Canadiens: The Focus Should Have Been Solely On The Battle Of Quebec

Throughout the year, every NHL team holds thematic nights; Halloween, Christmas, Hockey Fights Cancer, Pride, Veteran Appreciation night, you name it, they have it. On Thursday night at the Bell Centre, while the province was buzzing about finally having the Battle of Quebec back, the Montreal Canadiens celebrated the Lunar New Year.

With all due respect, once the NHL green-lighted the idea of letting the Colorado Avalanche play in their Quebec Nordiques blue alternate jersey, the January 29 night should have been about nothing else. I know, the calendar for theme nights had already been out for some time, but the actual date of the 2026 Lunar New Year is February 17. Couldn’t the celebration have been pushed back to the first home game after the Olympics? February 26 is closer to the actual date than January 29.

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It has now been over 30 years since the Quebec Nordiques were uprooted from la belle province and landed in Denver, Colorado. Seven months later, the newly minted Colorado Avalanche even got another one of the province’s jewels, one of the best goaltenders ever to play the game, in one of the most lopsided trades in professional sports history: Patrick Roy. Just over a year after the move, on June 10, 1996, the Avalanche did what the Nordiques never could do: they won the Stanley Cup.

Joe Sakic, the Nordiques’ fanbase favourite, got to raise the Stanley Cup in Miami, when passionate fans had been dreaming of seeing him do that at the Colisee de Quebec through seven seasons, five of which ended before the spring dance, talk about rubbing salt in an open wound. That moment broke two fan bases’ hearts, both Quebec and Montreal. The former Nordiques won too late, while the former Hab was instrumental in giving the old enemy its first win.

I grew up in Quebec, but I was never a Nordiques fan, unlike my dad. You see, he made the mistake of introducing me to hockey when I was six years old in 1986, when a young netminder led the Canadiens to the Stanley Cup. Watching number 33 make all those saves, I became hooked on hockey and on the Habs, much to my dad’s chagrin. It wasn’t all bad for him; he had a whale of a time in 1993 when the Nordiques took a 2-0 lead in their series with the Habs. By the end of that series of course, I had become unsufferable, teasing him mercilessly as Montreal went on to win the next four games and claim the Stanley Cup a few weeks later.

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When St-Patrick came back to Montreal to play with the Avalanche, I was on a school field trip to the game, and yes, on that day, I wore a Nordiques jersey like the rest of our group, the only time I did that in my life. Kudos to my geography teacher for getting that field trip approved. From the south shore of Quebec all the way to Montreal in a school bus, the Nordiques fan in him thought it was worth it. I guess there was kind of a geographical element to it, after all, we all went to the La Pointe-A-Calliere museum in the afternoon, even though our level of interest wasn’t quite the same.

For people even older than me, and yes, there are plenty of those, bringing up the Nordiques means talking about the epic Good Friday battle or arguing about whether Alain Cote’s goal was good, or so many Christmas parties arguing over which team was the best. The two-minute opening video montage was good, but we needed more. That rich history deserved all the spotlight on Thursday night.