If the Habs were a societal projet

Let’s dream a little in blue, white, and red.

(Texte français disponible ici.)

The Habs are on fire.

Lane Hutson looks like a magician on skates. Jakub Dobeš is making us forget all about Carey Price. Alex Newhook thinks he’s Maurice Richard. Even Caufield and Demidov have finally found the back of the net.

Quebec has never been more blue, white, and red than in this glorious spring. It’s not me saying it—it’s the experts. The connoisseurs. The Hot Stove League, and those who were there even before that. Forget 1993 and 1986, and all the other cups.

When we sent Tampa Bay on vacation, the very serious Patrice Roy invited Réjean Tremblay and Pierre Houde to the no less serious Téléjournal. The journalist asked the two veteran hockey commentators what we were collectively feeling and expressing.

Réjean didn’t hold back: “It’s crazier than in Lafleur’s glory days.”

Wow. The Habs won four straight cups back then. And we’d only just won the first round. But then, we bottled the lightning. Bring on the buffaloes, the hurricanes, and the avalanches! “Ça sent la coupe!”

After years of watching her government rail against Montreal, the premier and the mayor appeared together wearing the most beautiful red jersey in the known universe. (No, it’s not the Blackhawks’.)

In Quebec City, the mayor of the former Nordiques also put on his Habs jersey. Twelve thousand enthusiastic fans paid to watch a Canadiens game on the giant screen at the Vidéotron Centre. Even a former Nordiques head coach agreed to cheer on his former enemies!

Federalists and sovereigntists form a distinctly Quebecois bloc behind the Canadiens. On social media, the leaders of the CAQ, PQ, Liberals, Solidaires, and Quebec Conservatives are celebrating the successes of the “Quebec team,” hoping that a few drops of the unconditional love we have for Les Glorieux will rub off on them.

Never have temporary immigrants and unilingual Anglophones been so popular in Quebec. Especially those who skate fast and put the puck in the top corner!

Our media professionals are giving it 110 per cent. No angle is overlooked: some journalists bravely don an opposing team’s jersey in a downtown bar, hoping to be heckled so they can report on it the next day; others, more cautious, are visiting schools to ask pupils which team will come out on top; others reached out to Habs fans watching live games from the other side of the world; in the face of the rapidly spreading illness, some have asked experts how you catch playoff fever.

Even columnists who got all worked up for the last 50 years over the impending demise of French have found a way to get excited about this team that’s more flying than Frenchmen.

As for those with no roof over their heads, no job, and no money, they forget their problems watching these magnificent millionaires skate. “It reminds us that we’re alive,” they say. You bet.

If anyone still doubts that hockey is a religion here, the city of Saint-Eustache broadcast a game in a church.

+++++++

In Quebec, spring is the season that brings us together, especially when the Canadiens’ spring doesn’t end too soon.

In La Belle Province, once the first round of the playoffs is over, the Canadiens become a social project that unites us under a single flag—one that we hang from our car windows.

I say this with a smile, but without cynicism.

And I find myself dreaming. Imagine if we channelled this incredible collective energy into finding solutions to our many problems.

Imagine if, instead of having 26 experts from the same newspaper racking their brains over whether it’ll be Buffalo in six or the Habs in seven—not to mention all the pre- and post-game shows—we devoted that same mental energy to anything that could improve our society.

If education were as important as the Canadiens in the playoffs, hockey analysts would remind us between periods that it makes no sense for Quebec to have the worst dropout rate in the country, and that all students should have access to engaging academic, artistic, or athletic programs that would encourage them to reach their full potential and pursue their dreams, regardless of their parents’ income or where they live.

If the next generation in our schools and hospitals were as important as those who will one day succeed Suzuki, Slaf, and Caufield, we’d make sure to give our young teachers and nurses fair playing time right from the start of their careers. And we’d prevent hundreds of these future star players from deserting our education and healthcare teams every year.

If healthcare were as important as the Canadiens in the playoffs, we’d be just as outraged that, sometimes, in order to avoid spending months on a waiting list for an imaging test or surgery, we have to pay more than a pair of tickets in the red section of the Bell Centre.

If the fate of our seniors were as important as that of the failing hands that carried the torch, thousands of us would be demonstrating every day on Saint Catherine Street so that our parents and grandparents could live out their last days with dignity, without having to be crammed two, three, or four to a room, staring at the walls while waiting to die. Because we have a moral obligation to do better.

If our collective prosperity were as important as the Canadiens in the playoffs, we would stop giving billions to corporations that pay armies of lobbyists to influence those in power, and we would invest heavily in ourselves—in the training and support of our workers and innovators—because a nation’s most precious resource will always its people.

If our collective solidarity were as important as the Canadiens in the playoffs, we would ask those millionaires we idolize on the ice to follow the example of P. K. Subban, who donated ten million dollars to the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation and improved the lives of more than 100,000 sick children and their families. Try to top that, Lane Hutson!

We would not just be satisfied knowing that the TV is on in homeless shelters when the Canadiens play; we’d make it our duty and a point of pride to put a roof over all those whom life has left behind and help them come back into society.

If democracy were as important as the Canadiens in the playoffs, we would change the way we do politics so that governments are always formed by the coalition of multiple parties representing a majority of us. And we would suspend for misconduct any politician that tried to force its obsessions and ideology down our throats against our will.

If making Quebec a better society were as important as the Canadiens in the playoffs, federalists, autonomists, and sovereigntists would focus most of their efforts on improving our lives, sometimes giving credit to their opponents, rather than spending their days trying to prove that their political adversaries are bad Quebecers. Because, in the end, we’re all playing for the same team.

If the French language were as important as the Canadiens in the playoffs, we’d be talking about Richard, Boom-Boom, Béliveau, Lafleur, Roy, and all those exceptional champions who helped us overcome our insecurities and showed us that we could aspire to the highest honours in the language of our ancestors. We’d celebrate every day the immense success of our distinct society, in which Quebecers of all backgrounds participate. And we would hammer home the point that success and survival come with hope and confidence, far more so than with defeatism and fear.

And, when a newcomer to Quebec hasn’t yet mastered French after six months, we’d accommodate them with a smile and kindness by handing them a copy of Charles Binamé’s The Rocket. Because, in North America’s first French-speaking city, we mustn’t treat our language as a punishment, but as yet another door opening onto the world.

If we did all that, we’d all be a little happier, even when the Canadiens don’t stretch their season into May.

And the collective euphoria that unites us behind these inspiring athletes would be a little less of an escape and a little more a source of real pride, because even if the Canadiens lost, we’d all know that Quebec has already won.

-30-

My name is Patrick Déry. I write (mostly in French) for a living, and do my best to Quebecsplain in English in this space.

If you enjoyed reading this piece, you can encourage me by buying me a coffee. Comments, shares, and likes are always appreciated.

You can also subscribe to this media by clicking on the button below. Go Habs Go!