MONTREAL — Sasha Guindi was just disconnecting from a Zoom funeral for a friend’s grandmother when we caught up on Friday. It wasn’t the first one he’d attended since COVID-19 spread to this side of the Atlantic and destroyed, damaged or significantly altered nearly every life in its path, but it might have been the last one. He was at the bottom end of the emotional spectrum, thinking of his uncle who had passed months prior, about how he and his extended family couldn’t be together to pay proper tribute to his life and about how that was among the most abnormal of all the abnormal things he’s experienced since March of 2020. And, finally, he was lifted, thinking about how Saturday might present his first real opportunity to leave all of that behind.
For Guindi, the chance to walk into the Bell Centre to watch Game 6 of a Stanley Cup Playoff series between the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs isn’t just a step toward an experience he’s always dreamt of — it’s a giant leap toward the life he wants to redeem. The life he wants his 10-year-old son Joshua to return to after 15 months that challenged him in a way he never thought possible.
“I think this represents the light at the end of the tunnel for all of us here in Quebec in this pandemic,” Guindi said. “I’ve been to hundreds of hockey games being a season ticket holder or having season tickets in my family since I was a nine-year-old kid. It’s such a regular occurrence for us. I’m just realizing the magnitude of being able to go in and watch a game live. Even if it’s just with 2500 people, I think it makes it even more special.
It’s like an exclusivity that you get to experience the first event in Montreal in over a year, and it’s really exciting. My son who’s coming with me is in another world right now.”
The Guindis will be in section 108, a level below two diehard Canadiens fans, Michael and Jess Nelson, a brother-sister duo who first thought Saturday’s game was going to be stolen away from them when their team blew a 3-0 lead with its season on the line in Thursday’s Game 5.
Then Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki exchanged passes on a 2-on-0 rush in overtime, with Suzuki putting the final touch on the goal that guaranteed the Nelsons would return to the place in which they’ve built so many lasting memories together.
“Seeing him score that goal threw me off my chair, and I realized I’m actually going to the game on Saturday,” Michael Nelson said. “Win or lose, it’ll be a night we’ll never forget. To experience it together — we’ll always remember the first game back since the beginning of the pandemic.”
For Cat Toffoli, a Californian who moved to Montreal in the summer of 2020 and has been away from family and friends and spent much time apart from her husband Tyler, who plays for and travels with the Canadiens, going to the Bell Centre is a dream she’s been latching onto during every lonely night in her condo. It’s been the thought that’s carried her through every socially distanced walk across the city.
There was an opportunity to first live the experience when Montreal was still under a 9:30 p.m. curfew, with the final game of the regular season on May 12 starting at 5 p.m. Wives, girlfriends and families were invited to cheer on their loved ones from individual boxes.
But with the Canadiens having clinched a playoff berth two nights prior, Tyler Toffoli was told to rest and heal up the bumps and bruises he suffered over 52 games.
“I was so excited to finally be in the building and get to see the guys play, and it was just the one treat that I had coming — to come see Tyler play and see him in the Bell Centre after a whole season of not being able to,” Cat Toffoli said. “I think when Ty called me on the way home from practice and was like, ‘You’re not going to like this, I’m not playing tonight,’ it was like the one excitement I had just got broken. I definitely had a little bit of a sad time. It broke me for a little bit.”
But now, jubilation.
“I honestly think going into this Game 6 makes us all — especially the wives — appreciate it so much more,” Cat Toffoli said. “For me, this is my first playoff experience watching Tyler in the Bell Centre, and it just feels so deserved for the guys. I’m just going to appreciate it so much more than I could’ve ever imagined.”
Julie Petry, whose husband Jeff led all Canadiens defencemen with 12 goals and 52 points this season, is more excited for this one than any of the games she’s been to since landing in Montreal in 2015.
Back then, she was pregnant with son Boyd, who has since become one of the most well-known and beloved Canadiens fans on the planet. The opportunity to bring him and four-year-old son Barrett back to the place she says they dream of every night is one she’ll cherish forever — especially after what she’s experienced this year.
“It’s been hard,” Petry said, “and it’s been hard to see counterparts across the league experiencing it differently. You look at your friends in Florida and feel like nothing’s changed a beat for them, like they don’t even know what it’s been like here. For us, it’s changed everything.
“It takes a toll on the families, because we’re trying to maintain a positivity and a sense of normalcy for the guys, too, because we can be negative and ripping on everything because of what we’re having to go through. So, it’s been hard to kind of keep up our positivity. We’ve all held onto hope that we could go to this one game.
That’s why we’ve kind of stuck it out here, and Saturday night is the payoff. You couldn’t write it better.”
In her mind, this made submitting herself and her children to two COVID-19 tests a week and following even stricter protocols than the rigorous ones all Montrealers have had to adhere to over the last several months worthwhile.
Youngest son Bowen will remain at home, but Quebec’s restrictions have eased just enough for Julie, Boyd and Barrett to finally be within an earshot of Jeff for the first time all season.
That he might be able to hear them during the game promises to make this one of the most unique experiences imaginable for all of them.
“The guys will have their families and fans in the stands, and I told Jeff this morning, there’s no way you’re going to lose,” Petry said Friday. “You’ve got all the energy behind you going into this game.
“When it comes to this, it feels like it’s been worth it. As everyone feels in Montreal, finally there’s a sense of normalcy coming with restrictions lifting. And what timing! For Montreal to lift their restrictions right at this time for us to be able to go, it’s meant to be.”
Petry, Toffoli, the Guindis and Nelsons are hopeful Saturday’s game is the first of many more they’ll attend this spring. But if that’s not meant to be and this is the only one before next fall, that will be their only regret.
“The doors are unlocking and opening, and this is the first step to normalcy,” said Guindi. “I definitely have no interest in going backwards, and I don’t think we will be. I think we’re going in the right direction.”
