Discrimination in the NHL: Quebec Hockey Players Sidelined
By Bob Sirois
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About this ebook
Bob Sirois
Bob Sirois played for the Philadelphia Flyers and the Washington Capitals, earning 212 points in 286 NHL games. He represented the Washington Capitals in the 1978 All Star Game. Forced to retire early by a severe back injury, he has remained active in hockey as an agent and president of Montreal’s Roadrunners. Bob Sirois lives in Montreal.
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Discrimination in the NHL - Bob Sirois
themselves!
Chapter 1 — Introduction
The prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, declared that Quebec was a nation on November 22, 2006. One week later the House of Commons approved a motion to that effect. The prime minister also stated that Canada had been founded by two nations. Although the National Hockey League was created by a group of English- Canadian business men in 1917, the pioneers of the NHL belonged to both of Canada’s founding nations.
Montreal Canadiens are the pride of a nation
In the early 1900s Montreal had two large French-Canadian hockey teams: Le National and Le Montagnard. These two teams recruited their players from well-known Montreal classical colleges. They were big rivals fighting for supremacy in French-Canadian hockey. In 1907 however, the Montagnard team was dissolved, and in 1908 Le National pulled out of the professional circuit. This left the major leagues without a single French-Canadian team.
In 1909 a new league was created, the National Hockey Association, and four of the five teams in that new league belonged to John Ambrose O’Brien. This Ontario entrepreneur firmly believed that hockey in Montreal would profit financially from an English-French rivalry, and that a patriotic face-off of that nature would enhance French Canadian interest in the sport. Montreal had two teams then and one of them was called Le Club de hockey canadien. French-speaking hockey fans quickly identified with the players on the new team and soon developed into a large group of faithful supporters. People ended up calling the players Les Habitants or even The Flying Frenchmen because of their ties to French-Canadian society. Hockey was one of the rare domains in which the French and English would compete and sometimes, if not often, the French would win. It was clear that the local team inspired great pride throughout French Canada.
Hockey also became a distinctive identity factor for both Canadians and Quebecers since the passion for hockey was then one of the rare things that united the two nations whose relations were strained. The same can be said one hundred years later.
Until the mid-1970s the majority of National Hockey League players were Canadians or Quebecers. With the globalization of the League and the arrival of many European and American hockey players, the Montreal Canadiens slowly lost their French identity, but that did not mean that young Quebecers would not stop dreaming of wearing the tri-coloured uniform that represented their nation. The Montreal Canadiens’ centennial was also the hundredth anniversary of French Canadian participation in professional hockey.
This book documents the experience of the Quebec nation in the National Hockey League from the 1970-71 season until the 2008-2009 season.
Many books have been published about the Montreal Canadiens and many biographies have been written about all the legendary hockey players but no one has established as comprehensive a study as this one on Quebec hockey players in the NHL. Statistics are provided on the NHL Entry Draft since 1970, along with an exhaustive study of Quebecers who have played on NHL teams, including players who might have played only a single match over the last forty years. A whole chapter deals with Quebec coaches who led NHL teams during that period. Although many serious studies have been conducted on the specific situation of French-speaking Quebecers in professional hockey, the media have largely ignored them. Their silence is surprising. Personally, I find them very useful and refer to them often.
Censored!
If you think I’m going to talk about that eccentric who rants and raves on the very English national television network, the CBC, the man who enjoys dumping on French-speaking and European hockey players, then you’ve got the wrong book. I’d rather not even mention him. Why promote someone who means absolutely nothing on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River?
If you think I am going to comment on the Shane Doan affair and specifically on the foul language he used with four French-speaking referees at the Bell Centre in December 2006, rest assured, I’ll pass on it. If you believe I am going to lose sleep on the Sean Avery-Denis Gauthier incident about how French-speaking hockey players are supposed to be wimps because they wear visors, again I hope you’ll understand that I really don’t give a damn. I won’t say anything more about the Patrice Brisebois incident where he was called a Fucking Frog.
I don’t plan on wasting my time, or yours, on the Gilles Gratton affair in which he accused his St. Louis Blues coach of being racist. I won’t bore you with the case of Robert Picard who settled one incident with a teammate who had used a racial slur…and I will also remain silent about a similar event that pitted Alain Langlais and Bill Goldsworthy of the Minnesota North Stars against each other.
And if you thought that you might learn about how speaking French is actually forbidden in some NHL locker rooms, while other languages like Russian, Swedish, and Finish are allowed, well, you will be disappointed. It is perfectly obvious that French, unlike other languages, tends to rub some English-speaking people the wrong way and make them feel vulnerable. As former NHL referee Ron Fournier says on French-language television, That’s official.
I won’t talk about it at all. I won’t write anything on those contentious issues because I might make Quebecers sound like whiners again, and that is certainly not the aim of this book.
I have therefore decided to censor myself, however only after this short essay entitled The French Blue Line .
The French Blue Line
Imagine for a moment, after a hard bodycheck from Jarome Iginla or another homerun by Barry Bonds, a frustrated player from the opposing team yelled out, Go take a hike, filthy Nigger!
Such comments, and especially those that include specific words, stir up anger in the popular media machine, and rightly so. There’s no doubt that, as the La Presse columnist Patrick Lagacé pointed out, the frustrated person in question would suffer "the wrath of God and then