by Erica, Staff Writer and Fundraising Specialist, All Habs Hockey Magazine

MONTREAL, QC. — Replacement narrator Michel Lacroix did a great job in the absence of Claude Quenneville, but our regular narrator is back and ready to tell us a story. Sometimes hockey lights up the city of Montreal like nothing else can. Sometimes a player shines, or lights the lamp, or gives his team a spark of life. Here’s what we learned:

Players and staff love preparing for game time. Sure, games can be hard work, what with all the scoring and hitting and referee-mocking, but a Habs practice is just as much work. Turns out that the players can have a great time even if they’re working hard! The team can laugh their way through a practice without sacrificing their regular hard work – they’ll push each other to improve their passing, their plays, and still break into playfights whenever necessary. (Maybe Brendan Gallagher was really trying to fight Alex Galchenyuk. But I doubt it, because No. 27 would have come out of that fight just a little worse for wear.)

During this week, Pierre Langlois, an assistant to the equipment manager, celebrated his 2000^th game with the Montreal Canadiens. The team speaks highly of him, grateful for his good attitude and hard work. Turns out he’s responsible for introducing Tomas Plekanec to turtlenecks! So he might be the most important member of the Habs’ training staff. The team’s players chose to recognize his career milestone by giving him a gift (which looks like it was wrapped by Max Pacioretty himself) and awarding him that night’s Shiny Boxing Robe of Success. He has spent 2000 games earning it, after all.

Team bonding can be fun. Especially when Mike Weaver is on your team. Weaver ever so briefly discusses how much he loves pulling pranks on teammates. Turns out that the Habs weren’t big pranksters before he arrived in Montreal, and he took pride in changing that. We’ve seen the famous poster of Max Pacioretty that he put up in his locker. Turns out that Weaver’s pretty good at subtle pranks, too. He snuck a Photoshopped picture onto a wall and waited until someone noticed that Carey Price’s head was on Brendan Gallagher’s body. Pretty easy to spot once you realize it’s supposed to be a picture of Gallagher and Price, not of a short Price and a tall Price. For his next trick, Weaver attaches a tiny, motion-activated LED light onto one of the wheels of P.K. Subban’s car. He almost gets away with it, until Nathan Beaulieu unwittingly ruins the surprise. (Or so he says.) Beaulieu knows that he’ll be next on Weaver’s list.

Max Pacioretty and David Desharnais enjoyed an evening off the ice meeting with fans at the Montreal High Lights festival, taking photos and joking around. Pacioretty shows off the few words of French he knows. Desharnais gets to talk to more fans, but Pacioretty is asked for more autographs – there’s no language barrier when all a fan has to do is smile and hand over a jersey or a photograph. Pacioretty promises to learn to say a few more things in French to please his fans, and gets in some practice during his first-star interview at the Bell Centre later that week.

The time is right for the team’s young guns. We’ve seen Nathan Beaulieu become a better player under the tutelage of veteran Sergei Gonchar. Now, with Gonchar and Alexei Emelin injured, the Habs need their younger players more than ever. Luckily, those players came through. Beaulieu’s steady improvement led to his first NHL goal in a tilt at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa. Jarred Tinordi, called up from Hamilton, used his size and dropped his gloves in a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets after Michel Therrien instructed the team to focus on their defensive play. Guess who else decided to throw a few punches? None other than Christian Thomas, whose father taught him that “whoever throws the most punches, wins.” Thomas’ fight energized his team, helping to propel them to a win, and gaining praise from his teammates. He earned that game’s Shiny Boxing Robe of Success, sharing it with teammates Beaulieu, Tinordi, Greg Pateryn, and Jacob De La Rose.

The episode ends with Nathan Beaulieu driving out of the Bell Centre post-game, a tiny lightbulb flashing on the wheel of his car. Well played, Weaver.