Canadiens-Bruins: Chaos Follows Montreal Victory

Among the stack of Seven Jeans and Juicy Couture handbags rests a grapefruit sized chunk of pallid grey concrete. 

It has been torn from the cracked sidewalk out front and thrown through the large plate glass window of the haute-couture store on Ste. Catherine street, sending jagged pieces of glass showering down. 

The owner of the shop, Raby, appears haggard and unkempt waiting anxiously for police and work crews to file their reports and shovel away the glass shards.  Once finished, he ventures inside and invites me in to survey the damage from the other side of the window frame. 

"I can't understand how they took the mannequin," he laments, "it was behind the gate."  He figures he's out at least 10-thousand dollars, factoring in the missing clothes, window replacement and the stolen mannequin. 

This is the aftermath of a Montreal Canadiens victory.  

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History was on Montreal's side.  Boston had never comeback from a 3-1 series deficit against the Canadiens; the Bruins had never won a game seven when game seven was held in Montreal; and Alex Kovalev had never lost in a game seven scenario. 

And so, as the final horn sounded and the score officially recorded, history had once again been there for the Habs.  It was a less-than-dramatic finish to what had been a dramatic series, a set of seven that renewed a wonderful hockey rivalry.  

The Habs faithful poured from the Bell Center, tripping on adrenaline, soaring high in seventh heaven.  Horns blared, fans screamed, the general revelry following a series victory that almost slipped through the fingers of the Canadiens.  

The sea of bleu, blanc et rouge moved from the Bell Center to the downtown bar scene on Crescent, Bishop and Ste. Catherine streets.   The taps were tilted and the celebration had begun.  

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On MacKay St., just a few feet away from the looted boutique, there's a blue Honda parked right at the corner.  

As I approach, there is an acrid smell of smoke hanging heavy in the air, thick and irritating to the lungs.  

The back end of the Honda is charred black, the paint seared away and the back window missing, shattering from the intense heat.  The car had been parked in front of a Montreal Police cruiser that had been torched just hours earlier.  The burned out hulk of the cop car has long since been towed away but the evidence of its destruction remains.  The burned Honda, the scarred asphalt just behind it.  

There's another black mark across the street.  In all, five police cars were set ablaze, damaged beyond any hope of repair.  Another eleven cruisers are sitting in a police garage as a team of mechanics get to work.  The force estimates a half-million dollar loss. 

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The series wasn't supposed to go to seven games.

Considering the team's track record against Boston during the regular season, fans believed it was going to be a cakewalk.  Maybe the Canadiens did, too. Coach Guy Carbonneau, sporting his lucky tie for the win-or-go-home finale, admitted the team may have though "it was going to be easy".  It was anything but. 

The entire city of Montreal held its breath for 60 minutes, exhaling in unison as the clock ticked down to zero.   The Habs were moving forward. 

Rookie goalie sensation Carey Price called the game a "character-builder".  

Forward Bryan Smolinski summed up the mood.  

"The whole city's going crazy," he said. "That's the best part."

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All along MacKay, shattered glass glitters like diamonds as the sun crests the horizon.  By the looks of things, it appears the beer bottle was the preferred throwing weapon. 

Budweiser, Heiniken, Coors Light, Molson Dry; the fuel that fed the flames of chaos and destruction.  

I spot in the gutter all manner of debris:  a rusty, metal bar; a table leg; countless crushed beer cans; broken tiles and singed pieces of a busted tail-light or a windshield wiper. 

Montreal Police are quick to point out this isn't the work of true Montreal Canadiens fans.  This is "organized vandals", thugs and anarchists who thrive on havoc who plotted prior to the climax of the series to unleash devastation on the cops. 

The force urges calm and promises to look at its strategy to deal with this kind of behaviour.  After all, this is only the end of round one.   

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Montreal awaits its next opponent.  It will either be New York or Philadelphia should the Flyers pull of their own game seven victory over the Washington Capitals.  Game one goes Thursday night.

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I ask Raby, the manager of the high-end boutique, if he's prepared to see the Montreal Canadiens go all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals.

"I hope they don't." he responds. "Otherwise, I'm going to have to cover all my windows with plywood and hire security guards."