Canadiens’ Historic Rivalry With The Nordiques Should Not Resume

The NHL has announced it received only two bids for expansion teams: one from Las Vegas, and the other from Quebec, ostensibly to bring back Canadiens‘ rivals, the Quebec Nordiques. Expansion is not a certainty; in fact, commissioner Gary Bettman has issued a caveat to that fact.

"The fact we are going through this process doesn’t mean we are going to expand,” Bettman said. “All it means is we’re going to stop just listening to expressions of interest and take a good, hard look at what they actually mean and represent"

Here’s the thing: do we want to see the return of the Nordiques?

I will be candid here: I didn’t follow the world of hockey as I do now, when the Nordiques were a team. I knew about the rivalry but it wasn’t something that got me as emotional as hockey rivalries do now, since becoming a full-fledged savvy fan in 2010.

Let’s look at the facts first:

The Canadian dollar is very weak right now; this could hurt the chances of another Canadian team. Should the political situation in Quebec heat up, the dollar would further decline.
The controversial owner of Quebecor is the leader of a political party in the province, and a man who has openly declared his intention to separate the province of Quebec from the rest of Canada. This fact has contributed to widespread belief that his position jeopardizes the return of the Nordiques: other NHL owners, with the power to veto awarding of franchises, may express their disapproval of the politics by refusing the return of the team.
Gary Bettman is rumored to be gun-shy when it comes to awarding Canada another team. The fact that the Winnipeg Jets returned was a huge moment for Canadian hockey fans.
The market in Las Vegas has been tested recently, giving way to rumors that Sin City would soon become home to a new hockey franchise.
Quebecor has already built a beautiful arena in Quebec City – Le Centre Videotron – which is hockey-ready. In fact, the Canadiens and Pittsburgh Penguins will be playing a preseason game there in September.
The market, however, is ripe for a hockey team in Quebec. It was an extremely successful city for the Nords when they were in full swing, from 1979-1995. Due to the struggling dollar, being the smallest market, the Nordiques – having lost in the first round of playoffs that year – were moved to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche.

Ironically, the year the Avalanche debuted, they won the first of two Stanley Cups.

The reaction on Twitter has been mixed; many want the Nordiques to return. They may be Nordiques fans who migrated to the Habs when Quebec lost its team. They may be fans of heated rivalry who want to see a resurrection of The Battle of Quebec.

But taking the pulse of those who have expressed their opinions (many who have already decided the team is back and it’s a done deal – it is anything but), there are those who remember how contentious the rivalry got:

@daviddrumx @Habsfan42 Animosity between #habs and #nordiques flowed right into the stands where fans of the 2 teams were at loggerheads.
— Mike Zeisberger (@Zeisberger) July 21, 2015

Here is a video of the brawl on April 20, 1984; an all-out team-against-team event. The video is 13 minutes, but indicative of how volatile things could get between these two rivals.

I’ll be honest: this is not the kind of hockey I enjoy. Hockey fights happen, we’ve seen them, and we’ve seen the results. But the above video demonstrates a complete lack of control, one that was only spurred by this kind of – to quote the tweet above – “nasty, bitter, hated rivalry”.

Perhaps that was another era; perhaps things would be different this time around. Listening to the buzz around social media, however, the word “hate” has been almost invariably used in discussion of this scenario.

Missed hating the #Nordiques so glad they'll return. The occasional fight in the stands & media snark over local quotas, not so much #Habs
— HabsWatch (@HabsWatch) July 21, 2015

The Habs have enough rivalries in today’s NHL: the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators are all considered heated rivals of the Canadiens.

There are others, not as bitter, not as heated.

Do the Canadiens – and their fans – really want this kind of ugliness to return? I don’t believe rivalry should include the deepest kind of hatred as the Habs and Nordiques shared.

“Bring on the hate” has been the buzz since the NHL’s news announcement. It’s known that the actual hatred – and fighting – extended to families of Habs’ and Nordiques’ players.

But more to the point, do we want to see the province split in terms of hockey loyalties? I’m rather proprietary about Quebec being the province of Canada’s hockey team. Bringing back the Nordiques would split Quebec, and perhaps the revenues and fan bases as well.

The expansion would occur in the 2017-18 season, so there’s time to mull this over. With a provincial election in 2018, the decision may be deeply influenced by the climate in Quebec.

But on a personal level, I’m not crazy about the Nordiques being back in Quebec.

How about you, readers? What are your thoughts? Please leave your comments below!

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