Stikki Peaches Habs Montreal Canadiens

Youppi is battle-ready in the new Habs mural by Stikki Peaches

“The piece is encouraging the boys to grind it out, pedal to the metal, like modern day gladiators on the ice.”

NHL.com is showcasing a new Habs mural near the Bell Centre in Montreal today, ahead of Monday night’s game 1 in round 3 of the playoffs in Las Vegas. Montreal street artist Stikki Peaches applied his collage style to the image of Youppi on a destruction derby vehicle.

“It’s a spinoff of our famous mascot, without making it too obvious. I wanted to give it a Stikki-fied feeling. The piece is encouraging the boys to grind it out, pedal to the metal, like modern day gladiators on the ice.”

Montreal Canadiens mascot Youppi is battle-ready in the new Habs mural by Stikki Peaches

The Habs homage creation, located on St-Antoine and de la Montagne, is also jammed with references to the team and other issues on people’s minds. “Let’s go Jake” is of course a message to forward Jake Evans, wishing him a speedy recovery following his run-in with the Winnipeg Jets in round 2; there are also fans chanting Olé, Maurice Richard’s #9 and the number 215 in memory of the Indigenous children buried outside a residential school in Kamloops B.C.

“Throughout all my work over the years, I always add some little not-so-hidden messages and go with what is current. I always acknowledge there are other things besides sports or art or whatever. There are definitely bigger things going on in the world, and sometimes you just have to acknowledge them.”

For the Montreal Canadiens game schedule, please visit the team’s official website.


For more Montreal sports coverage, visit our Sports section.