'Important that we unite': Canadians cheering on Canadiens in Stanley Cup bid

james iv Obenauer-Fossett may feature an Edmonton Oilers tattoo on his articulatio humeri, but for this playoff go, the Habs feature his allegiance.

He and other hockey fans across Canada are rallying behind the Montreal Canadiens, the last team standing north of the border in the hunt for the NHL’s Stanley Cup.

Montreal’s second-round series against the Buffalo Sabres begins Wednesday night. If they win it all, they would be the first Canadian team to capture the Cup since 1993, when Montreal defeated the Los Angeles Kings in the final.

That would be just fine with Obenauer-Fossett, whose loyalty to the Oilers is dipped in ink — he has a tattoo of Oilers mascot Hunter the Lynx.

"It's been 30 years since the Cup has been back in Canada, and it would be nice to have it back," he said.

"It doesn't matter which Canadian team is going for it. I'll cheer for any Canadian team."

The shift hits hard in Edmonton, where the Oilers came oh so close to the Cup in the last two years, only to get dispatched in the first round this spring by the Anaheim Ducks.

"Obviously it hurts right now," said 22-year-old fan Naseer Hussain in Edmonton.

He's usually an Oilers fan but said it's only fair he gets behind Montreal, like so many Canadians did for the Oilers in their recent back-to-back runs in the Cup final.

"We want to bring that Cup home back to Canada, where the Cup began its journey. Because this is where it belongs. It's important that we unite."

In Canada, making the leap from cheering for the hometown team to the Canadiens is not, for some, a gigantic shift in allegiance. NHL rinks across the country are regularly inundated with fans cheering for the Bleu, Blanc et Rouge.

Robert Hing has lived in Calgary for two decades, but the 49-year-old has yet to adopt the hometown Flames as his team.

“I like to say I was born with the Habs crest on my chest,” said the Canadiens fan.

Born in Ontario, he considered Montreal a second home until he was drawn to Calgary by a woman who has maintained her title as a Flames fan.

Hing went to Montreal last week to watch in person as the Habs lost a 1-0 overtime heartbreaker to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 of their first-round series. 

On Sunday, he hung around the city to watch Montreal put only nine shots on net yet still upset the Lightning to win Game 7.

“The game didn't look like it was going our way, but when [Alex] Newhook scored that [game-winning] goal, you could just feel this eruption. I didn't sit down after that,” Hing said.

“There's only about eight minutes left in the game, everybody watching was just living and dying on every single play.

 “So much tension but so much joy at the end of it.”

Winnipeg is also home to many Canadiens fans who make their presence known. They filled so many of the seats for a Canadiens-Jets game in Winnipeg in February, Jets coach Scott Arniel said he was disappointed at the large number of red jerseys in the seats.

In the city's largely francophone St. Boniface neighbourhood, Habs games make for busy nights at the Pregame Sports Bar and Lounge. 

"We get Canadiens fans. We are in a French community. We get a lot of them, but everybody should bet on the Canadiens right now," owner Tyler Evans said.

The bar is primarily focused on the Jets, Evans said, but Winnipeg didn't make the playoffs, so the bar has been offering discounts, including $5 drinks, during playoff games involving Canadian teams. The response in the first round during Oilers, Senators and Canadiens games was strong, Evans said.

The happy-hour pricing runs as long as the games do, and only when a team based in Canada is on the ice. With Edmonton and Ottawa eliminated, that leaves Montreal games.

"If we go to triple overtime, we run that $5 drinks all the way through," Evans said.

Fakiha Baig is a journalist with the Canadian Press.

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