Several Montrealers have written to me that in Quebec you won’t be satisfied with much if you’re upsetting the hair on your legs with the Capitals, the Remparts and the Rouge et Or.
Like I’m some kind of aunt because I like everything but Canadian major baseball or the Canadian Football League.
Some people made fun of me because I wrote that the Capitals were professional baseball. To them, it’s a cute little baseball.
Like the cable didn’t go to Quebec and I didn’t understand what baseball was.
I’m a baseball fanatic and am probably one of the few Quebecers who decided to visit A’s minor league teams in Florida during the holidays. I was one of 12 spectators at every game.
Apparently most of the people who wrote this to me had never set foot in the Stade Canac in Quebec.
When Greg Bird hit his grand slam on Saturday against a man who was throwing 98 miles per hour, I thought it was pretty professional and hard as baseball.
René Baillargeon / QMI Agency
In short, I know I’m touching a sensitive nerve when I compare Quebec and Montreal in sports. It’s easy to catch fire.
There is something to be proud of
But I’m not that serious. I know very well that Montreal has teams that play on major circuits and that the sports offering is unparalleled. But there’s something quite magical in Quebec that we haven’t seen much of in Montreal from regular teams in a few years.
And in Quebec there really is something to be proud of. We can tear the straps. The frustration of the Nordiques’ non-return has consumed us for years, so much so that the people of Quebec can boast of becoming a great sports city again.
On Saturday, more than 13,000 people attended the Rouge et Or game at Laval University. At the same time, there was a full house at the Stade Canac for the Capitales game (4,297 spectators).
The Sunday game sold more than 800,000 tickets to major sporting events in Quebec (Remparts, Capitals, Rouge et Or, Tournoi pee-wee) in one year.
This is about what the Canadian welcomes to the Bell Center every year. And that’s more than the Alouettes, CF Montreal and the Laval Rocket combined.
It works very well
I did some calculations and found that Quebec sells a lot more sports tickets per capita than Montreal. Of course it’s cheaper in Quebec, but it shows the connection with the teams.
The Remparts have the league’s best crowd in Quebec, almost triple the second-place crowd. The Capitals have the second-best crowd in the league out of 15 clubs. And Rouge et Or obviously has the best crowd in Canada.
Why does it work so hard?
Firstly, because the clubs in Quebec cheat everyone. They are well led and proud. No question about being average.
Patrick Roy, Jacques Tanguay, Glen Constantin, Michel Laplante and Patrick Scalabrini are strong competitors. It helps to win a Memorial Cup, a Vanier Cup and a Frontier League playoff championship in the same year.
But also because these teams have understood that they have to think about their fans first and foremost.
Everything costs more, households in Quebec are struggling. However, this year the teams from Quebec are attracting more people than ever before with record attendance. Even the capitals are having miserable weather this summer.
The team froze prices for the cheapest tickets and lowered the price of hot dogs to $1 on Saturdays. Beer is $4. It is perfect for families.
The Rouge et Or is not just a football game. It is an unmissable event in Quebec with one of the largest deficits in the country, in all leagues combined.
Over the years, the Remparts have become the most prestigious organization in the country.
Not the same conversation
I love watching a Canadiens game. But I wasn’t so tempted to pay $600 this year to go there with my wife and two kids and see Chris Tierney and Christian Dvorak play well defensively despite a loss that doesn’t change the league lead .
I had fun the last time I went to CF Montreal, but when the team averages less than a goal per game, it’s not the entertainment of the century, shall we say.
But when Greg Bird celebrated his Grand Slam on Saturday, when the Remparts defeated all of Canada’s best clubs at the Memorial Cup in June, and when the Rouge et Or won their 11th Vanier Cup in November, I don’t think we were satisfied with a little in Quebec .
Rather, I think we value our teams and they appreciate it. And if one day we have more of it, all the better.
But we are no longer waiting grumbling. We make full use of what we have.