The Montreal Canadiens (French: Canadiens de Montréal, lit. 'Canadians of Montreal'), officially Club de hockey Canadien (lit. 'Canadian hockey club') and colloquially known as the Habs, are a professional ice hockey team based in Montreal. The Canadiens compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. Since 1996, the team has played its home games at the Bell Centre, originally known as the Molson Centre. The Canadiens previously played at the Montreal Forum, which housed the team for seven decades and all but their first two Stanley Cup championships.
Founded in 1909, the Canadiens are the oldest continuously operating professional ice hockey team worldwide, and the only existing NHL club to predate the founding of the league. One of the earliest North American professional sports franchises, the Canadiens' history predates that of every other Canadian franchise outside the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts, as well as every American franchise outside baseball and the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals. The franchise is one of the "Original Six", the teams that made up the NHL from 1942 until the 1967 expansion. The team's championship season in 1992–93 marked the last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup.
The Canadiens have won the Stanley Cup 24 times, more times than any other franchise, having earned 23 victories since the founding of the NHL, and 22 since 1927, when NHL teams became the only ones to compete for the Stanley Cup. The Canadiens also had the most championships by a team of any of the major North American sports leagues until the New York Yankees won their 25th World Series title in 1999.
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History
The Canadiens were founded by J. Ambrose O'Brien on December 4, 1909, as a charter member of the National Hockey Association (NHA), the forerunner to the National Hockey League. It was to be the team of the francophone community in Montreal, composed of francophone players, and under francophone ownership as soon as possible. The founders named the team "Les Canadiens", a term identified at the time with French speakers. The team's inaugural season was not a success, as they placed last in the league. After their first year, ownership was transferred to George Kennedy of Montreal and the team's record improved over the next seasons. The team won its first Stanley Cup championship in the 1915–16 season. In 1917, with four other NHA teams, the Canadiens formed the NHL, and they won their first NHL Stanley Cup during the 1923–24 season, led by Howie Morenz. The team moved from the Mount Royal Arena to the Montreal Forum for the 1926–27 season.
The club began the 1930s decade successfully, with back-to-back Stanley Cup wins in 1930 and 1931. However, the Canadiens, along with cross-town rivals the Montreal Maroons, declined both on the ice and economically during the Great Depression era. Losses grew to the point where team owners considered selling interest to Cleveland, Ohio, though local investors were ultimately found to finance the Canadiens. After the Maroons suspended operations following the 1937–38 season, several of their players joined the Canadiens.
Led by the "Punch Line" of Maurice "Rocket" Richard, Toe Blake and Elmer Lach in the 1940s, the Canadiens enjoyed success again atop the NHL. From 1953 to 1960, the franchise won six Stanley Cups, including a record five straight from 1956 to 1960, with a new set of stars coming to prominence: Jean Beliveau, Dickie Moore, Doug Harvey, Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, Jacques Plante and Richard's younger brother, Henri.
The Canadiens added ten more championships in 15 seasons from 1965 to 1979, with another dynastic run of four-straight Cups from 1976 to 1979. In the 1976–77 season, the Canadiens set three still-standing team records – fewest losses (8) in an 80-game season, the longest home unbeaten streak (34), and best goal differential (+216) – with one additional record that lasted almost half a century for the most points (132) in an 80-game season until it was surpassed by the 2022–23 Boston Bruins. In the 1977–78 season, the team had a 28-game unbeaten streak, the second-longest in NHL history. The next generation of stars included Guy Lafleur, Yvan Cournoyer, Ken Dryden, Pete Mahovlich, Jacques Lemaire, Pierre Larouche, Steve Shutt, Bob Gainey, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe and Larry Robinson. Scotty Bowman, who would later set a record for most NHL victories by a coach, was the team's head coach for its last five Stanley Cup victories in the 1970s.
Team identity
The Canadiens organization operates in both English and French. For many years, public address announcements and press releases have been given in both languages, and the team website and social media outlets are in both languages as well. At home games, the first stanza of O Canada is sung in French, and the chorus is sung in English.
