Excerpt from the Globesports.com article by Sean Gordon:


“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Jacques Demers, the last Habs coach to lift a Stanley Cup in 1993. “When I was coaching the team, the fans tended to be much older. Now, you see a lot of young faces, and a lot more women, mostly younger women, at the games. In the last five or 10 years, this team has managed to create a buzz and market its younger players like no other in the league. … Imagine what it would be like if they actually won the Cup.”

“I’ve lived in places like Detroit and St. Louis, but here the Canadiens are a happening,” Demers said. “If they allowed tailgating, people would show up at noon. … If they had 30,000 seats in the Bell Centre, there would be 30,000 fans.”