Blowhard Sportswriter Strikes Again

Once again, La Presse sportswriter Rejean Tremblay has waded into the language debate, attacking the Montreal Canadiens for the lack of English players. Tremblay and others of his ilk believe that the team should make a special effort to hire Francophones, so "that they can better represent the fan base of Quebec."
If you read French, find the original article HERE.

The article takes on the familiar snarky tone that is the hallmark of the frustrated curmudgeon.
He's someone who reminds me of that stereotypical caricature of the ageing southern cracker racist, sitting on the front porch, whittling on a piece of wood with his knife and cursing out the 'niggas' to anyone who passes by.

There's a special venom in his words, a nasty sarcasm that is reminiscent of the late great, Pierre Falardeau, an anglo hater 'extrodinaire.'

Mr. Tremblay peddles the fantasy that the Canadiens can lean towards Francophone players without affecting quality. He is a big booster of the  'Savard Doctrine,' the practice perfected by the ex-General Manager of the Habs, Serge Savard, that holds that when given a choice between two players of equal talent, the team should always select the Francophone.

Now last year Tremblay wrote an article about a book written by Bob Sirois, whereby the ex-NHLer accused the league of systematically discriminating against francophones. NO FAIR!

But let us consider Mr. Tremblay's position.
According to his logic, it is perfectly reasonable to promote a francophone player over an equally talented anglophone in Montreal, but it is discrimination when the Toronto Maple Leafs choose an anglophone over an equally talented francophone.

That is what I call Quebec logic!

The real problem is that there is no such thing as equally talented players, the idea that such a situation presents itself is fantasy.

This week we witnessed a real live example of the so-called 'Savard doctrine.' It happened at the Rogers Cup tennis tournament in Montreal featuring the world's best female tennis players.

In his blog, Sex, Sports & Rock and Roll sportswriter Benoit Rioux wrote a piece entitled "Décision anti-anglophone?" LINK(fr)
  

"Vallery Tetreault got a wild card pass into the main draw for the first time in Montreal.Although happy, she recognized that her invitation had the opposite effect on her good friend,  Sharon Fichman, who must now go through qualifying rounds.

Injustice?

The Ontarian, Fichman, 145th in the world, is actually ranked higher than Tétreault (170th.) Nevertheless, the tournament  preferred to go with the Quebecker.

Imagine if the opposite had occurred and a lower-ranked Ontarian would have been advanced ahead of a Quebecker because the tournament was held in Toronto.

Some of us have would have screamed at the injustice launched against we francophones. We would probably talk about "country club" and Denis Coderre would probably have Twitter on the case ..."

Kudos to Mr. Rioux for defending right from wrong, not French versus English.
I bet you never read about this article, because these type of opinion pieces are never published outside Quebec, it's too bad.

Surprisingly, most of the comments under the article supported the tournament's decisions. Perhaps they are also big fans of Tremblay's newspaper column.

In English we call it a double standard. It's more eloquent in French;

Deux Poids - Deux mesures. It's the Quebec way.