I’ve admitted several times on The Montreal Bias podcast that I have kind of checked out on this season. It’s been weeks since I’ve been fully engaged in the dying breaths of this miserable Montreal Canadiens campaign. As a result of this apathy I’ve found myself with considerably more time on my hands in the evenings, which has allowed me to delve into more television consumption.

Now, truth be told, I would have found a way to watch The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story even if the Canadiens were still in first place (RIP October, November), but with the Habs being what they are, I had a lot more mental capacity to dedicate to the best show of 2016 so far.

And as I was watching the the finale episode “The Verdict” on Tuesday night, the Canadiens 4-1 loss to the Florida Panthers from earlier in the evening still ringing in my head, it occurred to me that this disaster of a season has unfolded in an eerily similar way to how the show unfolded.

Or, at least, I figured there were enough similarities that if I thought about it long enough I could turn it into an excuse to write about The People vs OJ.

If you haven’t seen the show, I think it is probably still safe to read this, as the whole OJ trial was literally the trial of the century, so it’s kind of hard to spoil it. Young people who weren’t around for the Bronco chase (at the time I was watching the 1993 Sylvester Stallone classic Cliffhanger with my parents when we paused  for a bathroom break, only to see the chase), maybe you should watch the show before reading.

First off, let’s all get into a 1994-1995 frame of mind. Just three days before OJ Simpson and Al Cowling drove down the highway at a moderate speed with the cops in their rear view mirror, the New York Rangers hoisted the Stanley Cup for the first (and only) time since 1940. Your Montreal Canadiens were just one year removed from a Stanley Cup win of their own. Patrick Roy was still between the pipes and Guy Carboneau still wore the C. Jacques Demers was the man behind the bench. Vincent Damphousse led the team with 40 goals and 91 points. They hadn’t managed to defend their title all that well, finishing third in the North East and fifth in the Eastern Conference, and were knocked out of the first round of the playoffs in seven games by the Boston Bruins. That’s where the Canadiens were are in 1994, when the whole OJ circus began. As I compare the current incarnation of the team to the FX show (and I am comparing the team to the show, not the actual OJ Simpson trial. There is a difference. For one thing, the real trial didn’t feature John Travolta at any point) I think we should start from the wide view.

Much like this Habs season, the whole OJ trial was a mess that went places you couldn’t even believe. Like, you knew it was real, but it all felt not quite real. It started out looking like it was as winnable as could be, and by the end you were left in awe in of just how many ways it actually went horribly wrong.

Our main characters are OJ Simpson, obviously, and prosecutors Marcia Clark and Chris Darden; the defense team’s Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro and Robert Kardashian; and Judge Lance Ito. There’s also super racist LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman, whose super racist ways played a key role in OJ being found not guilty. Irony, man.

And the main characters on the Montreal Canadiens side? Marc Bergevin, Michel Therrien, Carey Price, PK Subban, Max Pacioretty, Geoff Molson, Mike Condon, and Alex Galchenyuk. We’ll start with what feels like some of the obvious ones here.

Michel Therrien is OJ Simpson, because we’re all pretty sure this is all his fault and he’s on trial in the press and our conversations every day. Oh, also, in the end he’s not going to be found guilty of the crimes he has clearly committed. And like OJ, I also think Therrien has convinced himself this isn’t his fault, he’s just the victim of terrible circumstances beyond his control that left him looking bad.

Geoff Molson is Judge Lance Ito. He’s supposed to be in charge but he mostly looks like he’s choosing to sit back and see what happens. He knows he’s not really happy with what he sees, he’s just not quite willing to do anything about it.

Robert Kardashian is Mike Condon. Look, he didn’t ask to be put in this position. Bad things happened, he was asked to step in and help out, so he did. The whole thing taught him some truths he didn’t want to believe; in Kardashian’s case that truth was that his best friend ‘Juice’ was a violent murderer, while Mike Condon’s truth is that he’s not good enough to be a regular starter in the NHL.

