It is unbelievable that in a city that eats and breathes hockey, the dismal Canadiens and their years-long descent into mediocrity has gone uncriticized, with nobody in the French media willing to say out loud what they know in their heart, which is that the Canadiens management from the top-down cares less about winning and more about the business, both ends which don't mesh well in a market where language dominates everything.
Compare the kid-glove treatment the Habs owners, management and coaches enjoy despite wallowing in utter mediocrity to that of the Maple Leafs who were quick to unload the overpaid and ineffective coach at the behest of a furious fan base and an outraged media.
The Canadiens, their fans, ownership and the media are content to let the current situation fester because changes mean upsetting the idea that the team is being capably run by francophone management.
No other organization in the NHL would allow such buffoons to remain in place.
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| Bergevin/Molson Most incompetent management team in the NHL |
While Quebec was once a powerhouse province, second only to Ontario, the language obsession has over the last forty years reduced Quebec to beggar status, dependant on handouts from the hated Anglo provinces.
With the Canadiens, it is easier to see that decisions made because of language rather than hockey is costing the team its competitiveness.
Let us remember the vociferous outrage by the French media in December 2012 when the Canadiens fired francophone coach Jacques Martin and replaced him with a non-French-speaking anglo, Randy Cunneyworth.
“Although our main priority remains to win hockey games and to keep improving as a team,” Molson’s statement read, “it is obvious that the ability for the head coach to express himself in both French and English will be a very important factor in the selection of the permanent head coach… We would like to thank all our fans for their understanding.”You'd think the Habs hired Adolph Hitler to run the team, given the foaming outrage of the media and fans. In all of that fiasco not one word about hockey, it was language, language and language.
And so the Habs fans get what they deserve, a mediocre team run in French.
Don't get me wrong, there are many fantastically talented francophone Quebecers running businesses, both in Quebec and abroad, success stories that go way beyond language.
Let me ask you this gentle reader.
If a family member was faced with a life-saving needed surgery and the choice for surgeon was between a superbly talented unilingual francophone doctor who was one of the most experienced and capable in the field, would you opt for a less qualified anglophone doctor, one who just got out of his residency, because you can communicate with him better?
Only an idiot would choose the latter, which is exactly what we do here in Quebec.
The real culprit in all this is mediocre and dim-witted managing owner of the Habs, the eminently under-qualified Geoff Molson, a man whom his own family recognized for his lack of talent. Instead of rocketing to the boardroom of Molson via nepotism, Geoff was shuffled off as a brand ambassador, visiting bars and restaurants talking up the company, a job usually reserved for ex-hockey players like the perfectly suitable Yvan Lambert, an ex-Hab with a sharp wit and a hollow leg.
Habs GM Marc Bergevin has bounced from one embarrassing fiasco to another.
It seems that everybody in the league knows this, everybody except Geoff Molson.
Or perhaps Geoff does know and is too timid to act. Either that or the search is on for a qualified francophone to fill the job, reducing the field of potential candidates by over 90%.
In Quebec language is everything.
It is more important than winning.
It is more important than success.
This is the Montreal Canadiens today, a shell of the once-successful dynasty, now a laughingstock.
How long will it take for this charade to play out?
It might be sooner than you think because fans like myself are no longer willing to shell out hundreds of dollars to watch a mediocre team owned and operated not to win, but rather to satisfy the language gods.
