Among my many RSS feeds (about 300) I have a few set to scour the Internet for any new mentions of “Montreal”. While this alerts me to press releases from companies based here, news about the city and news from abroad that has some connection to here, it also picks up on a few things regularly that aren’t quite what I’m looking for:

1. The Montreal Canadiens. The last major sports team in the city. NHL digests, standings, briefs, game reports and other information are all over the place online, and so a single AP story will generate hundreds of hits all about the same game that I just watched on TV.

2. The band “Of Montreal”, who are not actually from Montreal. Tour date announcements (they’re playing here next week), reviews, and random MySpace rants for and against the band, or diaries of people going to see the band.

3. My favourite: The Montreal Screwjob. Of all events that have happened in this city, from the Richard Riots to Expo 67, none has so little relevance to people who live there and yet so much relevance to a worldwide niche as when Vince McMahon double-crossed Bret “the Hit Man” Hart at the Molson Centre. The Wikipedia article is extensive, as are articles still being written about it a decade later. The story is a fascinating look at the politics of professional wrestling, and an interesting spin on the idea that “professional wrestling is fixed.”