A half-million trading cards. Seats from the old Montreal Forum. Game sticks. Ron Bellemore’s got it.

Ron Bellemore lives in Lewiston and has season tickets to the Montreal Canadiens. He makes it to about 13 professional hockey games a year. It’s a five-and-a-half-hour drive each way.

At home, he’s got so much team memorabilia that it oozes out from two rooms, down one hallway and into a living room where his wife drew the line at two shelves in a tasteful curio.

Bellemore admits it’s a little much.

He’s just a big fan.

“Every piece has a story. We could be here for five weeks and not scratch the surface,” said Bellemore, 52. “If it’s got a hockey logo on it, forget it.”

He’s been a Canadiens fan since forever. He grew up in Berlin, N.H., where fun meant playing hockey or watching it, and his dad always rooted for that team.

He’s gone to games for years and about 10 years ago started collecting.

Maurice Richard wine. Game skates worn by captain Saku Koivu. Dozens of Starting Lineup action figures. McDonald’s hockey masks. A half-million trading cards.

Even a life-size inflatable of Canadian hockey commentator Don Cherry hawking Campbell’s Chunky Soup.

“Just when you think you’ve got it all, there’s something else,” Bellemore said wistfully.

Like a custom bobble-head doll of himself wearing a Canadiens jersey.

Bellemore’s son, Adam, 28, once teased, “Dad, I wasn’t out of the house two days and you had my room filled up.”

Bellemore’s wife, Helen, isn’t a huge hockey fan, but she’s a good enough sport to travel to half the Montreal games. They cross the border in Derby, Vt., so often that the guards recognize their license plates, HABS1 and HABS2 (Habs is a regional Canadiens nickname.)

Helen also imparts a little advice before her husband heads off to make that next hockey find.

“What my wife says to me is, ‘Think small.'”


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