Canuckistan.
As I write, the Stanley Cup playoffs are on again. And the Montreal Canadiens are tied with the Buffalo Sabres 3-3 in the Eastern Conference semi-finals. Let’s just call it the Stanley Cup quarter finals to make it easier. The winner of game 7 (to be played in Buffalo US tomorrow morning) will go through to the final four and the loser will be eliminated.
The Montreal Canadiens are to ice hockey what Liverpool is to English football, or Carlton is to the now-very-fucking-gAyFL: A historically dominant team with lots of trophies but nothing recent. Their last one was in 1993. ( I know Liverpool broke their drought a few years back but the metaphor still holds).
In fact 1993 was the last time Canada had a team that won the Stanley Cup. The very fact that that team, as it may be again this year, was Montreal, is a source of double-irritation for the anglophone majority of Canada. Because Montreal, of course, hails from Quebec, in French Canada. “Canadiens’ is the francophone spelling of Canadians. The games are broadcast with french commentary as well as English, and so on. In politics the French Canadians are kindof half-in, half-out. They had two referendums on independence: 1970 and 1995, the second of which was a razor-thin defeat on the question of whether to secede. Quebec have used this position to leverage extra goods and attention from the rest of Canada, and a sizeable segment of the anglo-Canadians resent this. BUt then sometimes they say they’re are all chummy and everything, so I don’t know. And all of English Canada looks to be going Indian anyway, with French Canada trending muslim. So it’ll all be brown soon anyway and the europhiles will be as marginalised as the natives (called the “first nations” in Canada).
Montreal are an international team anyway these days. I can’t really see anyone particularly frenchcanadian on there, but i see a “Suzuki” who seems to be doing pretty well. Its highly likely that English is the lingua-franca in the dressing room, as it is in the streets of Montreal half the time.
The French-Canadian commentators are good value. They’re kindof like American football jocks talking French. It’s probably the most alpha-chad sport that French Canadians play, apart from UFC, where they claim the widely-acclaimed GOAT: Georges St Pierre (who I got to see fight and win on TV at a bar in Canada in 2008. He thanked his fans in French and that soured the whole bar in Alberta that I happened to find myself in that day. But everyone loves GSP so that doesn’t matter). On the whole French Canadians are better than European Frenchman. They’re kinda more American. I certainly like them more in a general sense, though i’ve met good individuals from camps.
anyway, quay le hi-vis as a frenchman would say.
Anyway, my hot tip is Montreal will lose as the Canadian team always fuck up somehow when the moment counts. And tbh, boohoo who cares. Buffalo is fairly close to the northern border and definitely within the natural habitat of ice hockey, as are quite a few of the US teams. They don’t all play out of Vegas, LA and Florida. We’ll find out what happens tomorrah!
Maybe Mexico should get a team. The Mexico City Aztecs, The Guadelajara Jaguars, The Veracruz Vampires. The Tijuana Gangsters, The Juarez Honchos.
UPDATE 19/05/2026 1:01pm:
They did it! Montreal is through to the next round. 3-2 with a winning goal in the 3rd period with 8 minutes to go, winning the series 4-3. There ya have it. One good reason to have done studied French at school in the world of today.