There were 22 Canadiens on Bell Sports Complex practice ice Thursday at noon and one more, rehabbing forward Ryan White, was skating alone on the arena's second sheet.

Upstairs, behind the glass, they were watched by 23 fans.

Think about it - every single spectator could have sponsored their own Canadien.

This was by far the tiniest crowd that has attended a Habs practice since the team opened its Brossard training facility four years ago, fans welcome to watch for free.

Until now, trivial matters of work and school haven't kept the faithful from flocking to this arena by the many hundreds, offered a close-up look at the players many can't afford to see in action at the Bell Centre downtown.

In balmy autumn and springtime weather, in bonechilling January cold and in raging winter storms, they have jammed two and three deep around the rink in a gallery stretching from roughly one blue line, down around the far net and curling back to the near blue line.

Thursday's minuscule gathering could vastly multiply on Monday, the next time the Canadiens are booked to practise. But a crowd of 23 was a colossal surprise, and surely the players took note as they looked up not at the usual eager faces but a vast empty space circling the ice.

Canadiens fans are known for their passion, for their obsession that borders on the unhealthy. They love their team with every molecule of their being, and they can loathe it just as intensely. They love the effortless performances, just as they loathe performances delivered with less than good effort.

Now, with the Habs on the brink of tumbling too far out of the playoff race to catch up, many fans simply don't care. They are apathetic about a club perhaps not so much for its weak, near cellar-dwelling results as for an executive mismanagement that has dug a very deep hole from which escape will be a slow process.

At the Bell Centre, Habs public-address announcer Michel Lacroix no longer makes the nightly announcement that the attendance is a sold-out 21,273, "and the Canadiens thank you!"

Wednesday's media notes for the Habs-Washington Capitals game hailed the team's 315th consecutive sellout - 287 in the regular season and 28 more in the playoffs. The last game not fully subscribed, the team says, was Jan. 8, 2004, before the 2004-05 season-cancelling lockout.

But if 21,273 tickets are sold for every game, many fans are now dressing as empty seats. There are not just one or two vacant seats scattered around the Bell Centre, but many chunks of them four and sometimes more abreast.

You'll see these seats in the lower bowl, scalpers likely stuck with what well-heeled season-ticket holders have unloaded to them. What should be more troubling to the Canadiens are the vacancies in the cheap(er) seats in the thin air near the ceiling, a vantage point more affordable to the average fan.

No matter the energy the team pumps into the building with raucous game presentation, an in-house spectatorparticipation animator, contests and the full-time return of folksy Forum organist Diane Bibeau, there is now a resignation in many fans, the home team booed off the ice on many nights.

The Canadiens are not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, but the "tragic number," that is, the combination of Habs losses and opponents' victories that will doom the season, soon will be calculated.

And when the Canadiens are officially excluded from the postseason, which only a miraculous recovery now will prevent, Montreal will live many long, dark days through February and March.

"Montreal has got to be in the playoffs," Canadiens centreman Scott Gomez said Thursday, acutely aware how greatly the odds are stacked against the team.

Gomez has missed the playoffs only one time in his 11 NHL seasons, in his fourth year with the New Jersey Devils in 2001-02.

"You'd better look at the (dressing-room standings) board and realize how serious it is," he said of what the Habs are facing. "If that doesn't piss you off or get you pumped ...

"Fans are part and parcel of the league and of Montreal. It's our job as players to get the excitement back. They're great fans here. This is a special place. You play like (expletive), they're going to let you know about it. If you play good, they'll back you 100 per cent.

"They know when the effort's there," Gomez continued. "They're smart hockey fans. I've been in some arenas where people freak out over an offside. Whether you want to hear it or not, Montreal fans are going to give you their opinion. You can't ask for anything more. It's our job to get the (Bell Centre) rocking again. The fans deserve better."

The spring of 2013 will mark 20 years - an entire generation - since the Canadiens' most recent Stanley Cup championship. There is no indication that the anniversary will be celebrated; fans pretty much had their fill of commemorating the greatness of yesteryear during 2009 centennial festivities, one sepia memory after another also reminding of successes long gone.

The exodus of Bell Centre fans Wednesday began early in the third period, the Canadiens unable to crack the Capitals. Many hooted and heckled, others just quietly left.

And then a thought occurred, a very strange idea in this city:

With nearly three months left in this cursed Canadiens season, soon it will be the fans who choose to stay until the final siren who will best avoid the exiting traffic.