The Game (4 page)

In those early years, Montreal seemed like a wonderful, exciting foreign city with all the comforts of home. It had a different look, a different sound, a different
feel
, and, like New York or London, was just challenging enough to give immense satisfaction to those who could cope with it, and succeed. But it was a foreign city with a difference. Whenever it got too difficult, whenever it was more than I could handle, I could flip a channel, turn a page, drive west of St. Laurent Boulevard, or switch from French to English, and it was easy again. It turned language into a game—I watched French movies subtitled in English, and English movies subtitled in French; I took French courses at McGill, planned vacations in French-speaking places, did a French play-by-play of highway signs, stores, buildings, cars, people,
anything
, between our house and the Forum; and I said
merci
so often that I said it to startled cabbies in New York and Buffalo. As a game, it was something I could dabble in, all the time thinking I had really committed myself. But language is not a game.

In Montreal, language is the single dominant fact of life. Two languages, French and English, side by side, on signs, newsstands, and grocery shelves, on TV and radio dials; they are what make the city distinctive, capable of delighting the visitor with its charm, its
ambiance
; they are what give Montreal its romance. But language is also the source of Montreal’s division. While the city is no longer quite the “two solitudes” of novelist Hugh MacLennan’s wonderfully evoca-tive phrase, for the French and the English who once divided demographically east and west, culturally, and in the workplace, and who now more often confront each other directly, language is the principal source of tension and rivalry. It has to do with status—(m)ajority status and minority status—and the correlation between numbers, influence, and language that has never been quite direct.

And while the image of English-speaking Montrealers ghettoed into executive suites and high-income areas is now hyperbole, historically there has been enough truth in it for the image to remain.

As a hockey player, I live a special existence in Montreal. I feel little in common with the English community here. I have never enjoyed special opportunity, nor have I earned more money because of the language I speak. The special status I have, the income I earn, come only because of hockey, and that isn’t being threatened. Nor is the language of my workplace changing. If it has a language, it is English, but it could be French and it would make no difference, as most of my work is alingual. And because language is not a factor, I feel no pressure to leave. My future here is what it always has been; neither the legislation passed to protect the French language at the expense of the English nor the consequent disquiet in the English community have changed it.

Nor has very much changed for my French-speaking teammates.

If they grew up suffering the slights of the English community, they suffer few now. They earn no less money, they earn no fewer promotions because of the language they speak. They feel no inferiority complex, they hold no second-class status within their province or country. Rather, they are
stars
, celebrities, special wherever they go, travelling easily and for much of the year, not language-locked in one area of the continent. And if language is not an issue of their work, just as it is not of mine, the tension and rivalry, the division caused by language, are not features of their workplace.

At first appearance, that would seem to be so. For the Canadiens look an immensely compatible team: compatible personally and professionally, sharing special skills and common goals, at once capable of great joy
and
great satisfaction, a team that, by and large, seem genuinely to like each other. A second look, and it might not seem the same—unconnected pockets of English conversation, or French, in dressing rooms, airports, at team meals; best friends—

Larocque-Lambert, Risebrough-Jarvis, Savard-Lapointe—that divide by language; the highly publicized “Incidents” that seem to embroil the team so frequently—Al MacNeil-Henri Richard, Pete Mahovlich-Mario Tremblay.

But take a third and closer look, and it will look different again.

These are not divisions, because they don’t feel like divisions; they are unconscious and unintended, and almost always unnoticed. We are not a linguistic version of
All in the Family
or
The Jeffersons
. We are not football teams or baseball teams in the second generation of their race relations, so anxious to show how well they get along, so conscious of division, so preoccupied with division, that they laugh too loud at the“(h)onky” and “nigger” jokes they can’t stop telling. We are a team that has gone one step further—we know there are differences, we just don’t think they are that important. Only one player, defenseman Gilles Lupien, tells roundhead (French) and squarehead (English) jokes. Perhaps he felt he needed them, carving an identity for himself in the years he spent in Halifax with the Voyageurs before he got to Montreal. But while we often find what he says funny, his jokes begin and end with him.

