METAL! Canadiens Habs mascot reverse retro
Sports

Habs mascot METAL! was frozen under the old Forum after “a night of bad choices” following the ’93 Cup win

by Lorraine Carpenter

Youppi!’s hesher cousin will be the team’s alternate mascot during the upcoming Reverse Retro games, and fans are encouraged to bring earplugs.

During last night’s Montreal Canadiens game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, a mascot named METAL! — who’s actually a variation of a mascot that some older Habs fans might remember from the ’80s and ’90s — made his comeback between periods.

Habs mascot METAL! was frozen under the old Forum after “a night of bad choices” following the ’93 Cup win

The mascot’s backstory — according to “a source close to METAL! who identified himself simply as his roadie” — explained that the orange-moustached blue guy returned to the Habs this past summer after a long disappearance. He allegedly emerged during renovations at the old Forum, where he had fallen asleep in an ice machine after “a night of bad choices partying with the team” following the 1993 Stanley Cup win.

“I can tell you he doesn’t understand three things: why it’s 2022, why the Habs are playing in a different building and why this baseball mascot guy is working on HIS turf. But since he turned blue from being frozen all this time, he’s gonna rightfully rock the new jersey the guys have and reclaim his deserved spot as the team’s unofficial official mascot.”

—METAL!’s roadie

METAL! will make his official alternate-mascot debut when the Habs play the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night, the first of eight games where the team will wear the blue Reverse Retro jerseys. According to the NHL, fans are encouraged to wear earplugs to all eight games as METAL! will make sure that there’s a lot of his titular genre on the sound system during the game and at photo ops in and around the Bell Centre.

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Posted in Sports

by Lorraine Carpenter

Editor in chief
Lorraine Carpenter was born in Montreal and studied communications and journalism at Concordia. She co-founded Cult MTL in 2012 following 12 years at the now-defunct Montreal alt weekly the Mirror, where she worked in editorial as copy editor and music editor. She’s dedicated to supporting the cultural scene in Montreal.