Despite not at all expecting to go to Montreal for the 4 Nations Face-Off, I found myself on a plane with Jay on Tuesday night to join our team from Daily Faceoff for a couple days of meetings and Canada vs. Sweden at the Bell Centre on Wednesday.

Seeing as I had never been to Montreal before, I thought my first time would be on a holiday that I spent some time planning. Not a kinda last minute, “We’ve got some meetings lined up, let’s go” situation that actually happened. Needless to say, I was excited to get the news. As much as it was not ideal to fly to Vancouver before heading east to Montreal — on a red eye, no less — nothing was going to ruin my vibes heading into this unexpected adventure.

Given that nothing exciting happened in any of the three airports I was in before we arrived, I’ll spare you the boring details from a long travel day other than to say I wish I could sleep on planes. I was sitting there in the middle of the night, dreading what the next two days in Montreal would look like if I was running on 15 minutes of sleep. As it turned out, that guess was pretty close, but I did manage to crush most of the new Black Hawk Down docuseries on Netflix.

After a day of meetings, pitches, and catching up with our team, it was off to the Bell Centre to watch Canada take on Sweden in the tournament opener. I had never been to an international game before, and I was pretty excited that my first game would be happening in Montreal. I’ve always wanted to watch a game at the Bell Centre because of how the energy sounds through the TV, and the vibes did not disappoint from the moment we walked up to the rink.

Despite the fact that it was outrageously cold in Montreal last night, the vibes were high as we wandered closer to the Bell Centre. As we got closer, you could see a flood of Canada (and team) jerseys everywhere you looked, and you could hear the Ole Ole chants reverberating around downtown Montreal. Normally, I think that chant is kinda silly, but in this environment, I was all about it.

I had never been to the Bell Centre before last night, and I have to say that it lived up to the hype. For years, I had heard about how that barn had an electric atmosphere, and I was excited to experience that environment first hand. Needless to say, the hype about the environment in that arena was real, and I was pleasantly surprised about the way it all came together.

I think my favourite part about the whole night had to be the way the crowd reacted to Canada’s star players. Even though I’m no Pittsburgh fan, it was pretty awesome to see how the crowd reacted to Sidney Crosby in the pre-game announcements and also when he was announced as Canada’s player of the game. I had always heard that Montreal fans are good about appreciating greatness, and to see them give an ovation to a player who had never been a Hab was pretty awesome to watch.

Sitting in the Bell Centre up in section 218, we could hear people talking about Connor McDavid being a special player quite a bit, and it was a nice reminder how lucky we are to watch him play on a nightly basis. Given that he picked up an assist less than a minute into the game, it wasn’t surprising that the Bell Centre faithful were geared up and marvelling at what he can do when his legs are moving and the puck is on his stick.

I guess my point here is that even though McDavid only picked up a point on Nathan MacKinnon’s first period goal, he’s so special that every shift he plays is worth the price of admission. We’re so spoiled as a fanbase to be able to watch him on a nightly basis, and hearing the way another fanbase appreciated him only cemented the idea.

Viktor Arvidsson only played 10:07 in TOI, and played the second fewest minutes of any Swedish forward. Honestly, that was disappointing. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect from him at the tournament, but I think I can confidently say it was more than we got on night one. At the same time, are we surprised to see Arvidsson’s limited usage given how his season has gone overall?

I guess I just hope that Arvidsson can have some success as the tournament rolls along because he was essentially a non-event for the entire game against Canada. I know this was only the first game of the tournament, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for a better effort for a guy that was representing his country for the first time in a minute. Is that fair? I think it’s fair. Then again, I may also be too hard on the guy since this game had literally nothing to do with the Oilers.

It was weird cheering against a player I love as much as I love Mattias Ekholm, but that was the situation we were in on Wednesday in Montreal. Slotted in on the second pairing with Erik Karlsson, Ekholm looked like the perfect partner for the puck moving d-man from Pittsburgh, and it was fascinating to see him fill that role as well as he did.

The other thing I noticed about Ekholm’s game is that the Swedish coaching staff clearly gave him the green light to get involved in the play if he saw an opportunity, and it almost resulted in Sweden picking up the go-ahead goal late in the game. As a fan in the stands cheering for Canada, I really didn’t want him to score, but as someone who bet on him to get a goal, I wouldn’t have been too upset had it happened.

As someone who wasn’t overly excited about the 4 Nations Face-Off when the tournament was announced, my tune certainly changed as I was sitting in the crowd. That game was a lot of fun, and being lucky enough to watch Team Canada play was an experience that I won’t soon forget. Even though the 4 Nations is a made up tournament that likely won’t happen again, watching Team Canada play a game in front of a crowd like that was a bucket list item that I’ll be thinking about for a long time. That game was a blast.