And it’s the one I went to… Cheering for the opposite team: the LEAFS! But yea, both teams really played well, a nice fast-paced game with so many great shots on goal (some that turned into goals, mostly for the Habs… 4-1 being the final score)!

A faceoff…

The final score board…

Pictures (c): Christelle

This is how it feels to see 600 tons of aluminum flying a few meters over your head. I used a 17mm wide angle lens and even then I almost didn’t get the shot.

I was initially planning to stay on the viaduct that goes over Highway 13 but the thought of spending an hour in the wind with trucks passing right behind me was not really appealing. In addition we couldn’t see the approach so I was afraid that I’d miss it. Ultimately, Christiane and I decided to get right in the middle of things and we walked to the end of Pittfield Ave.

A few landings provided me with the opportunity to do some test shots, including a great image of an Air Canada A330. Ultimately these didn’t really prepare me for the real thing. Following a leisurely stroll around the island, the A380 finally settled into a final approach that seemed to take forever. That was just a size-induced illusion as it got in much faster than I anticipated. I got my approach shot, turned around, got down on one knee and barely had enough time to capture it going over the silhouettes of the other plane spotters.

If you send your images to Flickr, tag them with Montreal and A380.

I just got off the phone with the information desk at Trudeau Airport. Unless the weather does something unexpected, the first landing of the Airbus A380 will take place on Runway 24R at 12h30 tomorrow afternoon.

Contrail Aviation Photography has an excellent spotting guide for YUL. I’ll probably be at spot number 9 since I’m hoping to include the Mont Royal and the Oratory in the background. I’m not sure about the direction of the light though so I’ll do a quick scouting run and report back in a few hours.

Update I checked out the various spots at about 12h30. As you can see in the first two images, you can get a pretty good view from Chemin St-Francois but the sun will unfortunately be illuminating the left side of the airplane. You won’t be able to see the actual touchdown but the plane should emerge from behind a group of buildings with the front wheel still in the air.

The illumination from the end of Pitfield is marginally better since you might be able to position yourself to capture the well-illuminated left side. A note of warning, bring your fastest lens. Even at 1/200 sec, many of my side shots came out fuzzy.

Ultimately I found another spot that may not as close as those two but it should provide me with an interesting foreground. Where? I’m not telling. You can probably guess that the whole area will be an absolute madhouse come tomorrow.

Update II Can anybody confirm that planes are indeed coming in from the East this morning?

Whether we are covering monster hurricanes, terrorist bombings or political upheaval, the many servers and writers of the Metroblogging network have often proven useful when an entire city (or country) is having a really really bad day. One year ago myself and some of the other city captains were setting up a series of procedures for what we call “crisis mode”. I never expected these to be useful.

Turns out it was Jason, one of our own writer. Once he got his emotions in check, he was able to post what was, for a time, the only first hand account of the tragedy that was available online. Needless to say, it was read by tens of thousands of visitors. I am reposting it today to help us remember how we all felt on that terrible day.

Well, where do I begin?

First, my apologies for not posting a little sooner. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon outside near de Maisonneuve/Atwater, making and receiving countless phone calls, checking voicemail, talking to people and trying to help out by getting people pushed back farther away toward Lambert Closse. I finally decided it was time to go home around 3:15PM and walked to the Lionel Groulx Metro station where it was thankfully working in my direction. Once home, I fielded even more phone calls and tried to catch up on what the news was saying.

Trying to gather my thoughts over the last couple of hours, I’ve decided that I’m not going to bother with posting hourly updates. I don’t know anything more than what the news reports are saying. I’ll leave that sort of thing to my fellow Metbloggers, unless I have something of value to add.

My intention is to relay what I saw/heard and what I know as fact. I will also hopefully be posting, over the next couple of days, stories of some of my colleagues and other people that I will be talking to… if they are willing to share.

My story after the jump. (Be warned, it’s a little lengthy)
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Canadian Wrestler Chris Benoit, along with his wife and son, have been found dead in their Atlanta home. There are no details yet on the circumstances of their death.

I don’t follow wrestling but I was invited at the WWE RAW exhibition last May at the Bell Centre. Chris Benoit (wearing the red pants in the shots above) started the evening in what is called a Battle Royale where a large group of wrestlers try to throw their opponents out of the ring. Chris was the last man standing and won the right to fight The Edge during the last fight of the evening. Ultimately, The Edge cheated by removing the covering at the corner of the ring cords and slamming his opponent’s head on the metal holders.

