The Montreal Canadiens: Rethinking a Legend ed. by Nicolas Moreau, Audrey Laruin-Lamothe, and Marie-Pier Rivest (review)

First published in French in 2011, The Montreal Canadiens: Rethinking a Legend is a collection of essays that originated from a 2009 conference examining the Montreal Canadiens, one of the most decorated and successful professional sport clubs in North America and a beloved cultural institution in the province of Quebec. Because of the significance of the Montreal Canadiens to the residents in Montreal and the people in the province, the club represents “a consolidation of history, identity, economics, and culture,” thereby allowing scholars to explore “these interpretative avenues and suggest various ways of examining the connections that exist between Quebec society and the Habs” (3). For those of us who study sport, this is a welcome addition to the literature as academic treatment of sports in the province of Quebec and for francophones in Canada is almost nonexistent, at least for a non–French-speaking audience, which includes this reviewer. In writing this review, I am mindful of my own linguistic deficiency and my assumption that the translation for the English version captures the nuances of the discourse in the book.

As in any edited book, chapters vary in quality, and they differ in length ranging from seven to twenty-three pages. While the number of pages does not necessarily equate to a chapter’s quality, one notable issue for many of the chapters is the minimal citations in academic studies of sport, be they in history, sociology, management, philosophy, or any other field. It is true that academic study on hockey still lags behind other sports (most notably baseball), and the editors allude to that fact in their introduction. Many of the analytical lenses used in this book, however, do have a rich literature in the general study of sport. If the identity that the Canadiens have helped forge is the question being addressed here, a more comprehensive review of literature from various disciplines in sport would enrich the arguments presented in the chapters. One other notable omission is Michel Vigneault’s 2001 dissertation on the Canadiens. For a book that focuses on the storied franchise, it is curious why no one consulted that work.

It is difficult to assess fruitfully the thesis of The Montreal Canadiens—that the franchise has created a unique, strong, and enduring bond with Montrealers and Québécois through their identification with the team, as the editors point to similar phenomenon in other professional sports such as professional baseball and soccer. For the editors, they argue in their concluding chapter that language is at work here. Unlike other North American professional franchises, no team makes a big deal about whether the coach (and sometimes players) is bilingual. If that is indeed the distinction, few of the chapters take up this thread. Ultimately, one should best read The Montreal Canadiens for its individual chapters rather than as a coherent volume.