Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour ready to score big in Montréal

While it’s actually quite remarkable that a city that’s equal parts hockey and festival crazy does not have an actual hockey festival per se, Montréal will nevertheless host the very next best thing when the super popular Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour pulls into town for the first time.

Hometown Hockey will be setting up camp in the downtown Place des Festivals in the Quartier des Spectacles – also the site of other major MTL fests like the Montréal International Jazz Festival and Just For Laughs – on Saturday, November 12 (from 12-6 p.m.) and Sunday, November 13 (12-10 p.m.), and the atmosphere will indeed be festive.

#ThatAwesomeMoment when Patrice Brisebois subbed in for a little one-on-one on the @mcdonaldscanada rink. #hometownhockey

Une photo publiée par Rogers Hometown Hockey (@hometownhockey) le 22 Oct. 2016 à 10h47 PDT

Family-friendly programming and activities are planned for the entire weekend, and it’s all free. These include a concert by Montréal-based rocker Sam Roberts, two circus performances, as many as five or six Montreal Canadiens alumni live and in the flesh onsite (whom you’ll be able to meet at The Community Locker Room), local celebrities, a virtual autograph tent, a cheering contest and more. And, of course, a live broadcast of all the action from the Sportsnet mobile studio on Sunday concurrent to the Canadiens taking on the Chicago Blackhawks in Chicago. (The Habs face off against the Detroit Red Wings on home ice at the Bell Centre on the Saturday.)

This year’s Hometown Hockey Tour will reach 24 Canadian towns and cities in their mission to unite families and communities around our national hockey passion through relationship-building events, the telling of poignant stories and the exploration of colourful local hockey lore. And Montréal, which the 24 Stanley Cup–winning Montreal Canadiens have called home for well over a century, certainly has no shortage of that.

Une photo publiée par Rogers Hometown Hockey (@hometownhockey) le 29 Nov. 2015 à 15h08 PST

Hosted by hockey broadcast legend Ron MacLean and one-time Montrealer Tara Slone, Hometown Hockey is expecting in the neighbourhood of 30,000 to 40,000 hockey fans in Place des Festivals, while the Sportsnet broadcast itself regularly draws an estimated 1.2 million viewers. Now starting its third season, the Hometown Hockey Tour has visited over 50 Canadian communities of all sizes and logged over 57,000 km while welcoming more than 400,000 people. The Montreal stop presents a unique, first-time opportunity for Montrealers, and those visiting the city, to join them.

Up next:Your Montréal pro-sports 2016 season roundup