I've been itching to write a blog post such as this for many years, ever since Francophone journalists and sports commentators started exorcising the Montreal Canadiens for having so few Quebec francophones on the team.
Diving into the realm of 'what if' is a risky endeavour at best and foolish at worst, but it might serve to counter the hysterical rhetoric of language fanatics who demand that the Canadiens operate under a handicap that no other NHL team would entertain.
I'm referring to the impossible and ridiculous "Savard Doctrine" which dictates that the Montreal Canadiens should always opt for the francophone when a choice is to be made between players of equal value.
It was nonsense when Serge Savard, the general manager of the time, first enunciated the policy and it is nonsense today because, in the real world, those choices don't ever present.
In fact, Savard never gave us an example of a choice that he made based on the policy.
The Savard Doctrine, in and of itself, is harmless enough because even in the most implausible of circumstances where the team could choose a francophone instead of another player of equal talent, there would be no discernible harm.
But it did establish language as a hiring criterion, opening the door for fanatics to push even harder for the team to consider French as an important element in the hiring process, even when the choice of a francophone player isn't the best hockey decision.
You might well remember the sacking of interim coach Randy Cunneyworth a few years back, over his lack of French. The furor was ugly and nasty, including a demonstration by language fanatics in front of the arena. I'm pretty sure it frightened the bejesus out of its lightweight managing owner Geoff Molson who caved into the pressure throwing the lame-duck coach under the bus.
It was a powerful portent of things to come and established firmly that language would indeed become an enduring handicap.
Nationalists will defend to the death the notion that making French an important criterion in player selection won't impact quality but it cannot help but do so.
If the team was saddled with the rule that left-handed players be hired in preference to right-handed players, who would argue that quality would not suffer?
The gran-daddy of Habs French/first lobby is the nasty Anglophobic doyon of Quebec's sports commentator Rejean Tremblay who is a legend for his sarcastic and sour missives targeting anglophones and ethnics. His racist bent is not a phenomenon of a bygone era, he continues to spout his nasty and racist screeds, published in the mainstream media by the likewise racially insensitive Journal du Montreal.
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| "Everything is going well because we are winning .. The Habs could field 20 Chinese players and it would be okay. If the KHL convinced the Chinese to embrace hockey, we'd find ourselves with 20 Fang Wongs in 20 years. |
Incidentally, that article insulted the Canadiens organizations as well as its fans for putting hockey before language, an unpardonable sin.
And the argument for the Habs to make language a part of the hiring process is repeated ad nauseam, including the mayor of Montreal and Premier Legault advocating for more "Quebecois" (read: 'francophone' ) who are able to communicate with fans in
French be given preference. The Premier opined that perhaps the return of the Nordiques would spur a competition with the Habs to hire more "Quebecois." Truthfully, the return of the Nordiques is a goal for like-minded nationalists who dream of a team that better represents their ideal of Quebec.
At any rate, I come to the gist of this article, the fact that the Canadiens may just have lost the Stanley Cup because of the disastrous player trade that brought the now sidelined Jonathan Drouin to the Habs for first-round draft choice Mikhail Sergachev. Tampa Bay general manager Steve Yzerman must have rubbed his hand in glee when he dumped problem-child Drouin on the Habs for a coveted first-round draft pick. It will go down as one of the worst trades in Canadiens history, perhaps on a par with the Scott Gomez acquisition for Ryan McDonough.
Drouin was already a big problem in Tampa Bay, at loggerheads with the team, going on a mini strike and demanding a trade.
As damaged goods, you'd think Drouin would be a bargain, but not for the desperate Habs eager to sign a francophone.
And so Tampa Bay Lightning got a young defenceman with a bright and long future and the Habs got sad sack Drouin. The Habs media was giddy with joy, with nobody willing to say the truth out loud or in print... that is, that the desperate Habs were hoodwinked.
By the way, don't blame Montreal GM Marc Bergevinfor the trade, language pressure was the key element for making the trade thanks to pressure from the public and from team ownership desperate for more francophone players.
And so we come to the recent and surprising meeting of the Habs and Lightning in the Stanley Cup final, which like any playoff series can turn of the smallest of edges.
Drouin was gone, absent, on leave from the team for what we can only assume is a serious mental condition, while Sergachev played significant minutes, contributing big-time to the Lightening defence.
Imagine Sergachev playing for the Habs and Drouin not playing for the Lightning during the series.
It might have been the difference between being a runner-up and winning the Stanley Cup.
While we'll never know, it remains that nobody in the French media will dare speculate on the issue because they all supported the idiotic trade.
The broken Savard Doctrine is a fantasy that the entire Quebec hockey scene continues to embrace and so admitting that it might just have cost the city a Stanley Cup is an idea too frightening and horrific to entertain, one that cannot be mentioned out loud by the media on pain of excommunication.