Indeed, if best friends seem to share one language, they also share other things just as conclusive—common backgrounds, common junior or minor pro teams, common status on a team as rookies or veterans, a friendship between wives whose isolation in one language, in most cases, is far more complete than their own. And if the “incidents” seem often to involve English and French players or coaches, there is something else involved as well. To anyone who has grown up in this province, at one time especially to a French-speaking Quebecker but now equally to both, if
un Français
and
un Anglais
have a problem, it is a French-English problem.

In 1971, after the fifth game of the Stanley Cup final with Chicago, Henri Richard told reporters that Canadiens’ coach Al MacNeil was

“Incompétent.” The next day, everyone in Quebec understood. It had nothing to do with the frustration of an immensely proud but aging star who was benched in a game that had to be won, but was lost, a frustration which later caused him to insist that he would have said the same thing about Claude Ruel or Toe Blake. Rather, it was as if his phrase

“MacNeil est incompétent” was really in code, a special French-English code which everyone in the province understood the same way—“MacNeil, a unilingual English-speaking Canadian, cannot relate to French speaking players.” Two games later, after the Canadiens had won the Stanley Cup and Richard had scored the winning goal, MacNeil became coach and general manager of the Nova Scotia Voyageurs.

Several years later, Mario Tremblay and Pete Mahovlich got into a fight in a hotel room in Cleveland, as a result of which Mahovlich, a notoriously poor fighter, ended up in the hospital with stitches. The fight had nothing to do with being roommates and being drunk.

Mahovlich, the code said, and everyone understood, did not like French Canadians.

And so, while language may not divide us, others—the public, the press—whose experience is different, who themselves are divided by language and who find tension and rivalry by language in their workplace, understand us and explain us in
their
way, and in doing so, sometimes cause division. That will not change. For if the team is no longer truly of the society of which it is part, it remains its most visible symbol. It has been, and will continue to be, used by both sides as they play out their tensions.

My wife and I have lived in Montreal since our marriage. We bought our first house here, our two children were born here. It has been a time of extraordinary excitement and change, for the city, for the province, for us. When we first came to Montreal, we left in the summers and travelled, just as we would have done if we had lived somewhere else. Now, with children, except for the trips to visit family we cannot visit the rest of the year, we stay here in summer, as we would if we lived somewhere else. I grew up in Toronto, but it has been many years since Toronto has been home. At times, Montreal has felt like home, but it has never really been home. For beyond the team, beyond the celebrity culture we inhabit, we have few roots here.

With a house, with a family and friends, roots can develop, but in Montreal, real roots come only with language. There is no more interesting place to be than Montreal only if you can be a part of what makes Montreal interesting and special, only if you can live in one culture and partake fully of the other. If you cannot—and now even fluently bilingual English Quebeckers are finding it difficult, since language is irrelevant if the issue is cultural separation—then Montreal is a relatively small English city, spectator to a much larger and more exciting one. Montreal/Montréal, where the Canadian dream of French and English living and working side by side has had its best chance; Montreal, a city just close enough to be a frustrating reminder of what I am not.

Living in Montreal now, I feel like I do when I lose my glasses. I know that there is much going on around me, but I can’t see what it is.

And when I can’t see something, I get afraid of what I can’t see, so I go off by myself until I can. But then, feeling more and more isolated, I begin to feel different; and the more different I feel, the more I begin to feel that it is
they
who are different. And I don’t like that feeling.

Early in 1972, I was invited to appear on a late-night talk show called
Appelez-moi Lise
. It was hosted by a bright, dynamic woman named Lise Payette, at the time the most popular TV personality in Quebec, a few years later a cabinet minister in the PQ government.

