MONTREAL — In total, it was five phone calls.

They came from friends and family members throughout the day, all of them inquiring about Ivan Demidov’s status for the rookie showdown at the Bell Centre Saturday night.

“You didn’t know he’s playing?” I asked.

Turns out not everyone in Montreal is as tuned into hockey in September as they are in October.

Then again, if the Bell Centre wasn’t completely sold out for the first Canadiens game in the building since April 27, it wasn’t far from it. You’d have never known there were a few empty seats in the house listening to that crowd over the two-and-a-half hours prospects of the Canadiens and Winnipeg Jets were duking it out.

The fans weren’t exactly sitting on their hands. They weren’t sitting at all when Demidov was within a sniff of hav

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