Quebec Culture and Saku Koivu 1 Quebec Demagogues 0

And that's that.

Saku Koivu, captain of the Montreal Canadiens, introduced his team in French last night. What's interesting to note in all this is that he recorded it over a week ago well before Guy Bertrand's hilarious comments. It was decided to broadcast Koivu's new language skills on the heels of Bertrand's myopic and insulting words. Check....mate. I love it.

People like Bertrand and Pauline Marois do not defend Quebec culture; they demean it. Latching on to old world ideological ideas, they increasingly do not speak for not only many Quebecers, but French-Canadians as well.

Last night, RDS (the French language sister of TSN and by extension ESPN) had a poll asking the public and fans if learning French was obligatory to be captain of the Montreal Canadiens. 72% of the 6 000 people who answered said no.

Yes, all we want is a winning team. More to the point, Quebecers are smarter and more progressive than their political and intellectual masters. They are willing to leave the past in the past now. That's the mark of a maturing society.

And this fills Bertrand, pathetic sports talk show hosts who can't talk about anything else but smut, small-time journalists and the PQ with mortified dread. They see the writing on the wall - they are not only dodo's but are soon to possibly be extinct as the Dodo Bird.

Yesterday, I was sad for Quebec. Today, I'm happy. Sanity prevails.

Let's be done with this once and for all and let the millionaires go play hockey.