Your Montreal Playoffs Primer

I was originally going to write an exhaustive guide to watching the playoffs for people who don't watch hockey during the regular season. But it was really, really long, and my friend Robyn wrote a nice little concise one over at All Habs. As have a lot of people. So much for being the only person who thought of this!

Instead, I'm just going to focus on one thing that will inevitably be mentioned now that the Habs are in the playoffs. If you learn only two things about how to behave during the postseason:

1. Do not make jokes about riots. Don't laugh at them unless they're actually funny.

2. More importantly, do not riot. If you're downtown after a major Habs win, feel free to party and/or hug as many strangers as you want. Just don't set anything on fire, or hit anyone, or break anything. Hockey doesn't somehow change laws. You're just going to make us all look bad and explain to our non-hockey-fan bosses that it's only the psychos or the opportunists who get violent. Plus, usually these things happen after the Habs win a series, and then they lose the next series, so basically you're destroying both public property and the Habs' chance at a Stanley Cup.

So don't do it. Just enjoy springtime in Montreal, and all of the happy that comes with having a hockey team in the playoffs.