Nordiques fans turn up to see Kings, but still mourn lost hockey team

QUEBEC — NHL hockey is back in Quebec City this week, but the Los Angeles Kings aren't the team that fans of the long-departed Quebec Nordiques have longed to see.

In his Quebec City basement, surrounded by Nordiques memorabilia, Yan Marcil says the departure of the city's former NHL team to Colorado in 1995 has left a "scar" whose pain has faded over time.

"I was 16," he said, "and I still cried." For the next five years, he refused to watch hockey at all. "I renounced everything," he said.

Decades later, Marcil and many other Nordiques fans will be filling the stands this week as the L.A. Kings play two pre-season games in Quebec City.

On Thursday, bright blue Nordiques jerseys could be seen scattered throughout the Centre Videotron as the Kings took the ice for the first of those games, against the Boston Bruins.

The retired numbers of Nordiques greats Michel Goulet, Marc Tardif, Jean-Claude Tremblay and Peter Stastny hung from the rafters as the Kings coasted to a 4-1 victory on the strength of a Quinton Byfield hat trick.

Subsidized by up to $7 million in public money, the Kings' trip has been billed by the Quebec government as an opportunity to showcase the city — and the arena built in the hopes of attracting a franchise — as a suitable host for a new team.

"I thought it's the right step in the process to bring a team back in Quebec City — it's a step — there will be other steps," Finance Minister Eric Girard said last year.

But while Marcil is looking forward to attending Saturday's game, he and other Nordiques fans are skeptical the Kings' trip could lead to their team's return.

Jean-François Leclerc, a self-described Nordiques superfan, still gets choked up when he remembers watching with a close childhood friend as his idol Stastny scored the winning goal in overtime to eliminate the archrival Montreal Canadiens in the 1985 playoffs.

Leclerc said that unlike the big-city Canadiens, the speedy Nordiques were always small-market underdogs who proudly displayed their francophone heritage with the fleur-de-lis symbols on their jerseys. Unlike the Canadiens, they never won a Stanley Cup — which somehow seemed to only inspire more loyalty. "It was us against the world," he said.

While he'd love to see a team return, he doesn't believe the NHL wants to support new franchises in Canada, and knows the cost of one — often estimated at around $1 billion — is out of reach. "I'm a finance guy, so I understand the reality," Leclerc said.

Both he and Marcil have instead done something they would have never considered in Nordiques days: they've become Montreal Canadiens fans.

Moshe Lander, a sports economist with Concordia University, puts Quebec City’s chances of getting a team back as less than 10 per cent. He says the lack of a pool of billionaires makes it unlikely the NHL will expand to another Canadian city. Quebec City, he added, would be a tough sell to players because of its size, relative geographic isolation, as well as the province's tough language laws and high taxes.

Lander says the city’s name is “dangled” by the league as a possible expansion site as a way of creating a sense of competition and pressuring other cities to pony up more money.

“Quebec City is being used as a patsy in a very strategic game by very shrewd billionaires and (Premier François Legault) has bought into that fantasy that somehow Quebec City will get a team," he said in a phone interview.

Leclerc, who lives in Gatineau, Que., won't be travelling to Quebec City for the games. He opposes the public subsidy, believing it makes Quebecers look like "hillbillies" who need to pay millions of dollars to get a team to come play.

But for some Nordiques fans, the NHL's return to Quebec City is enough to lure them back from afar.

Christian Loyer, 51, will be flying all the way from Coventry, England, to watch Saturday's Kings-Panthers matchup. Once he realized the visit came just a month before his brother's 50th birthday, he immediately bought them both tickets, he said in a phone interview from the U.K.

"It’s a like a return to childhood," said Loyer, who grew up in Quebec City. "I’m excited, I’m eager, I really have butterflies in my stomach."

Unlike other fans who spoke to The Canadian Press, Loyer expressed hope that the Kings' visit could potentially help build a case for an NHL team's return. "I hope it will be sold out so we can prove there’s a place for the NHL in Quebec," he said, promising to fly back for games if it ever happens.

On Wednesday, several of the spectators who showed up to watch the Kings practise at the Videotron Centre described themselves as Nordiques fans. None expressed much hope for the team's return.

Unbeknownst to most of them, however, there was at least one Nordique in the building.

Eighty-year-old Jean-Claude Garneau, a member of the 1974-1975 Nordiques team, said he was there to compare the modern game to the one he played. “It’s faster, but not as rough as in my days," observed Garneau, who wore a sports coat and Nordiques ring.

Garneau said he, too, would like to see his former team return, but has the same doubts as other fans. "They’d rather create jobs in the states than create them in Quebec," he said of the NHL.

He said he planned to be in the audience to watch the Kings play both the Bruins and the Florida Panthers on Saturday — his presence perhaps the closest thing fans will get to the team's return, for now.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2024.