MONTREAL - Only in Montreal could 14,000 people turn out to watch a film about hockey.

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Mind you, it is a movie about 'les glorieux,' as the Montreal Canadiens are known in this province.

TVA Films president Yves Dion was calling it one of the biggest world premiere screenings ever, prior to the showing of Pour toujours les Canadiens, which had its first public screening Monday night in, appropriately enough, the Habs' home at the Bell Centre.

At least, you'd figure most of the folks who shelled out $16 per ticket are card-carrying Habs boosters, given that the film is officially sanctioned by the NHL club, and its launch is one of the highest-profile events surrounding the team's seemingly never-ending 100th-anniversary celebrations. The team had sold 11,000 tickets to the screening by Monday, with another 3,000 tickets given away by distributor TVA Films.

"It's never been done anywhere in the world," boasted TVA Films head honcho Dion, who added that his company is in the midst of contacting Guinness World Records to see if the screening merits inclusion in the next edition.

"It will be the biggest premiere ever in Quebec," said Dion.

Now, you might be forgiven for thinking the 100th anniversary was, in fact, last season, given that the Habs spent most of that season endlessly celebrating their glory years (and trying desperately to ignore the less-than-glorious on- and off-ice antics of the 2008-2009 Canadiens). But as Dion points out, the actual 100th-anniversary date is Dec. 4, 2009 - which just happens to be the day Pour toujours les Canadiens will be opening on approximately 100 screens across Quebec.

Many of the players from the current Habs roster were expected at the premiere, as were a slew of Canadiens stars from days past, notably Jean Beliveau, Pierre Bouchard, Yvan Cournoyer, Phil Goyette, Rick Green, Elmer Lach, Guy Lafleur, Yvon Lambert, Dickie Moore, Henri Richard and Rejean Houle.

The $6-million film, which was produced by Cite-Amerique, will be projected in high-definition on the arena's giant screen.

According to Dion, only tickets with good sightlines have been sold, eliminating thousands of seats at the highest and lowest levels of the arena.

The French-language film, directed by Sylvain Archambault, is based on a screenplay by Jacques Savoie and tells the fictional tale of 17-year-old William (Dhanae Audet-Beaulieu), who plays for the College Francais hockey team. He's going through a tough period, which leads to some problems on the ice. His dad, Benoit (Christian Begin), is so busy working on a documentary about the 100th anniversary of the Habs that he's pretty well ignoring his family. His mother (Celine Bonnier) is a nurse and is very concerned about one of her patients, a 10-year-old boy (Antoine L'Ecuyer) who needs a kidney transplant.

One of the first scenes shot last fall was at Ste. Justine hospital in Montreal, with several real Habs players visiting kids, including Saku Koivu, Chris Higgins, Mike Komisarek and Francis Bouillon. The problem is that all of those players - and several others featured in the film, including Alex Kovalev - now play for other NHL clubs, following a wholesale makeover of the team.

This year's vedettes - Brian Gionta, Mike Cammalleri and Scott Gomez - are, for obvious reasons, nowhere to be seen in the film. But Dion insists this will not hurt Pour toujours les Canadiens.

"The film's not a documentary," Dion said. "It's a work of fiction."

The other downer is that the team has, well, been a bit of a downer for the last 12 months. Clearly, it would have helped the launch of the flick if the Canadiens were riding high in the NHL standings. Still, Dion claims the team's relatively uninspired performance shouldn't put a damper on the film's popularity.

"Quebecers have les Canadiens tattooed on their heart," he said.

Montreal Gazette

bkelly@thegazette.canwest.com