Montreal's unofficial religion

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MONTREAL -- Welcome to the Match des Etoiles. It's time for church. This is a weekend to genuflect at the game's pageantry, perhaps from bended knee or maybe with sticks raised aloft. If there was ever a doubt about the piety the locals have for hockey in this town as it hosts the NHL's All-Star weekend, consider that priests are used to read prayers before the opening minute of a Hockey Night in Canada broadcast. If there is any doubt that the fervor still burns during the Montreal Canadiens' centennial season, just look at the players marching into the Bell Centre along a red carpet, encircled by the fans who braved the sub-zero chills for enough hours to get some sort of view before Saturday's skills competition. Ah, the elbowing penalties they could call from behind the velvet ropes. And those are just the seniors with grandchildren on their shoulders.

"It's basically a religion here," Tampa Bay's Vincent Lecavalier, a Bizard, Quebec, native who grew up in the shadows of the Old Forum. "Everybody loves the Canadiens." Anaheim goalie J.S. Giguere, who was born in Montreal, called the weekend "the greatest celebration of hockey because it's here."

For the 7.7 million who live in the Montreal area, the slogan the team trumpets these days, "La Ville est Hockey (The city is hockey)," resonates across a culture. Francophone identity is emblazoned with the C-H on the team's logo. There are four French television shows dedicated to the Canadiens and radio opines at will about the team on both the French all sport station (CKAC) and the English one (Team 990).

The memories here are frozen in time, at least until the hockey ice sculptures along Boulevard Rene Levesque happen to melt. That may take a while. The forecast is calling for temperatures to drop to minus-15 at night over the next two days.

Nearby, Crescent Street was closed to vehicular traffic, with bars offering two-for-one beers and vendors hawking makeshift (read illegal knock-off) t-shirts.

Across the street from the Bell Centre, the league erected a tent where it held the All-Star Jamboree. Inside, organizers had to institute a 30-minute waiting list to see the league's trophies and then a second list to see the game's oracle, the Stanley Cup -- in essence, a line to get to the line.

Kids were poking their mugs into the holes of cardboard cutouts of uniformed favorites such as Saku Koivu and Patrick Roy. No word if that last one barks in multiple languages.

Several former players held autographs sessions, including: Dickie Moore, Rick Middleton, Dave Schultz, Clark Gillies and Gaston Gingras. If Schultz and Gillies reflexively drop their fur hats and mittens, it's time to go.

There were old all-star uniforms on display from Borje Salming, Eddie Giacomin, Koivu and Alex Kovalev, though the jersey from the Howie Morenz Memorial Game in 1937 got the unofficial award for coolest item.

Television networks RDS and TSN had live dueling studio feeds from opposite corners of the hall next to makeshift rinks where would-be snipers could grab sticks and test either their aim at the box in the top corners or their kilometers-per-hour on the speed cams.

The Skills Competition on Saturday had its moments. It is worth the price of admission to watch Bruins goalie Tim Thomas and his randomly flailing limbs playing goal in a skills competition. That's your basic upside-down, skates-aloft, arms-akimbo, back-of-the-elbow, puck-off-the-mask save, just the way they teach you to do it in hockey school.

With his playmaking skills, Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin has surely assisted on a hat before, but he had the best assist of the night when he handed a hat to Alex Ovechkin of the rival Caps for his breakaway two-sticked goal.

Another great assist should go to Zdeno Chara, the Bruins' defenseman who cannonballed a 105.4 mile-per-hour slapper to win the hardest-shot competition. Chara donned a hat with the logo of Right to Play, the worthy athlete-driven charitable group that uses sports to aid underprivileged and impoverished children around the world. He convinced the other five players in the hardest-shot competition (Lecavalier, Mark Streit of the Islanders, Shea Weber of the Predators, Mike Komisarek of the Canadiens and Sheldon Souray of the Oilers), to donate $1,000 for the organization. Upon hearing this, the NHL, the NHL Players' Association and the clubs of the six players all matched the players' donations, so there was $24,000 in the pot.

It wasn't the week's only feel-good moment. Earlier, several all-stars visited the groundbreaking of a new children's wing of a hospital developed by former all-star Pat LaFontaine and his charity, Companions in Courage. Players and patients faced off in video hockey games and one boy was so choked up, he stumbled over a description of his afflictions. All across the city, the day in church was a spiritual respite.