The Montreal Canadiens (Les Canadiens de Montréal) are a professional men's hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The club is officially known as Le Club de Hockey Canadien. French nicknames for the team include Les Canadiens, Le Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, La Sainte-Flanelle, Le Tricolore, Les Glorieux, Les Habitants and Le Grand Club. In English, the main nickname is the Habs (coming from "Les Habitants"). The Canadiens are not only the sole major sports league team in Montreal, but all of Quebec with the departure of the Expos in 2005 and their in-province rivals, the Quebec Nordiques 10 years earlier.
The Canadiens are one of the 'Original Six' teams – that is, the teams of the NHL just prior to the expansion of the league in 1967. They have won more Stanley Cups (24, the first in 1916, before the NHL existed, and the last in 1993) than any other NHL team. On a percentage basis, as of 2006 this made them historically the third most successful major professional sports team in North America, having won 25% of all NHL/NHA Stanley Cup championships. Only the Boston Celtics of the NBA (26.2%) and the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (25.2%) have higher success rates.
The Canadiens play their home games at the Bell Centre, which was previously named the Molson Centre up until 2003. Former homes of the team include Jubilee Rink, Montreal Westmount Arena, Mount Royal Arena and the famous Montreal Forum. The Forum was considered a veritable shrine to hockey fans everywhere, and housed the team for seven decades and all but their first two Stanley Cup championships.
The team's Championship season in 1992-93 still marks the last time that a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup, in a current span of thirteen seasons (fourteen years, due to the NHL lockout season).
