Cheering For The OTher Team

Cheering For The OTher Team

Unlike everyone else in this city, I for one am not rooting for the Montreal Canadians. I don’t want them to win every game, I am not impressed with their new skills, and it would just make life easier if they went back to being a terrible team.

It wasn’t always that way.
Like all good Montrealers, I remember my first hockey game.
I must have been six or seven years old, and after months of begging my parents to take me to a game, my father caved in.

Clad in my Stephan Richer jersey, and my best pair of jeans, I was ready for a night on the town. The Canadians would be playing the Quebec Nordiques, and I of course was praying to all that was holy that the Habs would win.

I don’t remember who ended up winning, but I would like to believe it was our home team. For the next twelve years I was lucky enough to attend at least a dozen games a season, always rooting for those Montreal Canadians.

As the glory years of the Montreal Canadians fizzled into the past, and losses became more frequent than wins, I slowly lost interest in the game.

Fast-forward to the 2006-2007 season. As of right now, the Canadians are desperately trying to secure a playoff spot. Every point counts, this is hockey at it's finest. I should be as ecstatic as I was when I was six. Feeling like these are the first games of my life. It is a new NHL after all. I should be rooting for them to win, praying for them to bring home Stanley.

Times have changed, and I’ve become much more self interested with age. I now work at Baton Rouge, a restaurant that is just across the street from Bell Center. Whenever there’s a game, we’re busy. So busy in fact, that you forget your own name, and usually end up vomiting after the rush. I’m a bartender, but to make matters worse, since I’m still relatively new and part-time, whenever there’s a game or a show, I become a service bartender. That roughly translates into “working for no-tips”.

I make the drinks, the cappuccinos and the desserts for the waiters. The restaurant seats 500. That means 500 martinis, 500 beers, 500 apple cobblers, and 500 cappuccinos. It also means I am constantly running out of glasses, alcohol, and lemon wedges. I usually finish the night with minor cuts, a pulled muscle, and doused in a variety of liquids.
I get only a two-minute break, because if I’m gone for too long, nobody sitting in the restaurant gets a beverage. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I have time for a bowl of soup.

While my fellow co-workers work just as hard, they have the benefit of leaving with over $300 in tips. I on the other hand get only a quarter of 2.5% of those tips. An amount that does not validate the blood, sweat, and tears of every pre-game rush.

When Montreal wins, the whole fiasco starts over again as people pile out of the Bell Center and into Baton Rouge to celebrate. I end up getting home at 1:30 am, still with homework to complete, and a class to get up for in the morning. At least when they lose, I can get home by midnight.

If Montreal makes the playoffs, that only extends my misery. I imagine with terror what will happen if we advance to the semi-finals, and the finals. I don’t want to think about winning the Stanley Cup, the idea gives me a panic attack.

So I apologize to my fellow Montrealers for my lack of enthusiasm. But for my sanity I need Montreal to lose Saturday night, and I need them to continue losing after that. Though, I guess I wouldn’t mind if they won on the road every so often.