One thing I have to say is that Canadiens fans are avid spectators, and the season and half-season tickets being sold out at the start of the season, even for a Tuesday night game it was difficult to get seats for two or three people, let alone five. That said, the official Canadiens website provides a site called The Ticket Vault where season ticket holders can sell their tickets legally (at whatever price they want of course) and buyers can buy tickets in a safe environment (whatever that means!). That's where we got our tickets. Right up the back of the stadium, last row, five seats together.
Once the game started, it was non-stop riveting watching, nothing like the football match we went to, where every tackle signalled long pauses in the game for the substitution of offensive and defensive players. This was fast-paced and intensive playing and I was totally taken in! If only we hadn't had a little 4-year-old boy whose attention for sports was lost after the first 15 minutes. Luckiy we were in the last row and his constant moving over the five of us to stack jackets on his chair, which became his office, didn't disturb any of the fans behind us!
Unfortunately, the Habs lost, although they were looking pretty good in the second period (there are three of 20 minutes in the game) and had to end the game with a penalty shoot out which is always fun. The St Louis Blues were just too good and even I could see that they were the better players on the night.
Seeing one game has made me want to see more games. I've even checked out the Canterbury Ice Rink website in more detail and found out that there is in fact an ice hockey league in NSW! If Austin takes to ice skating when the ponds in the parks freeze over here, we might be making a few trips to Canterbury Ice Rink in the years to come! Maybe I should buy him a stick here...