Crest and sweater design
The classic "C" and "H" in the Canadiens' logo, one of the sport's oldest and most recognizable, were first used together in the 1917–18 season, when the club changed its name from "Club Athlétique Canadien" to "Club de Hockey Canadien", before evolving to its current form in 1952–53. Previous logo iterations had simply a "C" for "Canadiens" in 1909–10 and a "C" with an "A" inside from 1913 to 1916, with the "A" standing for "Athlétique". The "H" stands for "Hockey" in the 1917–18 team name ("Club de Hockey Canadien"), not "Habitants", a popular misconception. In Quebec history, habitants were francophone settlers who farmed the land along both shores of the St. Lawrence River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. As a nickname for the hockey team, "Habitants" is attested in French on 9 February 1914 in a Le Devoir report of a 9–3 win over Toronto. According to About.com, the first man to refer to the team as "the Habs" was Tex Rickard, owner of the Madison Square Garden, in 1924. Rickard apparently told a reporter that the "H" on the Canadiens' sweaters was for "Habitants".
Since 1911, the team's primary colours have been blue, white and red. The home sweater is predominantly red, with four blue-and-white stripes: one across each arm, one across the chest, and one across the waistline. The main road sweater is white with a red-and-blue stripe across the waist, red at the end of both sleeves, and red shoulder yokes. The basic design has been in use since 1914 and took its current form in 1925, evolving as materials changed. Because of the team's long history and significance in Quebec, the sweater has been called 'La Sainte-Flanelle' ("the holy flannel sweater").
As of 2015, the Canadiens' home red sweater is the league's only uniform to feature the French language version of the NHL shield logo (LNH) on the neck collar, in acknowledgment of Montreal's French Canadian heritage. The road white sweater has the English NHL shield logo.
The Canadiens used multiple other designs before 1914. The original shirt of the 1909–10 season was blue with a white C. The second season had a red shirt featuring a green maple leaf with the C logo and green pants. In the season before they adopted the current look, the Canadiens wore a "barber pole" jersey with red, white, and blue stripes, and a logo with a white maple leaf reading "CAC" ("Club athlétique Canadien"). All three designs were worn during the 2009–10 season as part of the Canadiens' centenary.
Motto
Nos bras meurtris vous tendent le flambeau, à vous toujours de le porter bien haut.
To you from failing hands we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high.
The motto is from the poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae, which was written in 1915, the year before the Canadiens won their first Stanley Cup championship. The motto appears on the wall of the Canadiens' dressing room as well as on the inside collar of the new Adidas Adizero jerseys introduced in 2017.
Following the last game at the Forum, every living former Canadiens captain passed down a torch until it reached then-current captain Pierre Turgeon, who became the first to wear the C at the then-Molson Centre. During the 2026 playoffs, a former Canadiens great carried a torch into the Bell Centre to symbolically "ignite" the arena during pregame festivities.
Mascot
Beginning in the 2004–05 season, the Canadiens adopted Youppi! as their official mascot, the first costumed mascot in their long history. The foregoing was the longtime mascot for Major League Baseball (MLB)'s Montreal Expos but was dropped from the franchise when they moved to Washington, D.C. prior to the 2005 MLB season and became the Washington Nationals. With the changeover, Youppi! became the first mascot in professional sports to switch leagues. He is also the first mascot in professional sports to get ejected from a game dating back to his time with the Expos. In June 2020, Youppi! became the first mascot from a Canadian-based club to be inducted into the Mascot Hall of Fame.
In November 2022, the Canadiens introduced METAL!, an "unofficial official mascot", for the team's Reverse Retro series of games that season. METAL! was retired ahead of the 2024–25 season.
Rivalries
The Canadiens have developed strong rivalries with two fellow Original Six franchises, with whom they frequently shared divisions and competed in postseason play. The oldest is with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who first faced the Canadiens as the Toronto Arenas in 1917. The teams met 16 times in the playoffs, including five Stanley Cup Finals. Featuring the two largest cities in Canada and two of the largest fanbases in the league, the rivalry is sometimes dramatized as being emblematic of Canada's English and French linguistic divide. From 1938 to 1970, they were the only two Canadian teams in the league.
The team's other Original Six rivals are the Boston Bruins, who, since their NHL debut in 1924 have played the Canadiens more than any other team in both regular season play and the playoffs combined. The teams have played 34 playoff series, seven of which were in the finals.
