You Learn Something New Every Day

I was browsing ESPN.com just checking out if their were any articles worth reading today and I was reminded of something that confused me. The NHL playoffs are going on right now but I have never really been into hockey before so I know very little about it. I occasionally watch a Stanley Cup Finals game or two if nothing else is on, but that is about the extent of my interest the NHL gets. I also went to an Olympic Hockey Game in 2002, Czech Republic vs. Sweden, and I went to the first ever Atlanta Thrashers game. I may be a complete idiot when it comes to the game, but I understand enough to know that the team in Montreal is called the Canadiens.

But everywhere I look and whenever I hear something about them on TV, they are called the Habs. And why do they have an "H" in their logo? Is their a correlation between the two?

It made absolutely no sense to me, until now, after some research. I had to get to the bottom of this. If you know me I hate not knowing the answer to something, and I especially hate not knowing the answer to a sports question So, here is today's entry of "You Learn Something New Every Day"

Montreal is in Quebec, and the official language of Quebec is French. Thus, the official name of the Canadiens is "Le Club de Hockey Canadien" but a common nickname for the team among the locals is "Les Habitants." Les Habitants refers to the French settlers who farmed the land between the St. Lawrence Gulf and the St. Lawrence River, in what is now Quebec. The Habitants referred to themselves and others of French Canadian origin as "habs." The nickname died off in the early 20th century giving way to the more popularly used term "agriculteur" which simply means "farmer."

I always wondered why the Canadiens had the letter "H," on their logo inside the "C." With my newfound knowledge I figured it simply stood for "Habs" or "Habitants." But that in fact is not true. The "H" in fact just stands for "Hockey." So there you have it, the mystery of the term "Habs" and the mystery of the logo's "H," all solved in one day!