Team Unity for Habs

It first started because Steve Begin, and Brian Smolinski had it, and Tom Kostopolous decided to look like his line mates, so he shaved his head, and is growing a beard. It has since steamrolled into a team unity thing, as Mike Komisarek, Patrice Brisebois, Ryan O’Byrne, Guillaume Latendresse, Mark Streit, Christopher Higgins, and Michael Ryder have all done the same. Maxim Lapierre was asked last week if he would shave his head, and he told reporters that for the moment, it’s just a couple of players, so he wasn’t going to do it, unless it became a team thing. Well, after seeing more of the team do it, Lapierre shaved his long locks of hair, but he did it mohawk style, he shaved his head with a twist, and Carey Price joined him. Francis Bouillon, and Tomas Plekanec have also shaved their heads. There’s just a few players left who haven’t done it yet, perhaps in a few days the rest will follow.

It’s good to see that the young kids are influencing the veterans of sort, out of the few remaining, the likes of Alex Kovalev, Sergei, and Andrei Kostitsyn, Roman Hamrlik, and Andrei Markov along with Saku Koivu have yet to do it. At least the team has assumed an identity of sorts, being called the buzz cut boys from various Montreal media outlets.

Perhaps this buzz cut thing will bring the team together more than they already were, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of fans get on the band wagon either. Montreal fans are nuts, they took over some Boston pubs, are they crazy? Yup. That is what the post season means in Montreal, fans are crazy enough to go to the opposing team’s town, and take it over, wow, now that’s a crazy fanatic about his team! Perhaps the Montreal fans aren’t crazy like the Europeans are when it comes to football ( soccer ), but they are nut’s about their team never the less.

A newspaper published last week, I believe it was the West Island Suburban, that when it comes to play-off time in Montreal, we all agree, it doesn’t matter if you are English, French, or whatever nationality, when the Habs are in the play-offs, that’s all that matters, and for the moment anyway, all differences are put aside. Every person on the radio, or newspapers, or t.v. say the same thing, that they have never seen so much support for the Habs, any street that one would walk down in any city in Montreal, all one sees is Habs flags everywhere, on cars, buildings, houses, pets have Habs shirts on, people are painting their cars, getting tattooed, and various other things to support their team.

Perhaps the reason that the Habs are so enthused about the play-offs as well as the fans, is do to the fact that every prognosticator said that the Habs would be lucky to finish in the 9, or 10 seed this year, being that they won their division, and the conference, to go along with having the no.1 power-play in the league ( which hasn’t shown up in the play-offs ), and scoring the most goals in the league ( which is not apparent yet ), has light the proverbial fire under every one, including the players.

Let’s hope that the remaining players also go the way of the team in terms of head shaving and play-off beard, and that it carries them further into the post season. GO HABS GO!