Habs Celebrate 100 Years...

First of all... it's only fitting the Canadiens beat Boston 5-1 at their 100th birthday party.  From Les Habitants web site:

MONTREAL (AP) -Mike Cammalleri and Carey Price met the likes of Guy Lafleur, Patrick Roy, Ken Dryden and Frank and Peter Mahovlich prior to the Montreal Canadiens' 100th birthday celebration, then went out and played like them and all of the storied team's greats.

Cammalleri scored three times in the second period and the Canadiens celebrated their centennial anniversary with a 5-1 win over the Boston Bruins on Friday night.

Cammalleri scored twice to put Montreal up 3-0 before completing his fourth career hat trick with the Canadiens' fifth goal late in the middle period, drawing a roar from the sold-out crowd of 21,273 that featured some of the team's former greats, including Jean Béliveau, Lafleur and Roy.

"As I was going around the room I felt like a kid in a candy shop," Cammalleri said about introducing himself to the legendary players prior to the game. "Roy, Dryden, both Mahovlichs, Lafleur, obviously the list goes on and on. Shaking these guys' hands and getting to say hi to them, it was pretty cool. I had this big smile on my face and it was pretty inspiring."

And second... homer that I AM... I'll post a vid of Mr. Hockey introducing Jean Béliveau to the assembled multitudes last evening:

Note the welcome these fans gave Gordie.  They love their hockey in Montreal and they recognize greatness when they see it.

There were many, many great Canadiens from their glorious past in attendance last evening.  Witness:

And if'n you don't know... the Canadiens are second only to the NY Yankees in terms of professional sports teams success... they own 24 Stanley Cups to the Yankees' 27 World Series titles.  That sort of success will NEVER be seen in the NHL again, mainly because the bulk of Montreal's Cups came during the Original Six days.  It's a whole HELLUVA lot harder to take home Lord Stanley's Cup in a 30-team league.

(Sigh)  It's a shame I missed the ceremonies and the game.  I had to content myself with these six lil thumbnail vids of the occasion.  If I were still living in Dee-troit I could have watched it all on Channel 9 out of Windsor... and you KNOW I would have, too.

But Hey!  There's football later on today... and lots of it.  I shall be consoled, in part.