Spring didn't really arrive in Montreal this year until three weeks after the official vernal equinox, ushered in by a 24-year old from Bratislava, Slovakia.
Jaroslav Halak went on to do more than just qualify the 19th best team in the National Hockey League for the Stanley Cup playoffs on the last day of their season.
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L'orwellien MacaquePherson inverse les signes - le dominé devient dominant, le menacé devient le menaçant, la victime bourreau, l'union autour du français devient exclusion de l'anglais, etc. - Son exemple d'union par le sport au CH balaie sous le tapis la domination de ces "maudits anglais" qui méprisent leur clientèle francophone, comme MascaquePherson méprise ceux dont il parle fielleusement depuis des lunes dans ce journal jaune.
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The Canadiens' goaltender carried his team on an un expected, 44-day run into the third round of the playoffs.
And by doing so, this 24-year-old Slovak united a divided city.
The "Halak spring" was marred by the now-tradition al outbreak of Habs-related hooliganism in the form of an early-round victory riot. (Miraculously, the Chapters bookstore was spared by the "Habligans" who looted nearby clothing and liquor stores along Ste.Catherine St.)
Otherwise, however, it was a-period when ethnic, linguistic and political barriers across the city came down, and a community was formed beneath the CH car flag.
"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of Ameri -ca had better learn base ball, the rules and reality of the game," wrote historian Jacques Barzun. In Canada, it's hockey; a recent survey suggested that ethnic minorities, including new immigrants, express more interest in professional hockey than other Canadians (snipurl. com/xtn4v).
And in Montreal during the Halak spring, whoever wanted into the mainstream got there by jumping onto the Canadiens bandwagon. A CH T-shirt became a conversational icebreaker between strangers ( "so, are we going to win tonight?").
The word "nous" was applied to a team that included almost no French-speaking Quebecers. And the sovereignist hip-hop trio Loco Locass had an instant hit with Le But, a fan anthem that included a shout-out to the Canadiens' great Englishspeaking players of the past (snipurl. com/xtn7i).
But now Halak has been traded away, and spring has given way to summer, which in Quebec traditionally begins with the celebrations of the Fete nationale holiday.
T-he highlight of the celebrations is an open-air concert in Montreal televised live a-cross the province. The concert's master of ceremonies is Guy A. Lepage, high priest of Quebec popular culture as host of the Radio-Canada television talk show Tout le monde en parle.
This year, Lepage made a point of announcing that the main concert would be in French only (which it usually is anyway). And while English-speaking singers had been invited to perform, they would have to sing in French.
Lepage said inviting anglophone performers (one of whom, pop singer Jonas, accepted) was inclusive.
But to require an anglophone artist to sing in French was actually to exclude his identity and that of his community, as if Haitian-born singer Luck Mervil, another performer, were required to wear whiteface. It reduced him to a trophy in a celebration of one group's domination of another.
Lepage based his position on a recent prediction by the Parti Quebecois language critic, Pierre Curzi, that in five years, people whose mother tongue is French would no longer be in the majority on Montreal Island.
And during the concert, Lepage proclaimed its theme to be the defence of French and complained that "half the city doesn't speak French." (Actually, in the 2006 census, 86 per cent of the island's population claimed at least a knowledge of French.)
But even non-francophones who adopt French as a second or even first language can no more change their mother tongue than Mervil the colour of his skin.
So even if the concert was intended to be inclusive, the Fete nationale message of identity politics it sent was that there are too many nonfrancophones in Montreal - too many of "them."
dmacpherson@thegazette. canwest. com