Brent Sopel’s day job is to play defense for the Montreal Canadiens. In their spare time, he and his wife enjoy broadcasting pedestrian details of their life via Twitter and a blog. Reality TV meets hockey in this web-based Sopes Opera!

Last week, Sopel was traded from Atlanta to Montreal a few days after his 3 kids texted him asking for help with the laundry that was piling up back home in Chicago. Right away, his wife told the world about how they hadn’t slept the night before, knowing he would be traded. She added that the kids’ reaction to the news was to ask if they could go play outside.

Brent quickly flew to Chicago to spend the night home before flying to Montreal the next day to join his new team. Joining the Habs means putting the Canadiens jersey and finally getting some Canadian candies, according to him. What more can you ask for?

He tweets the words “Bonjour” and “poutine” within 2 days of the trade, thereby using more French than Saku Koivu did in 13 years in Montreal.

On Saturday, he tweets: “I'm in need of a notary public TODAY - let me know if anyone is available here in Montreal.” Google doesn’t work on his iPhone, apparently. More troubling, Sopel’s agent won’t do such research for the 5% cut he gets. Must be extra. Nevertheless, tons of people reply immediately. They all have a neighbor, brother, uncle, or girlfriend that is a notary public. One guy even states that if it was not for the fact that he isn’t based in Quebec, he’d do it for free. That’s the kind of people you want to deal with: free for clients making over $1M/year; repo man on everybody else late on payments!  Another guy asks if he needs a notary public because he’s buying a house in Montreal!  Yep. Get traded Thursday and buy a house Saturday – the typical plan of a rental player likely to stay with the team for only two months. But then, his agent doesn’t seem to be on the top of his game so who knows?

Finally, Sopel goes the safe route and connects with a notary public suggested by a “freelance sportswriter:” two free tickets for the game as a reward!

Sopel plays his first game as a Hab Saturday, tweets a picture of him with his wife before breakfast Sunday, takes a tour of Montreal, and sends of the wife back home in Chicago.

On March 1, they celebrated their 10^th wedding anniversary with a tweet and a blog post from the wife about the vow renewal last summer, pictures and all.

That’s it for this installment of Sopes Opera. Stay tuned for more!

As a bonus, some bullet point tips and tidbits for Sopel:

- Guy in Centre Bell’s Section 312, row D, knows more about hockey than Buck & Kincade together.
- Post game show in Montréal doesn’t mean taking 3 calls and giving out-of-town NHL summaries before signing off.
- You’ll see lots of news about some Labeaume guy. He’s never been seen in the same room as Badaboom.
- What’s the difference between 21,000 and 4,000 people signing Olé Olé Olé?
- Réjean Tremblay is the most powerful Montreal sports columnist. Easy to spot: shows up in the locker room once per month and doesn't recognize 70% of players.
- If asked which celebrity you’d like to meet, don’t say Sarah Palin like Eric Boulton did. Canada is not Georgia.
- Never question the hockey wisdom of Dany Dubé. Always question the wisdom of Michel Villeneuve.
- Michel Villeneuve has never been seen in the same room as Youppi.
- Call your old Canucks buddy Mike Keane before venturing into the French thing.
- Thought that corruption was a Chicago thing? Welcome to Montreal!
- Meet Donald Beauchamp, the guy who will approve, sanitize and translate your tweets starting now.
- If journalists bug you about commuting to Chicago, open a can of worms and tell them that GM Gauthier said it was OK.
- CKAC Sports is like Atlanta’s 680 The Fan except for additional 23 hours of daily hockey coverage.
- Don’t feed Youppi. Don’t feed Spacek.
- Don’t bother looking; GM Gauthier is not on Twitter.

Photo credit: flickr/chicagogeek