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Horrifying.
(No worries, it's just a short article about William Shatner. But it's still horrifying.)
(No worries, it's just a short article about William Shatner. But it's still horrifying.)
Mar. 9th, 2009
So... the Montreal Canadiens fired their head coach, Guy Carbonneau, today. General Manager Bob Gainey will take over as interim coach.
I don't know if it was deserved or not, but I do know that even I was scratching my head with regards to some of Carbo's decisions lately.
But that's not even what I want to react to.
The French stations here, particularly RDS (Réseau des Sports), are all talking about the firing and eventually the next head coach.
And there's this one blowhard, Alain Chantelois (think the French equivalent of Don Cherry, I would say), is all like "We need a French coach in this city."
The other guy goes on all "Maybe a bilingual coach," but eventually says "what if we need an anglophone coach? Who doesn't speak any French at all? I mean, why do we NEED a coach who speaks French?"
"It takes a French guy, a bilingual head coach."
His partner on screen, some dude whose name I don't even know, is like "well, you just limited our pool of coaches there."
"We have some good ones," Blowhard insists.
"Well how many francophones have we fired in the last five years? They were all French! Maybe we need an anglophone."
"An anglo who speaks French," Blowhard adds.
"[...] Or a unilingual, English coach."
"That would be the [French idiom for something like end of the line, as far as I can figure], chief. That wouldn't work."
"Well why not?"
"That wouldn't work, I [something... wouldn't stand for it?]"
Blowhard's partner throws up his hands in defeat.
Sociologically speaking, I am FASCINATED that a French guy in Quebec who follows the Habs would choose to have a worse coach than to choose to have a unilingual, English coach. And it's not even to speak to the players -- many of our players are bilingual with English and then Russian, Finnish, French, etc, or ARE unilingual Americans! No, this guy would rather limit our choices to bilingual coaches to ensure that the media can understand the coach.
I know, okay, I know that French is important to this city, that it's important that its big sports team, which is celebrating its 100th year, represent the French heritage and history... but for crying out loud... Who here thinks Dick Irvin or Scotty Bowman really spoke French?
I don't know if it was deserved or not, but I do know that even I was scratching my head with regards to some of Carbo's decisions lately.
But that's not even what I want to react to.
The French stations here, particularly RDS (Réseau des Sports), are all talking about the firing and eventually the next head coach.
And there's this one blowhard, Alain Chantelois (think the French equivalent of Don Cherry, I would say), is all like "We need a French coach in this city."
The other guy goes on all "Maybe a bilingual coach," but eventually says "what if we need an anglophone coach? Who doesn't speak any French at all? I mean, why do we NEED a coach who speaks French?"
"It takes a French guy, a bilingual head coach."
His partner on screen, some dude whose name I don't even know, is like "well, you just limited our pool of coaches there."
"We have some good ones," Blowhard insists.
"Well how many francophones have we fired in the last five years? They were all French! Maybe we need an anglophone."
"An anglo who speaks French," Blowhard adds.
"[...] Or a unilingual, English coach."
"That would be the [French idiom for something like end of the line, as far as I can figure], chief. That wouldn't work."
"Well why not?"
"That wouldn't work, I [something... wouldn't stand for it?]"
Blowhard's partner throws up his hands in defeat.
Sociologically speaking, I am FASCINATED that a French guy in Quebec who follows the Habs would choose to have a worse coach than to choose to have a unilingual, English coach. And it's not even to speak to the players -- many of our players are bilingual with English and then Russian, Finnish, French, etc, or ARE unilingual Americans! No, this guy would rather limit our choices to bilingual coaches to ensure that the media can understand the coach.
I know, okay, I know that French is important to this city, that it's important that its big sports team, which is celebrating its 100th year, represent the French heritage and history... but for crying out loud... Who here thinks Dick Irvin or Scotty Bowman really spoke French?
