Five times unlucky

[Habsfan84]

"You'll have to explain yourself now!" said a colleague at The Gazette yesterday.
That's exactly what I had been doing with another colleague over at the water cooler moments earlier. And she didn't like it when I said I thought Canadiens fans got what they deserved with the Habs' quick exit from the Eastern Conference semifinals.
I have to explain myself? Well, I did write that story on April 12, headlined "The Habs' magic number is ... 5," which described a series of happy coincidences involving the No. 5 in the Canadiens' surprisingly successful 2007-08 regular season that had led me to believe the storied ghosts of the old Montreal Forum had finally arrived this past winter at the Bell Centre, after a decade of seemingly inexplicable absence.

Furthermore, I made the bold assertion - through my own study of paranormal data - that the ghosts didn't just arrive by themselves, they were escorted to a new resting home in the Bell Centre rafters by the most recent of the historic Canadiens greats whose numbers were retired to die and go to heaven. Bernard (Boom Boom) Geoffrion. No. 5. If anybody could orchestrate the magic, it would be the Boomer.
Over the years, our hockey ghosts have been friendly ghosts here in Montreal. Until the move to what is now called the Bell Centre in 1996, they consistently brought good karma to the home team. And, we have to admit, the karma was very good (well, for us) during the Boston series; the Bruins missed so many chances, never more so than in the first period of Game 7, otherwise their best period of the series.
But Philly? Philly didn't miss many chances, did they? Instead of our own point shots deflecting off the legs of their defencemen into their net (like the Habs' first goal in Game 7 against Boston netminder Tim Thomas), we now had the spectre of Patrice Brisebois scoring into his own net, our net - and that was just the beginning of it. Half the goals that Philly scored had bad karma (well, for us) written all over them.
I see that Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau specifically talked about the role of karma in playoff hockey after his club's elimination at the hands of the Flyers. Carbonneau said he "believes" in karma. Well, so do I.
I think you have to do, or have to have, three things to win the Stanley Cup:
You have to be healthy. Key injuries are hard to overcome (see: Colorado Avalanche).
You have to play to your full potential. (I thought the Canadiens consistently had an edge in all aspects of play against Philly, except for one, the most important: goaltending.)
You have to catch some luck, and get the good bounces. You have to have good karma, in other words.
The Canadiens, a franchise that reaped more than its fair share of lucky breaks and bounces over the years, had terrible karma during the Philly series.
Why? Well, stuff happens, right? It's a game of breaks, as much as it is a game of inches. Or is there more to it than that? I think there is. If you believe in karma, then you have to be at least open to the suggestion that there are also forces that create and determine karma, that giveth and taketh away the good karma and the bad.

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