Asked to name his favourite boyhood memory of the Montreal Canadiens, Alex Burrows briefly fails.
“So many of them,” he says hopelessly.
But then he remembers being a teenager and riding transit buses for two hours from his home 40 kilometres away in Pincourt, Que., to the Bell Centre downtown. He and his friends would blend in with tour groups being guided through Montreal’s arena. They’d sit in the stands and look at the ice surface or the banners hanging from the rafters. They’d climb up to the press box, visit the dressing room if they could.