In the late 90′s I ran into an old friend, and rabid Leaf fan, who I hadn’t seen in years. He had lived in Montreal for a while and used to go to the Forum after games had already started, get cheap standing room tickets and make his way as close to the ice as he could to heckle Habs players. We used to call him Coach, and although this story might seem a bit far fetched, he is probably the one guy I’ve known who I think would be capable of this. This is roughly how our conversation went:

Me: So Coach, what have you been up to?
Coach: Actually, I’ve been working on a novel.
Me: Really? What kind of novel?
Coach: It’s kind of a hockey book. You know that the Habs moved to a new arena a few years ago, well my book is about the ghosts of the old Forum just hanging around the empty Forum and that kind of thing.
Me: Umm, that sounds interesting.(thinking ‘Isn’t this the guy who used to hurl insults at little kids wearing Habs gear on the street?’)
Coach: Yeah, so for instance the ghost of (former Habs great) is a drunken wife beater and the ghost of (another Habs great) is a pedophile.
Me: (stunned silence)
Coach: I’ve got about seven hundred pages so far but I’d like to edit it down to a more manageable five hundred or so.
Me: (stunned silence)
Coach: What?
Me: You wrote a 700 page novel that does nothing but slander legendary Canadiens?
Coach: Yes.
Me: I’m not queer or anything like that, but can I kiss you on the mouth?

Anyway, I didn’t ever see any of the book and I haven’t seen him since then. Tried looking him up a few times with no luck.

Happy Centennial Habs!

Habs fans will be treated to hijinks of Lollipop Guild on each other’s shoulders in one big trench coat trying to get into clubs