The best way to pass time at a Canadian music festival is to count all the NHL hats people are wearing

Before getting my start writing for RMNB, I ran an online music magazine. Through my love of live music, I found an interest in photography and thanks to my dire need to shoot Warped Tour in 2009, I began taking photography seriously.

Photographing concerts took me to many festivals and started an addiction of sorts. After going to festivals for work, attending as a guest took a bit of an adjustment. That is when the games started.

To set the scene, last summer I traveled up to Montreal, Quebec and attended Osheaga for the first time. This was my first time in Canada, and obviously my very first time in Quebec. Within minutes, I noticed the number and variety of sport hats attendees were wearing and was shocked at the variety.

That is when my friend and I decided to keep track of all the hats we saw. We were very serious about this, made up rules for our game, and very intently looked at heads of everyone we passed.

The rules are simple:

• The hat wearer has to be spotted on festival grounds.
• Our own hats did not count.

We were quite successful last year, but the only disappointment was missing out on only three MLB teams. After buying tickets for Osheaga this summer, I knew this game had to continue.

Hockey

Winnipeg Jets	Minnesota Wild	Anaheim Ducks
Chicago Blackhawks	Toronto Maple Leafs	Edmonton Oilers
New York Rangers	Los Angeles Kings	Calgary Flames
Montreal Canadiens	Ottawa Senators	Philadelphia Flyers
Vancouver Canucks	Washington Capitals	San Jose Sharks
Buffalo Sabres	Nashville Predators	Boston Bruins
New York Islanders	Colorado Avalanche	Quebec Nordiques
Hartford Whalers	Toronto St. Patricks

I had a goal this year to try to get a photo of as many hockey hats as possible, but wasn’t able to snag photos of all as some were spotted in transit through the festival grounds.

The 2017 hats were very similar to 2016 with a few new additions. This year, a Predators hat was spotted along with a handful of people wearing Preds shirts. I also didn’t spot a Pittsburgh Penguins hat (although I saw plenty of Pirates and Steelers hats). There was a scare when a black and gold CHAMPIONS hat was spotted from a far, but it turned out to be a guy reminiscing to Boston Bruin’s 2011 Cup (…back when they still had Tyler Seguin).

The most important hat, that literally made me gasp for air when we finally saw one, was the Capitals. This special hat was worn on-top the head of a native Montrealer, whose name I unfortunately did not catch. I did learn that he became a Caps fan because of Olaf Kolzig, and has stayed through the years. Although pain and suffering has followed, he is happy to be a fan. Last year, the Caps hat we saw was purchased at a thrift shop days before. I like this years story a lot better.

Baseball

Last year, the only three baseball teams missing were Los Angeles Angels, Cleveland Indians, and Minnesota Twins. Of course, we saw a ridiculous number of Indians and Twins hats this year.

Basketball

Football

For reference, the 2016 total tallies are below.

These are your hats. pic.twitter.com/2ALGolKWQ3

— cara (@carabahniuk) August 1, 2016

Maybe someone else was keeping track of hats this year and my Expos, Capitals and Nationals hats helped their list. We may never know.