Montreal CanadiEns. Habs is a nickname
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Canadiens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Habitants
Habitants is the name used to referred to both the French settlers and the America-born inhabitants of French origin who farmed the land along the two shores of the St. Lawrence waterway in what is the present-day Province of Quebec in Canada.
In 1924, Madison Square Garden owner Tex Rickard was falsely told by someone that the "H" in the logo of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team stood for "habitant", a French word that in those days was used to denote the farmers of Quebec. Rickard was told that the French players on the team came from the farms and that they were therefore "habitants" or "habs". At the time, the Canadiens were recognized as the French Canadian team of Montreal as opposed to the Montreal Maroons, the English Canadian team. In reality, the team logo of the "C" wrapped around the "H" stands for Club de Hockey Canadien. In 1917, at the founding of the NHL, the team changed its name to that from the previous Club Athl