NHL/LNH : Thank God Koivu does not speak French.

Year in, year out, the Canadiens captain is held hostage of the Québec language debate.

Québécois nationalists complain Koivu does not speak French, when they should instead be grateful he does not.

As they should be grateful Kovalev, Markov, Plekanec, Higgins and all the non native French speakers in the team do not.

If one language has to be butchered in the Canadiens dressing room, on the ice and during media interviews, better be it English rather than French.

The esperanto and lingua franca of the NHL probably bears very limited resemblance to Shakespeare’s, The Gazette’s, even Beckham’s and John Doe’s English and linguists would probably detect in it very strong North and Eastern European influences.

Any lover of the French language should be thankful that his own idiom be spared such debilitating and, in the long term, probably deadly treatment.

Better have fewer but better French speakers.

If Koivu were to learn French, when would he speak it : not with his team mates, not with his family.

If Koivu spoke French, it would only be part of a marketing ploy by the Canadien management to better sell its product to the Québécois fans : Koivu would be asked to memorise a few standard phrases, coined by the communications spin masters, to pay lip service to his « amour de Montréal », « attachement au club, ses partisans » and so on and so forth and advertise the new line of products available at the club store.

During his later Tours de France, Lance Armstrong made a point of answering French journalists in what was supposedly French.

It was amazing to hear how he could speak a language so poorly after spending so much time in the country, racing with many French speaking riders.

Why he insisted on inflicting such a beating to the language was then a mystery.

It has since become clear as, safely back into English and on the western side of the pond, Armstrong has repeatedly, fluently and articulately voiced his hate and contempt for the country and the people of which he had won the biking Tour seven times.

No doubt, butchering the French language was probably the most satisfying way he had found at the time to spit on the French while sweet-talking them for commercial reasons.

So better a decent Finn who speaks no French than a Tartufe who claims he tries to. (P.M.)