Le Club de hockey Canadien de Montréal dates back to 1909: its next playing season (2008-2009) will include various events to celebrate its centennial.
The Canadiens were among the most successful professional sports teams of the 20th century, having brought the Stanley Cup home 24 times between 1916 and 1993; the gap between 1993 and today is the longest the team has gone without a Cup.
The team – also known as the Habs, and in French the bleu-blanc-rouge, la Sainte-Flanelle, le CH, les Glorieux – is part of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League.
It's difficult to convey quite how strongly Montreal identifies with this hockey team. Its ups and downs, the fate of its various stars, seem to embody and reflect the mood of the city itself. The premature death of star forward Howie Morenz in 1937 prefigured the carnage of World War II. The Richard riot of 1955 is commonly regarded as the first public outbreak of a Quebec nationalism that would grow throughout the rest of the century.
Some fans still feel that the team's 1996 desertion of the Montreal Forum is partly responsible for its long Cup drought: it has never won one in its current home, the Bell Centre. The Forum was generally but quietly regarded as having protective ghosts, one of the reasons the team's old changing room was faithfully re-created in the new arena, but so far these gestures have not met any success.Typically, if the team makes the playoffs, game nights bring a hush to the streets punctuated with audible cheers and groans from houses and drinking establishments throughout the city. Wins are followed by outbreaks of honking, waving of the CH logo flag and, occasionally, rioting and vandalism; losses by a certain discreet silence as fans quietly disperse.
Canadiens official site
Wikipedia page in English, page Wikipédia en français
Radio-Canada's Coupe Stanley section
CBC's Habs Fever page
The Gazette's Canadiens page and Habs Inside/Out blog
La Presse has La Fièvre des séries too.
SLAM! Sports page
Yahoo sports page
CJAD radio carries the games in English and CKAC in French, both offering web streaming.