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French Immersion
This is French Immersion, a daily blog about sports - and society - in Quebec, where the personal, the political and the athletic are often indistinguishable. The idea is to present the aerial view, peer into the darker corners of the distinct society's psyche (in a way that hopefully won't be as pretentious as that phrase sounds) and hopefully spin a few wacky and wonderful yarns on topics ranging from soccer, to short-track speed skating, to goon leagues, to the national obssession that is the Montreal Canadiens. Join in, comment, praise, denounce, Sean Gordon loves a good argument.
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Friday, November 20, 2009 5:59 PM

Will Montreal teams hit the wall this weekend?

Sean Gordon

The great, tortured Quebec songwriter Dédé Fortin once penned a bluesy dirge called ’Dehors novembre’, which pretty much sums up the sentiments in these here precincts on cold, soggy late-fall days.

Snippets of the lyrics to this dark and troubling song ("my body is a country at war that’s on the brink of ending . . . we’re going to raise the white flag, period, full stop.") came to us when we ambled by his old apartment this morning - it’s around the corner from French Immersion’s luxurious mid-town compound in the chic Plateau Mont-Royal district.

Not to be all pessimistic and downbeat-y, but something tells us this could be a weekend for large-scale smack-downs in Montreal sports.

The clever monkeys in our odds-making department - they’re the ones who drive the fancy cars and wear the flash clothes - assure us that the Canadiens always play the Caps tough in D.C., and while we are among the true believers in Carey Price’s ability to leap tall Hart Trophy winners in a single bound, this could be a tough one tonight for the no-longer-cosseted prodigy.

Then the Habs follow it up with a Saturday home date against the Reddish Winged Wheels, who despite seeming oddly mortal this year, are still an actual NHL hockey team.

Call us crazy, but we don’t think Comrade Georges Laraque and Ryan O’Byrne are the men to propel a Markov and Gionta-less edition of Les Habitants - the team that providence forgot - back over .500.

Our good friend Mitch Melnick of the Team 990 had the FI brain trust on his new Interweb TV show earlier today, and in a moment of pathological optimism we predicted the Habs will win an overtime thriller tonight and ride the momentum into Saturday’s glorious defeat of Detroit.

Upon further reflection, that’s lunatic talk.

France has a better chance of qualifying for the World Cup through an outrageous handball against the Plucky Paddies (featuring ex-Magpies Damien Duff and Shay Given). Eh? Oh.

Thankfully we were a little more clear-headed in our prediction of the Eastern Final.

We know the Alouettes have been the class of the CFL this season, and they’re the best-coached and most talented team in the league, with an explosive offence and a shut-down, meat-eating defence.

But. And there’s always a but.

The big-game record of this team is a little dodgy.

As our other good pal Ed Willes of the Vancouver Province (see mom? we do have friends) pointed out this week as the French Immersion crew lolled around at Als practice, B.C. Lions coach Wally Buono had three consecutive 15-3 teams in Calgary in the 1990s.

Two lost the Western Final, the other lost the Grey Cup.

We’d rather Marc Trestman emulate Don Matthews, who in his rookie year as coach lost in the championship game, but won it in his second year - speaking to happy people is always less tricky than trying to make out what someone is saying through their sobs.

As everyone who has ever rubbed elbows with a member of the media knows, it’s always all about us.

But with the way the hockey gods have punished sportswriters in this town this year, it’s not a stretch to believe the football ones have also been offended in some way.

Dehors novembre!

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Sean Gordon

Sean Gordon

Sean Gordon covers sports in the Globe and Mail's Montreal bureau, and admits to being a long-suffering Newcastle United supporter.

Raised in Ottawa, he studied political science and economics at McGill University, where he discovered the wonder that is Forum hot dogs, and journalism at the University of Regina, where he developed an unreasonable attachment to the "other" Riders.

Prior to joining the Globe in 2008, he covered crime, politics and sports, at various points, for the Calgary Herald, Montreal Gazette and Toronto Star, and during 15 years in newspapers has written on topics ranging from rodeo cowboys to street gangs in Haiti.

In a previous life he covered sovereignists, federalists and autonomists in Quebec's National Assembly, rode the buses during two federal elections as a Parliamentary correspondent, and followed Barack Obama during the Democratic primaries.

Gordon cut his teeth as a sports scribe covering the oft-lamented Montreal Expos, and has been to the Grey Cup, the World Junior Hockey Championship, the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Rugby World Cup and too many amateur sporting events to mention.

His twin career highlights are meeting Nelson Mandela and narrowly avoiding death by an errant Vladimir Guerrero batting-practice home run at spring training 2001.