It's All My Fault - Oilers 4 Habs 1

Ryan Jones said the crowd was 55% Oilers fans...meaning 20% of Oilers fans were wearing a Habs jersey, for some strange reason. And yes, my camera had a few beers so it's a bit blurry. I miss GG too.

Fuck. It's my fault.

That's the third Habs' game I've attended here out west, and the first in Edmonton. Same result in all three: the Habs don't show up. What's worse is the game was f'ing BORING save for the in-house crowd battle cries of Lets Go Oilers! vs. Go Habs Go! for most of the evening. There was some effort, but no emotion and little skill outside the Oilers crease.  Although I did see Bit Tits smile during the warmups and thought for sure he was going to score. Then I remembered Count Chokula is his coach so that feeling will be gone half way back to the bench. Guess what? Another big fat goose egg. Trade 'im already, you know the Count wants to.

I spent the entire third period trying to figure out another excuse for the loss besides me. Injuries? Okay, when you've got a basketball player on defence (Nash) and one of the three vets goes down 7 minutes in, your defence is allowed to cause trouble. But the Habs didn't win for lack of defence - save for that 15 second comedy of errors early in the third. (I love you PK, but when you got a guy lined up just outside the blueline MAKE SURE YOU HIT HIM.)

And while TFS (tm) wasn't the problem, he was

certainly outdueled by a dude who could play his grandfather in the HBO production "Habs/Oilers 24/7". (But man is Carey a fine specimen to observe during warmups if you fancy yourself a puckstopper. And he's durable, unlike the fossil across the ice and the Dmen in front of him - AND a certain former crease buddy who was recently put on the IR...but still love you, Jaro!)

Maybe the Habs don't like the West? Well, granted that both Edmonton and Calgary are boring as hell compared to life in the MTL, but there are enough western boys that you'd think they'd know what to expect. And the flip side is they can't claim that they were distracted by the prospect of the cities' nightlife. And surely they were not distracted by those Octane Whores  (*TM Mrs. Panger) "dancing" in the aisles - because you could pick out a random group of females from any Montreal club and get a hotter - and better coordinated - bunch.

But really, it all came back to me. The common denominator is me. And the rest of the Canadiens extended family who have left Montreal. The club knew we were coming (how could they not?), knew we were all psyched to see them - and they consistently shit the bed out West. Is it a feeling of betrayal because a couple of generations earlier the Habs were Canada's Western team (no one outside T.O. has ever enjoyed the Leafs, obviously)? And now these young upstarts - with their "Great One" and tiny collection of Cups and teams stolen from Georgia and goalies stolen from St Leonard - have their own fans? Meanwhile the Montreal team is punishing us for joining these losers (albeit Cup contending losers in Vancouver this year) and abandoning La Belle Province altogether.

Or is it because they get too much love: they know that I and my legions of former Montrealers-but-still-diehard-Habs-fans will pay to see them play even if they lose 10-1 here every time. And we'll even show up for warmups to take crappy, blurry pictures.

Or maybe it's Paul Mara's fault. Keep your equipment carry-on goddamit. You're 6'4, don't tell that 5'2 bitch of a stewardess what you can and cannot do with your stuff.

Well at least it didn't get any worse - oh wait, what's that Wiz's face is telling me from it's hospital bed? Enjoy this shot of The Phantom of Rexall Place back when he had an orbital bone and his basketball playing cousin (sorry, I got nothing else for this Brendon kid yet).

Now cross your fingers for the Heritage Classic: not for a win - we know that's futile! - but for better than    -20 weather so I don't have to pull a James Franco impression and amputate a limb halfway through the third.

Comment me!

10 Things We Hate About the Flames: Game Preview and Open Thread

This is what you get when you google "Calgary Flames Girls". Her favourite book is the dictionary - we're thinking she though the question was "what is the only book that you own?"

Standing in line details: 7:30pm EST/5:30pm MST start at the Phone Booth in Montreal. Game is on RDS and Rogers Sportsnet West - somewhat surprising since all the best Flames games seem to be on pay-per-view. Barbaric - Montrealers would riot. Of course, that's not saying much.

Lineup news: Kipper (shockingly) and Halak start. Little Tits goes if TurtlePlek can't. Tenderness and Rhino probably still eating popcorn in the pressbox. UPDATE: RDS reports that Little Tits is in and BGL is out, and Pleks will be in the lineup.

Random details that seem interesting: Kovy's goal drought now at 16 games, but Tangy and Hamr should be motivated against their former club. Flames have won 5 of 6; Habs 3-0-3 in their last 6 at home. Someone named David Moss is hot for the Flames; on some Flames blog somewhere are probably saying some guy named Matt D'Agostini is hot for the Habs.

Speaking of Flames Blogs: Five Hole Fanatics looks pretty good. At least they're emphasizing the most important position in all of professional sports.

