Thursday night, the stage was set for the Canadiens to clinch their playoff series against the Boston Bruins and clear the way for the sports community in Montreal to turn their full attention to the big event taking place Saturday at the Bell Centre -- UFC 83: Serra vs. St-Pierre 2.
But a funny thing happened: the Habs played perhaps their worst game of the season.
No, this is not a hockey blog, and yes I am a Canadiens fan, and yes I know the Bruins played a good game and deserved to win. Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about what this means as the festivities ahead of UFC 83 in Montreal continued this week.
I was hoping to get a sense of the buzz in town for the first-ever UFC event in Canada. The occasional fan among the thousands who left the Bell Centre with their heads hanging down was also a mixed martial arts fan and was lucky enough to have tickets. But I decided to ask a few random people if they were fans of the UFC. The responses ranged a little bit:
"Why, do you have tickets?"
At least that's positive.
"Yeah man, St. Pierre is going to rock!"
That guy flew in from Calgary.
"What's UFC?"
Okay, so the word hasn't reached everyone.
But I did manage to speak to some people from Bell Centre security, who will also be working the event on Saturday, and one of them put it perfectly.
"People in town are getting excited about the event. But it's nothing compared to hockey."
Yes, Montreal is crazy for the Habs. The city even dispatched extra police officers just in case celebrations got out of hand had Montreal won -- their first-round playoff series!
I wonder if they'll have extra security on-hand for Saturday night to handle fan reaction if local hero Georges St. Pierre wins. Or, as Matt Serra put it Thursday, if he were to upset GSP again.
Here's the thing. While the event is being held in Montreal, the tickets went so fast via pre-sale, it's quite likely that a high percentage of people who bought them are not even from Montreal. Some may not have even arrived in town yet. I expect the buzz to really start building tomorrow at the weigh-ins.
One thing though definitely evident is that the full range of mainstream media is jumping on the bandwagon. The number of such media in attendance at Thursday's news conference at the Bell Centre was certainly much bigger than for an event put on by TKO, the Montreal-based MMA organization.
They obviously can't help it, when you look at the numbers. But they're also starting to get why. This sport is "cleaned up" from its early days and people are starting to realize it is a legitimate sport. Sure, there is still the occasional article written by a newspaper (which shall remain nameless) that includes ignorant, erroneous comments. But in time those should disappear too.
One local radio reporter, whose station is just starting to turn its attention to the sport, was heard saying that Dana White runs the organization like a well-oiled machine. He's got that right.
I think the fact that the Canadiens are going to have to go back to Boston and play Saturday night is going to hurt a little bit, since the media attention will be divided.
But it won't affect the number of fans in attendance at UFC 83. With those tickets being so hard to come by, you have to figure even a diehard Canadiens fan isn't going to give it up.
Unless you want to make a quick $600.
