MONTREAL -- In four days, an awful lot had changed.
From manifest destiny to minor unease last Thursday, to a full-on, gut-wrenching, bar-clearing funk on Saturday, to the familiar, seventh-game mix of hope and dread last night.
It's a different crowd here than it used to be. Louder. Needier. Not nearly so cocksure.
Fifteen years walking in the wilderness will do that to you (Toronto Maple Leafs supporters might not want to dwell too long over that last part). So will having the full undivided focus of a city, of a province, of a pays, of being the obsessive and only subject of an entire sports-media subgenre.
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In all-Habs-all-the-time Montreal, this NHL season has been the happiest of surprises.
The Bob Gainey master plan was far ahead of schedule. What was supposed to be a life-and-death struggle just to make the playoffs morphed into a spot at the top of the Eastern Conference, and an apparently insurmountable first-round lead.
Human nature being what it is, they started to count their chickens - not just the fans, but the players as well, who all too obviously relaxed after winning the fourth game of the best-of-seven series to go up 3-1 on the Boston Bruins - and then over the course of the weekend learned an ancient lesson.
Truth was, aside from the first game, the Bruins had played them dead-even or better for every minute of the series, outworked them, outskated them and outcoached them and, heading into the decider, for all of the mathematical probabilities, for all of the glorious triumphs past, no one who was being honest with themselves walked into the building last night thinking it was in the bag.
A bit boorish to chant "Go, Habs, go" and almost completely drown out The Star Spangled Banner, but that's the kind of thing you do when you're desperate, when you're trying to will something to happen, and the rules of decorum go out the window.
On the flip side, if things had gone pear-shaped for the home team early, the atmosphere might have turned nasty fast. That hasn't changed here: they're loyal, but they're fickle.
Instead, in a first period in which the Bruins were still feeling their oats, a couple of very important things happened for the Canadiens: Alex Kovalev, not so good since his goal-for-the-ages in the fifth game, made a beautiful pass to set up Mike Komisarek's opening score against the run of play; and rookie netminder Carey Price, who had surrendered 10 goals in the past two games and whose third-period meltdown in the fifth game had really set off the crisis of confidence, discouraged Boston by making a bunch of those in-absolutely-the-right-place-at-the-right-time saves that have already become his trademark. (Inspiring, in some sacrilegious sections of the Bell Centre, a new chant - "Jesus Price, Jesus Price.")
The home team was hardly full value for taking a 1-0 lead into the first intermission, but it turned out that was all it took. In the second period, for first time in a while you could see what all of the fuss this season had been about.
There was plenty of high-speed, high-flying magic from the Kovalev-Saku Koivu-Christopher Higgins line, the Canadiens were no longer being outworked, outmuscled and outskated. They were winning most of the little battles.
And somewhere right about the game's halfway point, when Mark Streit scored a beauty to make the score 2-0, you could sense the Bruins' surrender. Not without a fight, not dishonourably, not without making the most of their limited resources, just giving in to the inevitable. In the final period, even a string of power-play chances couldn't restart their heart.
You can imagine how it sounded in the rink during those final minutes of the third period, the Habs piling it on, up 5-0, the "Ole, Ole, Oles" and "Na, na, hey, hey, goodbyes" ringing in the rafters.
And sitting there, you could anticipate how it would be outside.
They used to make fun of Toronto fans hereabouts for the way they celebrated any kind of playoff triumph, for staging premature victory parties because for so long they hadn't experienced the real thing. The sports equivalent of calling in the army to clean up a little snow.
But that was only one round of the necessary four that ended last night. That was a high seed beating a low seed, going seven games when a whole lot of smart folks figured it would only take four or five.
And heck, maybe it's just geezer-ism creeping in, but those kids on the street were making an awful racket. It sure sounded like a party.
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