That show frequently featured Canadiens players as guests, and Payette invited me because I spoke French better than most of my English-speaking teammates. I was reluctant to go on at first, explaining to her that I didn’t speak or understand French well enough for the kind of interview I was sure she had in mind, but after she promised to switch into English if I ran into trouble, I accepted. (As it turned out, no matter how much trouble I thought I was in, she appeared not to notice, for we spoke only in French.) I don’t remember what we talked about, only that some of the questions she asked I could understand, and others I couldn’t understand at all. Though my answers were often incomplete, when the show was over I felt relieved, satisfied that I had survived the experience. But those who had watched the show apparently thought differently. For years afterward, people would remind me of that interview, telling me how much they had enjoyed it, how much they had appreciated my speaking their language, how well they thought I had spoken.

The next year, I was one of ten finalists in “le Plus Bel Homme du Canada.” Despite its name, this was a popularity contest in Quebec which in the aftermath of the 1971 playoffs and in Lafleur’s pre-superstar days got me consideration. It was run in conjunction with Payette’s show. With the exception of one politician (who did not appear), the others nominated were television or movie “(p)ersonalities,” each of whom arrived for the show in a tuxedo. I wore a burgundy-colored suit. The countdown began at ten. At seven (sixth runner-up?), they called my name. I walked down the spiral staircase to be greeted by Madame Payette. The previous three contestants had given her a kiss; the five that came after me also gave her a kiss. I shook her hand. When I did, apparently she said to me, “Aren’t you going to give me a kiss?” Not understanding what she had said, I leaned in closer for her to ask again. When she saw me leaning down, she thought I was leaning down to give her a kiss. As she raised her head, as I lowered mine, we collided.

Later in the show, Quebec
chanteuse
Diane Dufresne sang a song to the nine of us as we stood in a line, stopping for a moment to sing to each of us in turn as she passed. When she stopped in front of me, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a small English-French dictionary and leafed through it. The audience laughed. The next day in La Presse, there was a large picture of me, Diane Dufresne, and my dictionary.

I was on
Appelez-moi Lise
one more time. Again, I understood much of what Payette asked, answering sometimes in complete sentences, at other times in fragments she had to complete for me. When the show was over, her producer asked me to appear again a few weeks later. I said no. I told her that the first time was fun, and the second time was too, but that years were passing and still I couldn’t express myself the way I wanted to. I told her I would come back when I spoke better French.

Yesterday was a reminder of spring; today, harsh confirmation that this is Montreal and still the winter, cold and gray and not much else. The radio warns of new snow tomorrow or the next day, and again I feel a quick desolate twinge, knowing that what I had counted on won’t happen for at least a few more weeks. Every year I am surprised at how late in the fall the winter begins. Remembering the endlessness of winters before, I expect it with the start of the hockey season in mid-October, and when it doesn’t come, I think that maybe it won’t come as it has in other years. And each year about this time, I am reminded that it’s at the other end that Montreal winter hits hardest. When the fury of January is spent, when the worst is past, it doesn’t go away; it lingers like an unwelcome guest until you wonder if it ever will. But experienced in winter, Montrealers adapt and cope, triumphing over it. Streets and sidewalks get tractored and plowed, underground shops and walkways are built; snow tires go on, furs and boots appear, the heat goes up, and life goes on uninterrupted. Winter defines life in this city. It is fresh and bracing, an invigorating test; it is only its length I can never get used to.

I drive down side streets narrowed by drifts and snowshrouded cars. Traffic is light today, and the few cars on the road move easily, unconcerned by the conditions. After the awkward caution of a winter’s first snowfall, for Montreal drivers, like riding a bike, it all comes back, and slippery streets are driven as if bare and dry. I park several blocks away from the Forum and walk. The wind, gusting up Atwater Street, is bitter and cold, and hunching over, I try to cover up, but can’t. I start to jog, then run, faster as the wind bites harder. At de Maisonneuve, the light turns red but I continue across.