Habs Fan in LeafLand Profile #2: Mickey Inzlicht

Hey I want to write about good things.

Fun things.

Things that get me excited.

So that automatically discounts me blogging about last night's anemic performance by the Habs.

Look. When you can't beat the league's worst team -- at home -- then you certainly do not deserve to  have me write about your exploits here, let alone make the playoffs.

Hopefully things will change soon. I smell another open letter...

Which is why this is the perfect time to present to you Habs Fan in LeafLand profile #2: Mickey Inzlicht.

Mickey Inzlicht and his little boy Jonah. Just because he's being raised in Toronto doesn't mean the kid can't be brought up rooting for a winner.

Mickey is one of my oldest buds and a chip off the ol' block: originally from Montreal, he's been living in Toronto since 2005 and perhaps is even more passionate about the Habs now that he's in LeafLand than when he lived in Montreal.

Quite possibly because he despises the Leafs so much.

Want to stop this University of Toronto professor dead in his tracks? Ask him who he prefers to lose in a game between the Leafs and Bruins. He'd still say the Leafs.

Just don't tell his students that.

But unlike myself who remembers the Habs' last dynasty of the late seventies, Mickey came to seriously follow the Habs somewhat later in life, around 1996. He just didn't have the same kind of influence I had because his parents were both immigrants and not hockey fans per se.

But he did become hockey-aware in the early eighties listening to his father kvetch how bad the team was. So he remembers the Steve Penney-fuelled run in '84; he remembers the aging Lafleur; but Patrick Roy is probably his favourite Hab of all time, as well as Bob Gainey, Saku Koivu, Jose Theodore, and Mike Komisarek -- who after signing with the Leafs, he says was like "a dagger to my heart."

Later in the eighties he used to debate the Habs with some of his high school buddies, much like my own experience. He also saw the Habs play at the old Montreal Forum against the Winnipeg Jets.

Mickey started following the Habs for real later in life -- which won't be the case for Jonah.

But as is often the case in life, he needed to leave Montreal to truly appreciate and root for the Habs. So while doing his grad studies in Providence, Rhode Island he'd often smuggle a beer in to the psych department in the evenings and listen to the Habs games over the internet.

Believe it or not the guy has no cable. So in Toronto when he's not coming over to my place or watching the game over the internet he heads over to Kilgour's Pub which regularly shows Habs games.

Ole ole ole ole cher Mickey. Hopefully the Habs will win a cup some day that you can truly call your own. Let's just hope you're not a grandfather at that point.

HABS FAN IN LEAFLAND PROFILE #1 UPDATE: GREG CHAMBERS

Congratulations to Habs Fan in LeafLand Greg for his engagement to his new fiance Ashley. 

And Greg popped the question in style. The couple spent a terrific weekend in Montreal, chowing down at Moishe's steakhouse (my mother's favourite) then the next night went to the Bell Centre for the game where the Habs beat the Bruins 4-2. 

Then he proposed on Mt. Royal under a tree. 

Awwww. 

Way to go Greg! Good luck to you and Ashley.