Montreal Canadiens’ supporters can be found in numbers in every arena in the NHL. They dress in bleu, blanc et rouge and chant “Go Habs Go”. I have been fortunate to meet many knowledgeable and very loyal Habs supporters from across North America.
You may remember Tracy Lee. Tracy and her Dad are passionate Canadiens’ fans from Vancouver. Last February Tracy met her favorite player, Carey Price and received his stick. The photo of the exchange appeared in The Province newspaper. The touching story about being a fan written by Tracy was posted at All Habs. If you missed it, you can find it here.
On Thursday night, with his team abandoning him, Carey Price didn’t have the homecoming in Vancouver that he had envisioned. It wasn’t the game that Tracy had hoped for either. But Tracy did meet Price and she has agreed to share her story with you.
by Tracy Lee
All Habs guest columnist
Friday, October 9, 2009
I wish I could say that the Montreal Canadiens/Vancouver Canucks game ended the way I wanted, sadly, I can’t tell you how it ended cause I left early. The game was a disaster and it broke my heart because I saw it all happen in person. 7-1. So the actual game wasn’t the best it could have been but the time leading up to it was pretty awesome (I also met a twitter friend from the Island which was fun).
I woke up around 6:30 the morning of the game because my Dad, Mom and I were going to head down to GM Place to hopefully get our stuff signed from the last game. If you are unaware of what happened you can check out the entry I made last time- here. We brought a print of the picture that was in the newspaper, along with the stick that Carey tossed over to me and the game worn jersey that he wore for the last game. Are my Dad and I fans or what? We got there about an hour before the team was supposed to arrive and of course, the usual scum, also known as autograph stalkers, were already there because the Canucks had a practice before the Habs did. We waited and waited and waited and not many fans showed up. I think it’s because that game was a Sunday so Dads could bring their kids down, but seeing as it was a Wednesday, any sane, normal person would have been working or in school. Not I my friends, not I.
A couple of guys walked up to us and commented about the stuff we had for Carey to sign, we told them about the previous game and explained how we got our hands on the jersey he wore during the game- needless to say they were pretty impressed with our dedication. Little did we realize we were talking to family friends of Carey down from William’s Lake, who had actually been trying to call him to find out when the bus would be arriving.
When the bus finally arrived everything was a blur, Carey got off the bus and headed straight to the people he knew, chatted with them while he signed some stuff for the kids, the autograph stalkers ran over and added to the chaos (part of the reason why I hate people that do that “job”) then started to head inside, Kelly, the mom of the group asked Carey to sign the stuff that we had and pointed towards us. Bam, our eyes locked and my heart almost stopped. Sort of the same feeling when Robert Pattinson looked me in the eyes… I digress. Even though he was in a hurry he came over and signed the three items we had for him and I quickly explained how the stuff was connected (at least I think I did, it might have been a jumble of words that didn’t make sense). Then he was gone. The buzz died down and we thanked the wonderful group of people who helped us get our stuff signed again and again. But it wasn’t over yet..
My Dad and I were going to watch the team practice, so after we gave my Mom the stuff to take home, we walked back to GM Place and into the building. After a little snag we were in. We sat down around center ice but the people from outside who had helped us asked us to come and sit with them instead of my Dad and I sitting alone. They had two little kids, who were super adorable, who were collecting the pucks that were shot over the glass. We ended up watching most of the Canucks practice (not too exciting to me, especially since I’m still sick from last week) but once the Canadiens came out I perked up a lot. I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to take pictures, but I wasn’t going to deny myself the opportunity. I was only one of maybe 20 people watching and I was going to take advantage of it. Carey ended up practicing in the net that was further away from me so after about 10 minutes I walked over to that end, sat four rows up from the ice and started taking pictures (no flash cause I didn’t want to piss anyone off). I’m pretty sure the entire team was checking me out, but there was only one boy I wanted pictures of. I ended up staying there for most of the skate until my Dad waved me over and told me to go by the tunnel where the team would go to get to the dressing room, I was determined to get a red goalie stick. I’ve been desperately wanting to get one since the season started and he made the switch from white Warrior sticks to red ones. Unfortunately while walking over he skated off the ice. In a way I wonder if I had of stayed where I was that he’d have given it to me, cause he clearly saw me. But I’ll never know.
Once the excitement was all over my Dad and I headed back to my apartment to wait out the hours until we were going to head down to GM Place (early of course, to be first in line at the gate so we’d make it down to the glass, the scene of where last games miracle happened). Along the way we got stopped half a dozen times by people who were also Habs fans, one older man who used to watch the Montreal greats play talked with us for almost five minutes. I made some delicious spaghetti and meat sauce which we both devoured, we put our jersey’s back on and headed down for the final part of the day. After waiting an hour for the doors to open we both rushed down towards the glass, first ones there, followed by many, many other people. One asshole who had to be in his 30’s pressed his fat belly right against me, my Dad wasn’t pleased and insisted on trading places with me so I wasn’t uncomfortable. Funny enough a father and son who had been behind us last game were there again and we got to talking with them about the last game. I got my camera all out just in time to see Carey be the first out on the ice, I didn’t stop snapping pictures of him until the warm up was over. I won’t get into the game because we all know that didn’t go well.
All in all it was a great day and I’m happy to say that no goalie sticks were thrown over the glass at any part of the day, so I didn’t miss out on getting one. Cause I swear, if Carey had of thrown one over the glass and it wasn’t to me, well.. let’s just say you don’t know to know what I would have done.
You can check out some of the pictures I took during the day over in my Flickr stream, including two of Carey looking directly at me, I guess being a pretty girl in a stand out jersey pays off. Now… he just needs to dump his girlfriend. Seriously.
