My first game at the Montreal Forum was in 1963. Men still wore fedoras, women dressed up to go to the game, smoking wasn't an issue yet and there were still pillars that partially obstructed the view of the ice for those sitting behind them.
As mentioned in an earlier posting, Dad raised me right. In his household, Habs fans got to watch the whole game while those cheering on the Dark Side had to go to bed after the first period. When the broadcast began a half hour after the game started, the first period meant maybe two minutes of action before the siren sounded unless there had been a lot of scoring or a couple brawls in the early going.

It was a simple message and one I learned early, the Habs are hockey. Thirty-three years after I did, my son came along. Childrearing techniques had changed significantly in the intervening years. All kinds of stuff had gone by the boards. Wooden spoons are now exclusively for kitchen use. Kids have rights, all kinds of them. And they know it. Turning them into the people they ought to be requires a lot more carrot than stick these days.

I did my best. He wore Montreal Canadiens jammies and ate off placemats with the images of Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur on them. We watched games together when he was months old although he doesn’t remember. He also doesn’t remember 1993, being all of two-years-old at the time.

In 1995-96, he attended his first NHL game, against the Winnipeg Jets. We sat up in the rafters at the Forum. Being the last year that the building would serve as the focal point of the hockey world, it seemed important to me that my son be able to say he had seen a game there. That season, pictures of Hall of Famers from the past adorned the pricier tickets. We found one and kept it. It featured Jacques Plante, his grandpa’s high school acquaintance.

The Habs had just picked up a couple players. Four-year-old Mac, watching the teams skate around before the puck was dropped, noticed one of them and exclaimed, “There’s number five. He’s my favorite player. What’s his name?”

Looking back on it a while later wondering why he chose an incoming defenseman as his favorite, it dawned on me that Mac didn’t know a lot of two-digit numbers and the new guy was wearing one of the very few single numbers still in circulation at the time.

Stéphane Quintal scored that night, sealing the deal. When the crowd stood and chanted the goalie’s name as the clock wore down, there he was yelling, “TEE BO, TEE BO” along with thousands of others.

Montreal won, we bought pucks from the Habs, Jets and Forum to commemorate the evening and the family tradition of good sense in hockey seemed to have been successfully extended to another generation, particularly when we returned from the pet store with a pair of goldfish a month or so later.

One immediately became Stéphane Quintal, the other was named Flipper. Things went swimmingly until the spring of 1999, a year that Montrealers watched the postseason from a distance. With no rooting interest, we decided to pick our favorites to go all the way. I chose the Ottawa Senators, as did conventional wisdom that year, if I remember correctly.

Someone once said that the race is not always to the swift, or the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet it. My son, now able to understand bigger numbers, read the final regular season standings and went with the Dallas Stars.

As the playoffs progressed, a new favorite player emerged, Mike Modano. When the Stars went all the way, he was as pleased as if it had been a Habs triumph. When soccer season came around, he wanted to be number 9. Same thing when it came time to sign up for hockey. He knew about the Rocket. He had The Hockey Sweater, required reading in any Habs household, in both English and French and yet he wanted Mike Modano’s number on his back.

If I’d had a will, I probably would have changed it, but after taking a while to reflect on the situation, I figured there were probably worse things to be than a Dallas Stars fan. He might have become a Bruins fan, or a Leafs supporter, which would probably have resulted in both of us entering therapy.

Despite this serious character flaw, Mac was still my son and I continued to love him despite the disappointment. He began getting occasional Stars stuff for his birthday and Christmas. Now old enough to choose the logos that adorned his clothing, he went Dallas in a big way starting with a Stanley Cup championship cap picked up shortly after the event and worn every day of the summer.

There were posters, toques, banners and even a sweater but the best piece of swag came from a neighbor who scouted for the Stars, a Modano-signed puck that is still on display in his room, one the few decorating touches that survived last weekend’s paint-over.

Also making the cut was a Habs flag that we got at a game a few years ago. It was a giveaway, neither of us interested in actually buying one. Mac, because he had no affinity for the team, me because I’m supposedly all grown up. Funnily enough, as we were putting it back up Saturday afternoon, he asked if it was definite yet who “we” were playing in the first round.

Maybe he’s just a late bloomer.