The Invasion of Montreal

Part 1

How do you say, "Holy shit, that stripper just blew me in the back room for twenty bucks!" in French? 

It doesn't matter, because for a couple of nights many years ago, when the Red Sox played a few road games against the now defunct Montreal Expos, the entire city was occupied by New Englanders. Everyone important enough within earshot spoke English! 

Tangent alert:

First of all, Montreal, and on a broader scope, the province of Quebec...who the hell do you think you are?  Speak English like the rest of the majority north of the Rio Grande.  I understand that the area was initially settled by the French 300 years ago, but ya know what?  Mexico was settled, (ok, ravaged) by the Spanish but they're at least smart enough to TRY to learn English. 

Quebec is so arrogant that they thumb their noses at us in the states, which I suppose you could understand...but they do the same thing against the rest of their OWN COUNTRY!!  They tried to secede from Canada in the 90's!! Does anyone remember this? Does anybody care?  They wanted to be their own country! Really, Quebec?  You wanted to secede from one of the most stable countries in the world, who have free health care and virtually no enemies, and start your OWN country?  Is "douchebag" a French word? I think it is....

Quebec wanted to start their own government and literally become the country of Quebec.  What the hell would the "country" of Quebec have to offer the world?  Nobody cares about Celine Dion anymore. What would their main export be?  Would they have a two-team hockey league?  How would they self-sustain without leaching off America and the country that they just told to "fuck off?"  "Ummm....yeah, Canada...I know we just told you to go fuck yourselves and became our own country and everything...but the only natural resource we have is moose, can you help us out?"  This is not to mention the fact that every terrorist in the world would probably set up shop in the "country" of Quebec.  They would practically have to rename the country West Lybia.  If they're anything like their surrender monkey mother land, France, they would welcome the terrorists with open arms, give them homes, money, free health care.  They wouldn't have to hide in caves, they could send suicide bombers down the Appalachian trail. 

This was a REAL thing!! They voted on it, and it almost went down.  Would nobody have stepped in and said, "Ya know what, this is probably a bad idea."

Anyways, back to the Invasion of Montreal:

Aren't the greatest adventures the ones that begin with a spur of the moment idea that seems so great at the time, you could swear you just invented space flight?  That's how this road trip began.  Me, four other guys sitting in my studio apartment, and a dream.  The Sox were playing the Expos in Montreal, as I said, for a weekend series.  I returned home from work at around 2 p.m. on the Friday and a few of my buddies came by my tiny studio apartment.  B-Ride, his cousin JB, Gunny, and my brother Joey.  Me, B-Ride, and Gunny were 20 years old. JB was 24, and Joey was only 15. 

"What should we do tonight."  A bar was out of the question.  We could get booze, but then what?  Have people over my place, affectionately know as the "Crack Shack."  There was a bed, a love seat size sofa, and a small t.v.  The kitchen was the size of a normal sized bathroom.  Needless to say, our options were limited.

Someone, I forget who, threw it out there. "We should just drive to Montreal."  It was meant to be a throw-away suggestion....a joke...but it was a spark that ignited the wheels of our young minds to turn.  After a few minutes of everyone thinking the same thing but nobody saying anything, JB spoke up.  "Why couldn't we go?"  Joey was 15, he was out.  B-Ride had something going on the next day.  Me and Gunny were in.  I did some quick math.  "If we leave right now, we could be there by like 9 o'clock, we could go out, grab a hotel, and get tickets to the game tomorrow."  Clearly a fool-proof plan, right?  The only problem was that every one else in the entire northeast had the same idea.  Looking back, it's shocking to me that we thought we were the only ones brilliant enough to head up to Montreal.  What's even MORE retarded is how we thought that nobody else had this weekend planned and their hotels and game tickets secured for months.  The excitement and spontaneity of the situation clouded our judgement.  Yoda would clearly be very worried about us turning to the dark side if he had seen us at this point.

We got in the car, maybe a few hundred bucks between us, no bags, no supplies.  We made a quick stop at the gas station and got some snacks and gas, and we were off.  Our neighbors to the north had no idea what was in store for them.