The Canadiens also had an intraprovincial rivalry with the Quebec Nordiques during their existence from 1979 to 1995, nicknamed the "Battle of Quebec".
Broadcasting
Montreal Canadiens games are broadcast locally in both the French and English languages. CHMP 98.5 is the Canadiens' French-language radio flagship. The station began simulcasting Canadiens games with sister station CKAC in 2007 due to the latter's weaker nighttime signal, and became sole flagship in 2011 after CKAC switched to an all-to an all-traffic format in 2011. Martin McGuire is the French play-by-play voice, with Dany Dubé on colour commentary.
As of the 2017–18 season, the team's regional television rights in both languages, and its English-language radio rights, are held by Bell Media. CKGM, TSN Radio 690, is the English-language radio flagship; it acquired the rights under a seven-year deal which began in the 2011–12 season. In June 2017, Bell Media reached a five-year extension.
Regional television rights in French are held by Réseau des sports (RDS) under a 12-year deal that began in the 2014–15 season. A sister to the English-language network TSN, RDS was the only French-language sports channel in Canada until the 2011 launch of TVA Sports, and was also the previous national French rightsholder of the NHL; as a result, the Canadiens forwent a separate regional contract, and allowed all of its games to be televised nationally in French as part of RDS's overall NHL rights.
With TVA Sports becoming the national French rightsholder in the 2014–15 season through a sub-licensing agreement with Sportsnet, RDS subsequently announced a 12-year deal to maintain regional rights to Canadiens games not shown on TVA Sports. As a result, games on RDS are blacked out outside the Canadiens' home market of Quebec, Atlantic Canada and Ontario from Pembroke eastward shared with the Ottawa Senators. At least 22 Canadiens games per season (primarily through its Saturday night La super soirée LNH), including all playoff games, are televised nationally by TVA Sports.
TSN2 assumed the English-language regional television rights in the 2017–18 season, with John Bartlett on play-by-play, and Dave Poulin, Mike Johnson and Craig Button on colour commentary. All other games, including all playoff games, are televised nationally by Sportsnet or CBC. Bartlett returned to Sportsnet over the 2018 off-season, and was succeeded by Bryan Mudryk.
Season-by-season record
This is a list of the last five seasons completed by the Canadiens. For the full season-by-season history, see List of Montreal Canadiens seasons.
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime Losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against
Players and personnel
Current roster
Updated July 21, 2026
Honoured members
Collectively, the Canadiens have retired 15 numbers in honour of 18 players, the most of any team in the NHL. All honourees were born in Canada and were members of at least two Stanley Cup winning Canadiens teams. Howie Morenz was the first honouree, on November 2, 1937. The NHL retired Wayne Gretzky's No. 99 for all its member teams at the 2000 NHL All-Star Game.
The Montreal Canadiens have an affiliation with a number of inductees to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Thirty-seven of these players are from three separate notable dynasties: 12 from 1955 to 1960, 11 from 1964 to 1969, and 13 from 1975 to 1979. Howie Morenz and Georges Vezina were the first Canadiens given the honour in 1945, while Shea Weber was the most recently inducted, in 2024. Along with players, a number of inductees from the builders category are affiliated with the club. The first inductee was vice president William Northey in 1945. The most recent inductee was Pat Burns in 2014.
In addition to players and builders, seven broadcasters for the Montreal Canadiens have been awarded the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame. The first two recipients of the award were Danny Gallivan and Rene Lecavalier in 1984. The other five award recipients are Doug Smith (1985), Dick Irvin Jr. (1988), Richard Garneau (1999), Gilles Tremblay (2002), and Pierre Houde (2024).
Players
Builders
Head coaches
Source:
Franchise individual records
Franchise scoring leaders
These are the top-ten point-scorers in franchise history. Figures are updated after each completed NHL regular season.
* – current Canadiens player
Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games Played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game
Franchise goaltending leaders
These goaltenders rank in the top ten in franchise history for wins. Figures are updated after each completed NHL season.
* – current Canadiens player
Note: GP = Games played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T/O = Ties/Overtime losses; GA = Goal against; GAA = Goals against average; SA = Shots against; SV% = Save percentage; SO = Shutouts
Records – skaters
Career
Season
* Indicates a league record.
Sources:
Records – goaltenders
Career
Season
* Indicates a league record.
Sources: