Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Veni, Vidi, Vici: The succesful invasion of Montreal


This was originally posted at Pension Plan Puppets

 

It was an epic weekend in Montreal.  For those of you who missed it, now you know the rest of the story.


Day 1 - After a long drive with eyebleaf and Archimedies we arrived in Montreal ready to party.  JaredfromLondon was already there and as expected had got into the booze.  Arch and eyebleaf went to pick up wraparoundcurl (all the way from Spokane) and Vancouver blogger, Alix .  We spent the night going to a couple different bars and ended up riling up some Habs fans.  While sitting on a patio an inebriated young man wearing a wife-beater and proudly describing himself as an anglophone in Quebec walked up to us extolling the virtues of the French-Canadian goalies in the NHL: Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur and Martin Fleury.   As Chemmy later commented Martin Fleury is incrdible.  He's never given up a goal.  The French-Canadian goalie expert didn't seem to know who Roberto Luongo was when asked.

Day 2 - After stumbling out of bed for a greasy breakfast/lunch we headed over to a bar to pick up more tickets for the draft as eyebleaf didn't receive his and I only had 4 for the 6 of us.  While there we met a Habs fan, Tabitha also waiting for tickets whose mom was waiting in line.  Jared and I went and lined up with the mom so we could get in early and save seats for the others including Chemmy and SkinnyFish.  They eventually got in and we all met up except for plantheparade and fantasyrealm who got their tickets later and were in another section. 


As soon as I got to my seats the Habs fans already started the "Leafs suck" chant to which I responded with a "bring it on" gesture and "Go Leafs Go", joined in by Leafs fans sitting on the other side of the Bell Centre.  We then spent the next 3 long hours watching Burkie, who was the first one onto the floor, hoping something miraculous would happen.  As we all know now nothing did, which was sort of disappointing but didn't spoil our fun. 


The bonus  of our location is that we were within shouting distance of PPP who had press passes and was sitting in a suit next to other media hordes.  Chemmy took full advantage.  "Juuullian! Plug the website!",  "Juuulian! You're handsome!", then when Schenn was drafted "Juuulian!  Shit!" and when Ekman-Larsson went to the Coyotes "Julian! Who's stupid now?".  When Bettman was announcing Phoenix was on the clock he did it with his usual (lack of) class and emphasized Phoenix, which incensed the Canadian crowd including people like me who don't support a Hamilton franchise to chant "Hamilton" in response.  When the Leafs picked the Habs went with the ever-creative "1967" chant, which we waited to die down before chanting Kadri's name and "Go Leafs Go!".

Wrap was already dreading it when the Leafs passed on Cowen and her worst fears were realized moments later when Dallas passed on him and Ottawa selecting him became an inevitability.  When the pick was finally announced and he put on his jersey she was near nears.   To make it worse we now all must hate Cowen.  Hope he never plays. 


We later met Wysh and Travis, a Flyers blogger.  After another night of pounding back drinks, listening to an awesome live band and chanting "Go Leafs Go" at the bar we stumbled back to our hotels. On the way Jared almost punched the blood out of some Habs fan who was giving us lip but his buddy wisely guided him away from Jared

Day 3 - Other than PPP none of us woke up to go to the second round.  We did end up going to Schwartz's instead for smoked meat.  We spent most of the afternoon sleeping gearing up for the PPPPPPPPP (Peel Pub Presents: Pension Plan Puppets Pint Partaking Party").  Prior to that though we went to a Mexican restaurant and unveiled what would end up being the theme song of the trip.  After spying a jukebox and seeing the servers dancing and grooving to the music Chemmy's devious mind came up with an idea to play a song over and over again in order to see the reaction.  We settled on "What's New Pussycat" 5 times in a row followed by "It's Not Unusual" three times only to return for an encore of "What's New Pussycat". The jukebox for some mysterious reason anticipated such plans and only allowed us to play each song once.  I of course asked to speak to the manager and told him I paid $3.50 and only got two songs.  After some hemming and hawing he eventually agreed to give me back the $3 which we immediately put back into the machine choosing the most obnoxious songs possible bookended of course by "What's New Pussycat". Halfway through our song list they turned the volume lower and when "What's New Pussycat" came on for the last time they shut the music off completely which led us to singing it ourselves. 

The night ended with the giant pitchers and champagne at the PPPPPPPPP at which Wysh got caught with someone wearing an obvious Jersey Foul and a drunk Isles fan talked about the merits of DiPietro over Luongo and a Fox News influenced political opinion.

Our attempts at getting "What's New Pussycat" played there failed despite promises of tips for the DJ and waitress.


Day 4 - Eyebleaf, arch, Alix, PPP and I all stuffed in a car for the trip to Toronto.

All in all great trip.  Cheers to all who made it out:  PPP, Chemmy, eyebleaf, Archimedies, JaredFromLondon, wraparoundcurl, alix, SkinnyFish, say "plan the parade one more time", and fantasyrealm.ca.  Let's do it again sometime.

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