The Montreal Canadiens ended a three-year playoff drought after winning their final game of the regular season and squeaking into the Eastern Conference’s final playoff spot on April 16. The victory earned them a first-round matchup against the Eastern Conference’s first seed, the Washington Capitals.
Just qualifying for the postseason was a major deal for a rebuilding Canadiens team that’s had several lean years and many hard times since making the Stanley Cup Final in 2021.
Under Hockey Hall of Fame player and first-time NHL head coach Martin St. Louis, the 2024-25 Habs team began to find itself and play good hockey with young stars like Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovský, Ivan Demidov, and Lane Hutson. And the team’s growth has inspired one of the biggest hockey hotbeds in the world.
After the Capitals won Games 1 and 2 at home, the series shifted to Montreal’s Bell Centre for Games 3 and 4 on Friday and Sunday, marking the first NHL playoff games in Quebec since July 5, 2021. Two sold-out crowds — a combined 42,210 fans — entered through the turnstiles at Bell Centre, creating an experience that’s so second-to-none that Alex Ovechkin once said he would choose Montreal if he had to pick a team other than the Capitals to play for.
The most explosive moment of the series happened as the period came to a close shortly after. Tom Wilson and Josh Anderson got into a brawl on the Capitals’ bench. Tempers were so high afterward, Wilson did a crybaby taunt at a complaining Habs player that would go viral online.
The moment appeared to give Canadiens fans an edge in their behavior — exhibited when they booed an injured Logan Thompson and chanted his name as he was helped off the ice in the third period.
But it was the outlandish bench fight and Wilson’s faux tears that drew the ire of Canadiens fans the most, inspiring them to get creative in sometimes crude ways for Game 4. What we re-learned through this example of extreme Hockey Fandom is that there’s no player in hockey who lives rent-free more in opposing fans’ heads than the handsome Capitals enforcer.
The most viral tribute to Wilson was found in the bathrooms of Bell Centre. X user @xwleblancx posted a photo showing trading cards of Wilson that had been dropped into urinals — a move that Capitals fans once did for Sidney Crosby in 2009.
Another Habs fan, sitting behind Montreal’s penalty box glass, printed out Tom’s crying face from Game 3 and put it on a popsicle stick that was waved all throughout the night.
There were also t-shirts made, as documented by a friend of the blog, Timmy from Toronto. Timmy decided to be bold and wear a black Screaming Eagle jersey of Wilson’s to Game 4. While inside Bell Centre, he ran into a Habs fan, who Timmy described as being “totally cool,” that was wearing a “Wilson Sucks” shirt he had created in the hours after Game 3. The two took a photo together.
Not all Habs fans were as kind as the ‘Wilson Sucks’ Shirt Guy, however.
“There were also a ton of people s*** talking my friend and I, but it was in French, so I couldn’t quite understand it,” Timmy, who is not bilingual, said. “The taunting was literally nonstop all night. I knew what I was getting myself into by wearing the Wilson jersey, and I did not mind, but they definitely played their part.”
Timmy’s jersey choice became even more controversial after the Capitals won 5-2 and took a 3-1 series lead thanks to a game-changing hit by Wilson in the third period. Wilson closed the scoring with an empty-net goal himself where he said hi to Habs fans along the end boards.
The sight of a Wilson jersey outside the arena was so grating that a police officer near Timmy got uncomfortable and worried about a confrontation.
“I was actually told by police to leave outside the stadium because people didn’t like what I was wearing,” he said. “The guy was friendly but told me I needed to turn my jersey inside out.”
The experience is a reminder just how passionate hockey fans can be when the Stanley Cup, sports greatest trophy, is on the line. The NHL’s postseason can bring out the best and worst in fans. And it’s a reminder just how important it is for the Capitals to close things out at home in Game 5, Wednesday.
