High-tech Habs fan hacks ultimate Habs goal light show

François Maillet doesn't consider himself to be overly into hockey -- he says he watches about a quarter of the Montreal Canadiens' regular-season games. Not even a gigantic fan," he says. But when it comes time for the playoffs, he's admittedly a full-fledged bandwagon-jumper. "Right now, I think like most people, I watch every game," Maillet says. And now he's got a reason to watch -- he's hacked into his Verdun home's smartphone-controlled lighting system to generate a sound and light show every time the Habs score. When the Habs score, red, white and blue lights flash for about 30 seconds while playing the Habs' old goal song (appropriately titled "Le Goal Song" by Montreal band L'Oreille Cassée). It helps that he's a computer scientist who specializes in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Last year, he had set up a manual button he would push to play the goal song used by the Montreal Canadiens. Having moved recently, he got new programmable Phillips Hue lights installed in his living room. The lights can be told to brighten, dim and change colours with a smartphone control system. "I was talking to some colleagues and I said, 'Wouldn't it be cool if I just made them flash to the music?'" After talking it out with his co-workers at Montreal startup Datacratic, he took the long Easter weekend to develop a prototype written with the Python programming language. "Computer science is really, really cool.