone who worked there was dressed entirely in white. One guy had on the white, paper hat like they used to wear in the '50s. A Gord Van Tighem clone with a handlebar stache and a toothpick in his mouth, haggled the old Quebecois waitress lady about the bill and they traded good natured barbs. He finally walked out, chest puffed out and satisfied with his performance. An old guy with ginormous ears and veiny arms who worked at the diner chopped peppers for 20 minutes, just knocking them down one by one. One guy hidden in the corner of the bar, out of television view, worked his gums with a cup of coffee in front of him. It was like I had travelled through a time machine by walking through the door. Each booth had a tiny jukebox for frigsakes, although I was too self-conscious to sit down and browse through the song selection.

And all these kids and young gangsters wandered in and out and hung out in the booths and were loud but they got along with everyone like they hung out there all the time. One chick in braces who at the age where she was just on the precipice of losing her innocence and becoming broody or serious or sexual, hung off a kid a couple years younger than her and joked to everyone "c'est mon chum." The little dude was embarrassed and he just smiled and couldn't say anything. "T'amerais ca, eh?" she kept joking. The poor kid kept smiling like an idiot. He obviously would.

A friend called me and I was too embarrassed to answer because my conversation would have been in English and I was surrounded by such a French atmosphere that I didn't want my words to break it.

I was only at the diner because I was trying to meet a former co-worker from the newspaper. But I was late and he didn't have a cellphone and I walked into the pub, forgetting I was wearing my Kesler jersey, and just caught all these blanks stares as I searched for him during a commercial. I felt like a harmless zoo animal wandering through that pub, with everyone staring at me in silence with bemusement. I zipped up my coat, watched a few minutes and bounced.

Glad Plecky scored in OT and hope this series goes on for a while. My roommate Freduardo told me that Montreal goes nuts during "les series" and I have to agree.

Quick note: Because I'm watching a lot of the games at pubs, I don't get to hear much of what the announcers are saying or what the analysts blab about. I know that a face-off is called a "mise en jeu" and that delay of game is "retarde la match," but that's about it. However, one thing I do appreciate about watching hockey on the French network is when it comes to the intermissions. RDS has one clear advantage over CBC or TSN or just about anywhere else: Joel Bouchard's hair.

Is that a hair hat?

I swear, I just sit mesmerized whenever he's on because his hair looks like it's a rubber wig or something. It's jarring. I wonder what would happen to it in the rain. I wonder if this guy takes this thing off when he gets home and hangs it on a hook. It's impeccable. It's like impervious to a nuclear explosion. Some alien life form will come upon a post-apocalyptic Montreal and they will clear away some rubble and discover this hairdo. They will take it back to their planet and study it for centuries, but even with all their advanced technologies, they will never be able to conclude its chemical properties.

Second note: Couldn't all hockey commentators and analysts be part of the mafia. I'm thinking Darren Dregher and Gino Reda types, here. Don't they all dress and talk like wiseguys? Honest question here.

On to the Canucks stuff...

I recapped each game during last year's run and even though we got ousted in the second round, I feel like it would be a jinx if I didn't throw a little comment down after each game.

So we got the Kings. This team is kind of... um... scary. They're young. They're physical and they're pretty damn talented. Kopitar scares me. Drew Doughty scares me. And Johnny Quick was pretty stellar tonight. We're definitely in for a good series.

Last year, we caught the Blues in the first round and I spoke about how Andy McDonald made me hold my breath every time he touched the puck. Trees have rings to show their past. During the playoffs, I have shit-stained undies. That's Andy McDonald. That's Pat Kane. I'm not entirely sure who the shit stain guy will be on the Kings this series, but I found Stoll was front and centre whenever anything was happening.

Tonight, as was the case all season, the Sedins bailed us out. And again it was Mr. Hanky. This guy is playing on another level right now. It's like any pass he gives winds up being a scoring chance. In overtime, he set Samuelsson up with that beauty from behind the net, but he had a pass a few seconds before where he whipped a 360-no-looker cross ice right onto Erhoff's stick that was straight up X-Box 360. I couldn't believe it. This guy is seeing things a few seconds in the future. It's a lot of fun to watch right now. That goal they scored on the give-and-go is just the latest in their growing collection of ESP highlights.

You put this chick out there with the Sedins right now and she'd probably pop 25 ginos.

Luongo still looks like he's battling it a bit out there, but he didn't have much of a chance on either of the pucks that got past him. It's too bad we can't throw our d-men out in front of Quick, because they really do a good job of screening goaltenders. Luongo came up huge with that desperation save in OT, but we were also lucky to get there after Edler made the pokecheck on Kopitar when Luongo was swimming ten feet out of his crease, like someone freaking out on acid. Hopefully tonight's win settles him down a bit.

Edler, man. Where did that come from? Looks like he wants to make the jump. He was a beast, just beheading Kings all night. He was dominant. I wonder if it's just playing with confidence, because some games he looks like he can't make a correct decision. If he plays like he did tonight, we might not be so thin on the defensive end. I thought Erhoff and O'Brien played well. Bieksa didn't make any Bieksa-esque blunders and I liked how he was trying to mouth some of the young Kings, who were playing their first playoff games. Salo played decently. Andrew Alberts is a plug.

Up front, Burrows was flying. A friend of mine at work came up to me today, as I was wearing my Kesler jersey and repeated "my friend played hockey with Burrows and he's a cock-sucker. He's a cock-suck-er." He's not a nice guy, I guess. So what? He compliments the Sedins perfectly right now and he was playing that sandpaper role to a 't' tonight. Raymond had a strong game. Samuelsson, of course, had a great game. I like what he's going to provide this team. He's been there before and he's a pretty serious guy. With guys like Burrows, Bieksa and Kesler in the dressing room, it seems like Vancouver was always a fun place to play, but it kind of lacked in professionalism. I don't think Samuelsson will let anything slide. Kesler looked really serious tonight. I didn't think he played his best game. See, I can be somewhat rational when it comes to Kesler. He got beat in the face-off circle by Stoll and Handzus all night and he just didn't seem to want to get involved physically. Hopefully, he just had some butterflies because of his increased role and expectations brought on by that contract. That Samuelsson goal really was huge. It takes a lot of pressure off.

Anyways, it's nice to have playoff hockey back in my life again, even if it means being driven nearly to the brink of insanity by CBC's continuous loop of its only four commercials.

Small price to pay. And I was probably already insane anyways.