You’ve read it here before. One of the things I am very proud of is building an All Habs community of Montreal Canadiens fans that spans the globe. Every continent is represented by the readership of our hockey magazine and the 20,000 followers on Twitter.
It’s Planet Habs.
Helping you make connections with Habs fans in far away lands, and helping them to stay in touch with the team they are so passionate about is part of our mandate. We have featured guest articles about hockey in the Philippines, Israel, and Lebanon to name a few.
To further build the All Habs community and to spread the word about the Canadiens, we are taking a modest a step beyond a Google translation of the English content of our pages. Above the main banner, you will notice two links titled, Francais and Portugues. These correspond to our next two largest visitor groups after English.
A member of our team, Lyse, carefully translates articles for our readers who are more comfortable in French. We are also working towards expanding our original content in this section.
Today I’m pleased to announce a new addition to our All Habs family. Rovena brings a unique perspective to our crew having spent part of her youth in Montreal as a loyal Habs fan, and continuing her dedication to the team from her birthplace. Her articles in English will give us a view of hockey in sun-drenched Brazil, and her stories in Portuguese will provide news and views about the Canadiens to her compatriots.
Please give her a warm welcome and she will be glad to respond to your comments in English, or Portuguese. She has a good understanding of French too!
by Rovena, AllHabs.net
- It’s Summer in Brazil, a Perfect Time for Hockey
Vitória, BR. — My name is Rovena, I’m Brazilian and a die-hard Habs fan! I live in a small city by the sea, where it’s always warm and sunny. It’s the perfect weather for hockey, right?
Starting today, I’ll be writing in English about hockey activities in Brazil, and in Portuguese about the games, players and much more for All Habs Brazilian readers. But first, let me share with you my passion for hockey and the Montreal Canadiens.
My first contact with hockey was through the movie “The Mighty Ducks”. It was a big hit in Brazil and soon enough, every kid I knew had in-line skates and sticks and were forming teams to play. No one really knew the rules, but they did score, and that was all that mattered.
Unfortunately, the hockey fever didn’t last long enough – at least in my city – and everyone got over it and moved on to another sport. But for some reason, I couldn’t take that strange sport, played on ice, off of my mind. Still, hockey was an unreachable sport for me existing in movies, almost like it wasn’t real.
Then, one day my Dad came home and said that we would be moving to Montreal soon. The first thing that came to my mind was “Yay, snow!”, and that was what we’ve got when we arrived there in March 1998. For a nine year-old, it was really amazing moving to another country like we did. I was going to learn two new languages and a new culture.
That’s when hockey walked into my life.
We moved to a building on Atwater with the large balconies. One afternoon, my Dad took me for a stroll and as we passed the Montreal Forum, he said, “They use to play hockey in there. The Canadiens were the best team ever, because of their 24 Stanley Cups”.
Hockey was real. I was living next to it. My mind was filled with these images of games I’ve never been to, but imagined how it was. For the first time in my life, I was proud of something.
Since then, hockey has been my life. It was the only thing I could think about. It made me happy. When I’m having a bad day and I remember it’s game night, nothing else mattered. When there isn’t a Habs game on, I just stick to whatever game I think it’s going to be good. Sometimes, I leave the feed on so I can hear the sound of the blades on the ice, or the puck hitting the sticks.
They say that we Habs fans can be annoying sometimes, cheering and singing when our team scores and there’s still a few minutes left in the game, or when we complain about every little detail. The thing is, we’re passionate about this team. They gave us so much in the past and now, we just want all of those good times to happen again.
One thing I learned in Montreal is that you breathe hockey and the Canadiens. You stick by their side, no matter what happens, because they’re the ones bringing the Stanley Cup home – hopefully!
After coming back to Brazil in 2001, I held on to things that reminded me of Montreal. The Canadiens were the main reminder. Whenever people would ask me about sports in Montreal, I would start talking about hockey and the Canadiens, and how they were good.
“Did they ever win anything?”, they would ask. “Yes, 24 times. The only team to ever achieve such a thing”.
Being a hockey fan in Brazil is tough. Until December 2010, we had no games being shown on TV. We had to watch them on an internet feed, and when they didn’t work, we had to look at blogs, Twitter and sometimes, even follow the game through the Ice Tracker, on the NHL website.