Unfortunately, what happened in Atlanta was neither fake nor scripted. CTV News is calling it a murder-suicide.

(click the photo for a few more shots)

The worlds most popular circus has finally come home to Montreal with their new show “Kooza”.

I was out for a walk around Old Montreal and saw the tent setup, it’s very impressive. I could also hear them rehearsing inside, I’d have done anything to be able to sneak a peek.

They’ll be performing from April 18 to June 24 at the Old Port of Montreal. You can get more info on their official site right here.

Just a few pics from last night’s Nelly Furtado concert at the Bell Center. Fresh off her sweep from the Junos, Nelly brought her Get Loose tour to Montreal. Great concert, lots of fun and Nelly can definitely sing. Opening acts were the hyper Jon Levine Band and the too cool Saukrates. Had great seats on the floor about 20 rows from the stage but too bad my camera ran out of juice and couldn’t get any good shots. But it was a great night. I wasn’t a big fan of Nelly’s first CD but funny how everything sounds better when remixed and live in concert. I really like the hip hop influence on the current album Loose so I’m glad she performed a lot of tracks off the new CD. Of course, the crowd pleasers were big hits like the opening song Afraid and Say It Right or Promiscuous with Saukrates filling in for Timbaland. During a costume change, one of the backup singers performed a pretty good version of Justin Timberlake’s Sexy Back that kept the crowd pumping. For the song Forca, Nelly appeared in a Habs jersey which sent the crowd cheering. She told the crowd that she doesn’t put on a different jersey in every city but that her father’s favourite team is the Montreal Canadiens so that’s the only one she’ll wear. What a girl. She knows just how to charm a crowd. Nelly’s dancers threw out soccer balls into the audience and Portuguese fans waved their flags like crazy. A lucky guy two rows up from me managed to catch one of the soccer balls. All in all, a pretty fun night with a packed house, great beats, and great Canadian talent.

There was some crazy fog happening yesterday, wasn’t there? My husband tried to go out last night to visit a friend and ended up turning back because he was driving at 10km/hr and he still didn’t feel comfortable because you couldn’t see anyone else if they were more than a few feet away. It was crazy. Even during the day it was really foggy and I made him stop the car so I could get out and snap a few shots. This one almost looks like Mary Poppins was drifting by to pick the kids up from school and the fog made her crash land in the fence.

I love fog, as long as I don’t have to be driving in it when it’s as thick as last night!

Despite the fact that I am trying to remain in denial, I have to go next week to register our oldest daughter for Kindergarten for next Fall. Unfortunately, we had both procrastinated terribly and had not gotten her birth certificate yet, something that we needed for the registration process. The normal processing time said to expect two or more weeks until delivery so I went last week and paid $35 for the rush service (instead of $15).

I had two pleasant surprises. For one thing, despite the fact that there were a lot of people there (who knew so many people would need a birth, marriage, or death certificate all at the same time?), it was very quick to get through the line and get called up to the desk. I think I was there under half an hour - with a four-year-old and a one-year-old in tow, fast is always appreciated!

The biggest surprise was that we got the birth certificate in only three business days! I was very pleasantly surprised by that, because I was not expecting it until the end of this week. Now I guess we’re all ready to register her for school. Except for the fact that we don’t want to admit she’s almost school aged.

The best part of the experience was that I haven’t been downtown in ages so even though it was too cold to walk around with a camera in hand, I got some fairly decent shots out the window. Sometimes I really miss working downtown.

Rumors are abound that Habs’ head coach Guy Carbonneau, will move Guillaume Latendresse to the 2nd line with Kovalev and Plekanec.

Journalists witnessed Latendresse practicing today with the 2nd line and the comments are ablaze as to what this means. A born and bred Quebecker is now moving up to the 2nd line where we all hope he will shine.

Up until this point, Latendresse hasn’t done much as a Canadien with a total of 3 shots on net. Truth be told however, he’s been relegated to the final line and this move to the 2nd line will shine light on Latendresse’s abilities.

The Habs play the Bruins tomorrow night where all eyes will be on Guillaume.