And look, I tried to avoid it, but there’s simply no denying PK Subban is Johnnie Cochran. He’s flamboyant. He wears flashy suits. He loves him some him. He’s clearly the best one out there. You maybe don’t agree with everything he’s doing, but dammit if you don’t admire his passion, drive, skills, and desire to win, while also doing the right thing. I say Cochran was trying to do the right thing because I think he truly believed he could use the trial to expose the truths to the world about rampant misconduct and abuse towards the black community by the LAPD. Subban is trying to do the right thing by playing the best damn hockey he can (and also giving $10 million and a lot of his time to the Children’s Hospital). And maybe they both help to divide things more than we would have liked.

So those are your obvious ones. These next ones aren’t so blatant. For one, I’m giving Marc Bergevin the Marcia Clark role. They both believe they are 100 per cent right. In Marcia’s case, she was trying to put OJ Simpson away for double-homicide and was 100 per cent right to do so. Marc Bergevin believes Michel Therrien is the right coach for this team. The jury’s still out on that. Unlike the OJ jury, who only deliberated for four measly hours (two in real life, but the show said four and I’m comparing this team to the show). They’re also both dealing with something that looks like it should be a winner until some momentous and unexpected turns in the whole ordeal. Plus, Marcia reacted by getting a weird haircut, while Bergevin reacted by growing a weird beard.

Alex Galchenyuk is Chris Darden. Though Chris Darden made some pretty epic mistakes in the trial, like deciding to have OJ try on the gloves, which “didn’t fit,” I still think there’s enough here to make the comparison. Both had tremendous potential, though still had flaws in their game, but were generally victims of circumstance. Both had to face up to some tough moments, for Darden the aforementioned gloves thing. For Galchenyuk it was that whole cops called to your house early Sunday morning thing. Both had major forces seemingly working against them. Darden was hit hard by Cochrane. Galchenyuk was sent to the wing and criminally underused by Therrien.

Max Pacioretty is Robert Shapiro. He’s supposed to be in charge of his team, and he spends most of his time getting pissed off that he isn’t being treated like the guy in charge. He’s very concerned about how people see him and the Ottawa Senators taunted him by saying that “not even his teammates like him.” Okay, that last part maybe only happened to College Boy Pacioretty, but not one on the defense liked Shapiro. They made that clear in their final scene of OJ’s defence team together.

And finally Carey Price is Mark Fuhrman, the super racist cop. To be fair to Carey, let’s say his injury is the Nazi paraphernalia collecting LAPD detective, not him. So Price’s injury is Fuhrman in that both made us all say “Holy crap this is bad, oh my god it’s getting worse, wait what now how can this be be, this is horrible.” For those who didn’t watch the show and don’t remember the trial, but still decided to read on for some reason, the prosecution’s case really fell apart when it was revealed that Furhman, the detective who found OJ’s bloodied gloves, was also previously recorded saying extremely racist things and suggesting every measure should be taken to divide mixed-race couples. Which obviously did not help the prosecution at all.

Oh also, in a surprise twist, the super racist dude was also a big ol’ misogynist. How does that play into this comparison? Well his misogynistic ways had him saying more horrible things, but this time those horrible things were about Judge Ito’s wife, which almost caused the whole thing to be declared a mistrial! That actually happened! I’m calling that crazy twist in things that you almost couldn’t believe “Trading for John Scott.”

Additional parallels: Brendan Gallagher was Nathan Lane’s character; defense attorney F. Lee Bailey. This is actually more of a comparison between Gallagher’s season and Lane’s performance in the show. You would have liked more of it because it was just so damn good when it was happening. Not the MVP, but a damn crucial contributor who made everything he was a part of better.

David Desharnais is the gloves. Though not actually the murder weapon, close enough.

Lars Eller is the show’s consistent use of the Kardashians as young children to comment on the Kardashians now. Some people thought it was the one of the show’s bigger flaws, others thought it was kind of a nice element.

Zack Kassian crashing into the tree on the eve of the season is the DNA evidence. The jury chose to ignore obvious evidence that OJ did it because they’d didn’t understand it. We all chose to ignore the truck crash for the obvious bad omen about the season that it was.

Instead got all excited about a 9-0 start and dreams of the Cup. Here’s hoping next season compares to a show with a happier ending.