But it doesn’t matter. We will do anything to watch a Habs game and cheer as loud as we can, hoping our voices will carry all the way to le Centre Bell.
I’m extremely proud to be a part of the All Habs team and a Montreal Canadiens fan.
Hockey no verão: uma fã brasileira
Olá, meu nome é Rovena, sou brasileira e também fã do Habs! Eu moro numa pequena cidade a beira-mar, então sempre é quente e ensolarado. O clima perfeito para hockey, certo?
De agora em diante, vou escrever em inglês sobre as atividades de hockey no Brasil, e em português, sobre os jogos, jogadores e muito mais para todos os leitores brasileiros do All Habs. Mas primeiro, deixe-me compartilhar com vocês minha paixão pelo hockey e pelo Canadiens.
Meu primeiro contato com o hockey foi através do filme “Nós Somos os Campeões”. Ele foi um grande sucesso no Brasil e logo, todas as crianças que eu conhecia tinham patins inline e tacos e estavam formando times para jogar. Ninguém sabia as regras, mas eles faziam gol, e isso era o que importava. Infelizmente, a febre do hockey não durou muito – pelo menos na minha cidade – e tudo mundo superou e passou para um novo esporte, mas eu não conseguia tirar aquele esporte estranho jogado sobre o gelo da minha cabeça. Ainda assim, o hockey era um esporte inacessível para mim. Só existia nos filmes, quase como se não fosse real.
Então, um dia meu pai chegou em casa e disse que, em breve, nós nos mudaríamos para Montréal . A primeira coisa que veio à minha mente foi “Eba, neve!”, e isso foi o que tivemos quando chegamos lá em março de 1998. Para uma criança de nove anos, era incrível mudar para um outro país como nós fizemos. Eu iria aprender duas novas línguas e uma cultura nova. Foi aí que o hockey entrou na vida.
Nós nos mudamos para a rua Atwater, para o prédio com as varandas grandes. Uma tarde, meu pai me levou para uma caminhada e quando passamos pelo Forum, ele me disse que “se jogava hockey ali dentro e que os Canadiens eram o melhor time de todos, devido às suas 24 Stanley Cups”. O hockey era real. Eu estava morando ao seu lado. Minha cabeça estava repleta de imagens de jogos que nunca estive, mas imaginava como era. Pela primeira vez, tive orgulho de alguma coisa.
Desde então, o hockey virou a minha vida. Era a única coisa que eu conseguia pensar. Fazia-me feliz. Quando eu estava em um dia triste e lembrava que era uma noite com jogo, nada mais importava. Quando não está passando um jogo do Habs, eu assisto qualquer outro jogo que eu ache que vá ser bom. Às vezes, deixo o feed ligado para ouvir o barulho das lâminas no gelo, ou do puck batendo nos tacos.
Falam que, às vezes, nós podemos ser chatos, torcendo e cantando quando o nosso time marca e ainda falta alguns minutos para acabar o jogo, ou quando nós reclamos de todos os pequenos detalhes. É o seguinte, nós somos apaixonados por esta equipe. Eles nos deram muito no passado e agora, nós só queremos que todos os bons tempos voltem a acontecer. Uma coisa que eu aprendi em Montréal é que você respira hockey e o Canadiens. Você fica do lado deles, não importa o que aconteça, porque eles são os únicos que vão trazer a Stanley para casa – tenho esperanças!
Depois de voltar para o Brasil em 2001, eu me agarrei em coisas que me lembrariam Montréal. O Canadiens foi a principal lembrança. Quando me perguntavam sobre esportes em Montréal, eu começava a falar sobre jogos e os Canadiens e como eles eram bons. “Eles já ganharam alguma coisa?”, me perguntavam. “Sim, 24 vezes. O único time que conseguiu fazer isso.”
Ser um fã de hockey no Brasil é difícil. Até dezembro de 2010, nenhum jogo era transmitido pela TV. Nós tínhamos que assistir aos jogos em feeds na internet, e quando eles não funcionavam, tínhamos que olhar em blogs, twitter, e até acompanhar o jogo pelo Ice Traker no site da NHL. Mas essas coisas não importam. Nós fazemos de tudo para assistir a um jogo do Habs e torcer o mais alto que conseguimos, esperando que nossas vozes alcancem o Centre Bell.
Estou extremamente orgulhosa de fazer parte do All Habs e de ser uma Montreal Canadien.