Now that we've given token consideration to Calgary's point of view, let's get to the Flames' bashing:

10. Bandwagon Fans. Between 1995 and 2005, you couldn't give away Flames tickets. One vastly-overachieving and isolated playoff run later, you can't walk down a street without seeing an Iginla, Kiprusoff or Phaneuf jersey. Of course, those are the only three jersey's you'll see, along with the occasional Lanny MacDonald retro jersey - Flames fans can never be accused of originality. And they were all purchased during the 2005 run with dirty oil money. Yes, I live in Calgary and I hate oil & gas.

9. Stupid, lazy nickname. Flames? Um, Calgary is cold. I've heard it symbolises the flare tower at the top of an oil rig. (This is what it is for. Make sure to read to the end.) Maybe so, but not only does it simply reinforce the stereotype that Albertans care more about almighty oil than the future of the planet, it's beside the point. It's hardly their own name: it was taken from the Atlanta Flames - a nickname that made sense there, seeing at it gets HOT in Georgia. At the very least it's a second example of a massive lack of originality.

8. Harvey the Hound. A firefighting dog? Can he pee on the Flames and put them out with his mascot penis? Not only is it a lame outfit, Youppi! could so kick his ass.

7. Ugly jerseys. The Flaming "C" is a boring and unoriginal. But it's the mafia-inspired horse-head and the "podium" jersey that I'm really talking about. The former even made an All-time Top 10 Ugliest Jerseys List.

6. "Kipper" is fucking overrated, and it's time for Flames fans to admit that. Just because he plays 75 games a year and steals maybe a half-dozen doesn't make him the goaltending god they worship him as. Kipper's numbers are only slightly better than and certainly comparable to Christobal Huet, especially if you take into consideration the defence each has had in front of them. (Of course having said this, one of those half-dozen games will be tonight's.)

5. What is the Saddledome supposed to say to the world? Calgary literally plays in a barn? Smells like shit, and a participant might die? Not to mention the whole 'Brokeback Mountain' vibe it gives off.

4. Dion Phaneuf is an asshole.

Quick anecdote, even if it may be just urban myth: Phaneuf once left his Cadillac Escalade parked - and running - on a sidewalk just off the Red Mile. Stupid. Careless. Selfish. What was the urgency? Apparently, he was running into a Tim Horton's to get a cup of coffee when someone jacked his ride. The cops gave Phaneuf a ride to the game. Dick. Plus, there's this:

Admittedly, this pisses me off way more. At least Rangers' fans know how to treat him.

3. The Red Mile myth. All it is now is an excuse for bars to paint stupid "Go Flames" crap in their windows, being nothing more than a marketing label. Nary a boobie to be seen. At least some academics at the U of C are looking into the phenomenon, for the purposes, I can only assume, of how to re-create it.

2. 1989. Al MacInnis. Doug Gilmour. Joe Nieuwendyk. Theo Fleury. Mike Vernon. Lanny McDonald. In roughly that order. I especially hated how MacInnis owned Roy in the finals. It broke my 13-year old heart and forever soured me on the Flames. An unfortunate handicap when you end up moving to the city. Thankfully, we one first in '86. Plus there's the 24 to 1 Cup thing.

1. The collective delusion amongst Flames fans that their hometown team somehow competes with Edmonton's. The Oilers really are much better in every way. 5 Stanley Cups to 1. Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, Coffey, Lowe and Fuhr vs. Gilmour, Niewendyk, Fleury, MacInnis, Suter and Vernon? Please. Even the Oilers jersey's are better.

Alright Habs, let's get a measure of revenge on Calgary for the Stamps' Grey Cup win. Let's hear your thoughts in the comments, and if you're a Habs fan in Calgary, hope to see you at Flames Central!

UPDATE - Ed(HF29)'s note - the following was sent into FHF from reader Hurricane Eye in response to this story. We can't verify its veracity, but we're not journalists so who gives a shit. It amused us.

So I'm walking home around four yesterday when I spot Dion Phaneuf heading in the same direction, on Metcalfe, just north of Ste. Catherine. Since I'm fast and he's slow, I catch up to him. How did I know it was him? Well, he was big and had an NHLPA hat on. Also, he looked right at me and asked how to get to the Sheraton Centre. I told him to head south a block and then west two blocks; since I was heading in the same direction, we crossed the street together, where he bitched about the cold. ("Fuck! It's not this cold where I live." "Where's that?" "Calgary." Aha!)

Once we cross, I point out René-Lévesque - one block from where we were. Except he thought I had originally meant the short little street that runs just south of Ste. Catherine, where the infotourism centre is. Once he realized just how long the block is - about the length of the Sun Life building - he yells, Fuck!, and hops in a cab.

What a wimp. Of course I decided not to tell him that Sean Avery would have walked...