URGH! Talk about ruining good things!
With pre-season games in full swing, and the start of another NHL season just around the corner, French Canada is in a frenzy. Gary Bettman has said that he would like for an NHL team will return to Quebec city in time for the 2012 season!!! With Pierre Karl Péladeau (head of the Quebecor media empire) with his cheque book already in hand, the possibility has never felt more real!
Fifteen years ago, the Quebec Nordiques left for greener pastures... greenback pastures to be precise. With a rise in player salaries, and a weak Canadian dollar, the team was having trouble making ends meet in the small-market, mostly unilingual francophone community. Leaving a heartbroken nation behind, in May 1995 the team was sold to an American conglomerate, and moved to Colorado. Putting salt in the wounds of loyal fans, the newly renamed Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in its inaugural season.
With the promised return of hockey to Quebec City, hockey fans everywhere are rejoicing! Let's be perfectly honest here. It's hard to justify having ice hockey teams in cities such as Nashville, Tampa Bay, or Dallas, all of who seldom even SEE natural snow and ice, and none in cities like Quebec, and Winnipeg (both of whom lost their NHL teams to American cities in the mid-90's). It's time for hockey to return to the "Grande Allée", where it never should have left in the first place! (P... the ex-bf, is probably already wearing his too-small childhood Nordiques jersey in anticipation!)
As such, hockey fans everywhere have been getting together and trying to get funding for a new hockey arena, the old Colisée simply not being to the challenge of being home to a new NHL team. This weekend is "la marche bleue", a massive rally of fans, ex-players, politicians, artists, and the media, meant to encourage/pressure all levels of government to help build a new arena. In honor of this, the radio hosts of the afternoon/evening show I listen to on my drive home, created a song to help foster pride and unity. "Oui les Nordiques" is a great song to the tune of "We are the World", sung by an impressive collection of Francophone musicians and celebrities. One line suggests that if they can't get the money from the government, we all get together and build it ourselves, and that with the big gang of fans that we are, we can probably get this done in ONE weekend! That's the kind of team-unity and cooperation feelings that give me chills to hear, which inspire me!
That being said, as excited as I was about it, I was left completely LIVID when I fist heard it. That's because there is a passage that roughly translates to "If Harper doesn't give us what we want, we'll just leave Canada, become our own nation, and take all our good Quebecois players with us." If this separatist sentiment wasn't enough, its nonchalant tone just pissed me off even more. Why did they have to RUIN such an inspirational team effort, that of people from all backgrounds trying to bring back the sport they love, with such a crude jab towards the country in which they live? Is it too much to ask that they rally around the Blues, without bashing the rest of the country? I for one, have lost my enthusiasm for the "marche bleue" phenomena. Whereas I was more than willing to support the movement, that line in the song completely ruined it for me! Talk about ruining good things!
Fifteen years ago, the Quebec Nordiques left for greener pastures... greenback pastures to be precise. With a rise in player salaries, and a weak Canadian dollar, the team was having trouble making ends meet in the small-market, mostly unilingual francophone community. Leaving a heartbroken nation behind, in May 1995 the team was sold to an American conglomerate, and moved to Colorado. Putting salt in the wounds of loyal fans, the newly renamed Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in its inaugural season.
With the promised return of hockey to Quebec City, hockey fans everywhere are rejoicing! Let's be perfectly honest here. It's hard to justify having ice hockey teams in cities such as Nashville, Tampa Bay, or Dallas, all of who seldom even SEE natural snow and ice, and none in cities like Quebec, and Winnipeg (both of whom lost their NHL teams to American cities in the mid-90's). It's time for hockey to return to the "Grande Allée", where it never should have left in the first place! (P... the ex-bf, is probably already wearing his too-small childhood Nordiques jersey in anticipation!)
As such, hockey fans everywhere have been getting together and trying to get funding for a new hockey arena, the old Colisée simply not being to the challenge of being home to a new NHL team. This weekend is "la marche bleue", a massive rally of fans, ex-players, politicians, artists, and the media, meant to encourage/pressure all levels of government to help build a new arena. In honor of this, the radio hosts of the afternoon/evening show I listen to on my drive home, created a song to help foster pride and unity. "Oui les Nordiques" is a great song to the tune of "We are the World", sung by an impressive collection of Francophone musicians and celebrities. One line suggests that if they can't get the money from the government, we all get together and build it ourselves, and that with the big gang of fans that we are, we can probably get this done in ONE weekend! That's the kind of team-unity and cooperation feelings that give me chills to hear, which inspire me!
That being said, as excited as I was about it, I was left completely LIVID when I fist heard it. That's because there is a passage that roughly translates to "If Harper doesn't give us what we want, we'll just leave Canada, become our own nation, and take all our good Quebecois players with us." If this separatist sentiment wasn't enough, its nonchalant tone just pissed me off even more. Why did they have to RUIN such an inspirational team effort, that of people from all backgrounds trying to bring back the sport they love, with such a crude jab towards the country in which they live? Is it too much to ask that they rally around the Blues, without bashing the rest of the country? I for one, have lost my enthusiasm for the "marche bleue" phenomena. Whereas I was more than willing to support the movement, that line in the song completely ruined it for me! Talk about ruining good things!