A guest post by Shannon McKarney.
Oh, it’s tough, being a Canadian hockey fan.

Half your teams don’t make it to the playoffs in the first place. Two of your teams ended up, in fact, as the second-worst and the absolute worst in the league. Cause, that’s not embarrassing. The teams that do make the playoffs are summarily written off as not having a chance. When rank-4 Pittsburgh played rank-5 Ottawa as round 1, for example, it was billed as a “huge upset” when the Senators won a game. Vancouver was seen as the only team that had a chance at anything, because Montreal? Hah. Montreal barely made the playoffs. Montreal doesn’t have anybody you’ve ever heard of playing for them. Montreal doesn’t even have a Captain, for god’s sake. Montreal’s going up against Alexander Ovechkin and the best record in the league. Montreal’s toast.

Until Vancouver fell to earth, thwarted two years in a row by the Blackhawks. And Montreal? Well, Montreal is … shocking. This captainless bunch of ragtag nobodies are defying all predictions and actually… winning games.

They surprised the pants right off of Ovechkin, Coach Potato Head and the entire NHL when they sent the Capitals to the golf course. And now the Habs are in front of Pittsburgh, six games under their belts, even numbers of wins. Tonight. One game. Winner takes all. And the whole country is watching, whether we admit it or not.

Here’s the thing with this series, and I do not think there is a way to overstate this: Pittsburgh is the Anointed Team of the NHL. Pittsburgh has the Golden Boy and all of his minions. Pittsburgh, despite finishing only 4th in their conference, was the team everyone expected to have an easy ride to the Cup for a second straight year. Pittsburgh gives TSN all of their good one liners and TV clips. Pittsburgh is in the US, keeping Emperor Palpatine – er, Bettman – pleased. Pittsburgh is The Right Story.

Halak and Crosby battle it out.

Honestly. How rude of the Montreal Canadiens to forget the script.

Both Washington and Pittsburgh must have been pretty surprised to run in to any issues with these nobodies. Nobody 1 being Jaroslav Halak, who has obviously sold his soul to someone with a lot of clout and is stopping completely ridiculous numbers of shots in every game. Nobody 2 being rookie P.K. Subban, who has essentially morphed himself in to Sidney Crosby’s hemorrhoid, a more obvious gigantic pain in the ass at every turn, getting insane amounts of ice time and really, really getting under Crosby’s skin. And Nobody 3 being Mike Cammaleri who has come out of absolutely nowhere to lead the league in playoff goals.

Who are these Habs? Nos Glorieux? Is that you?

Les Habitants celebrate

Bite your tongue, woman. It’s a fragile thing. The Habs are hurting, down at least two defencemen, and those who are still on their skates have probably bled all over them. Every game now could be the last game. Especially this one. So as a nation we sit, and we order Pizza Pizza because WHO HAS TIME TO COOK WHEN THE GAME IS ON, and we bite our nails and scream at the Bettman-driven refereeing and cringe in fear every time Pittsburgh fires a shot at the net.

Desperate times, people. Crosby and his boys won’t want to go down this way. And Montreal has absolutely nothing to lose except some storefront windows on Ste Catherine.

Bring it on.

Postscript: I could not write this post without describing how saddened I am by the tragedy of the Prefontaine family, who died on Monday night as their home collapsed under them while watching their beloved Habs. My thoughts and prayers are with their family members and their community.

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Shannon is an Ottawa blogger who writes about politics, parenting, sports and the environment (among other things) at ThreeSeven and EcoChick. She is @zchamu on Twitter.

View Original Post at draftdaysuit.com

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