Alexandre-Montreal

My name is Alexandre ******, I live in one of the biggest and greatest
hockey city in North America. Here hockey is a religion. I have to
admit that since the '94 lockout, things have changed a bit. I live in
Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and i'm a hockey fan. The people's
perspective of the sport and the players has changed ten years ago.
Since then our team has struggled to get a playoff spot but things
have been better in the last few years. My Montreal Canadiens were
able to sign a top player like Kovalev, and got great results in last
spring's playoffs. Since hockey is the number one past time in my
city, the present lockout has a direct effect on the city's economy
and it's people. The Bell Center (where the habs play), is always or
almost sold out every night. We have a good young team with speed and
a lot of potentiel. Here's how the nhl-lockout affects me and my
beloved hockey team. The population in Quebec is getting older, and by
the same way, the Canadiens are in a transition, they have to get a
younger crowd to buy season's tickets. Last few seasons were
encouraging and i was thinking of buying a package of 10 games and
eventually be a season's ticket holder. Anyways, the current situation
will hurt them in the short and long run because...i won't be buying
tickets anytime soon.

On a more serious note, here's the reason why i'm emailing you. Like i
told you before, i live in a great hockey city, filled with history
and passion for hockey. In the winter, people are going to sports bars
on saturday nights, go out downtown, or have tickets to the hockey
game. Every game is a happening. My girlfriend is curently studying in
a cooking school in the Montreal whereabouts, and on the weekend she
was working in a new sports' bar in the heart of downtown.
Unfortunatly the place closed down 2 weeks before Christmas due to the
current lack of sports activities. The 'sudden' bankruptcy of the
sports bar has to be related to the NHL lockout in some way. This
place would have been filled with hockey fans every game night. My
girlfriend is still looking for a new job as i write this email.

Thanks for all the positive info you've giving us over the last weeks, months.

A real fan of the game
Alexandre *******

PS: Sorry for the spelling, grammar mistakes... i'm french-canadian, hahaha.