Canadiens: Martin St-Louis and the French Fact This will be used as the H1.

Being at the helm of an NHL team has never been an easy job, but the role comes with one more challenge in Montreal: bilingualism. While a significant portion of fans only care that the bench boss be fluent in winning rather than any languages, there is another part that believes the coach must be able to speak French, the province's most used language.

View the original article to see embedded media.

Luckily for the latter, the Montreal Canadiens' organization agrees and makes a point of hiring a head coach who can speak la langue de Molière. For years, that meant recycling past pilots with the likes of Claude Julien and Michel Therrien getting more than one kick at the can.

When Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes came in though, they wanted a coach who spoke "la game" and French. Thinking outside the box, they went for Martin St-Louis who had never coached higher than minor league hockey. Day in and day out, the skipper fields questions from the media in both French and English, leaving no questions unanswered or stone unturned.

Related: Montreal Canadiens Training Camp: Kapanen Shines on Day 2

There are times however when he cannot quite remember a certain word in French. When it occurs, he turns to Canadiens vice-president of communications and former journalist Chantal Machabée who can always tell him le mot juste. While most appreciate the fact he doesn't just revert to English to fill in the blanks, there will always be people to criticize.

To be fair, I thought the end of the year sketch in which they parodied the collaboration was hilarious and tongue and cheek, nothing wrong with that. However, yesterday a fan took to X saying the coach was losing his mother tongue bit by bit, which was like losing a part of himself.

Related: Montreal Canadiens Training Camp: Don't Tell Them They're on the Fourth Line

That kind of criticism is uncalled for, granted I don't know the fan in question and I have no idea about her background apart from the fact she is the vice-présidente des jeunes péquistes as indicated by her profile, but I take exception to the comment.

St-Louis was born in Laval in 1975, but he left the province in the early '90s as he started playing with the University of Vermont in 1993-1994 at just 18 years old. When he was appointed coach of the Canadiens, he had been living in various cities in the USA for nearly 30 years. The fact he only hesitates on odd occasions is quite frankly a miracle.

Personally, I lived in London, England for over eight years and as the years went by, I realized when chatting with family and friends on the phone (this was back when people still called each other), that I was (rarely) at times struggling to find the right word, but by no means did I feel like I was losing a part of myself. Had someone said that to me, I would have taken exception.

Related: Canadiens: What to Expect From Brendan Gallagher

Even though I lived overseas, I still listened to Les Cowboys Fringants and sang along while doing the dishes. I often went out for dinner with a fellow French-Canadian friend. Afterwards, we'd go for long walks in London and a few times we were discussing sketches from les albums du peuple de François Pérusse and were overheard by fellow Quebecers with whom we spent the rest of the evening, showing them around town as we had both lived there for years.

At every Saint-Jean-Baptiste, we hate poutine at the Maple Leaf (nothing to do with the Toronto team rest assure, there was even a giant Patrick Roy poster there), a Canadian pub in London. When the NHL came to London for two games between the Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Kings, we both proudly wore Quebec Nordiques jerseys and when I saw Gary Bettman, I went up to him to ask when Quebec would get its team back. I might have at times forgotten words in my mother tongue, but I never forgot where I came from and who I was.

St-Louis mastery of both the French and English language should be celebrated rather than lamented. Therrien or Julien never asked the communications VP for the right words, they just went with the anglicism. The Canadiens coach spends the season living here while his family is in the USA, that's a sacrifice he wouldn't be willing to make if he had forgotten a part of himself.

Related

Une acquisition pure Laine
Canadiens: Resume de la semaine

Follow Karine on X @KarineHains Bluesky @karinehains.bsky.social and Threads @karinehains

Bookmark The Hockey News Canadiens' page for all the news and happenings around the Canadiens