Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of Ottawa Senators fans in the Outaouais region, and we salute them. However, there are also a lot of fans who love truly great hockey, and they want to watch the Montreal Canadiens' playoff games at the Slush Puppie Centre.
However, the National Hockey League and the Senators are standing in their way. They invoked territorial rights to prevent Habs games from being broadcast in the arena. If the Senators want their games to be broadcast, all they have to do is not get eliminated after just four games.
As a result, the people of Gatineau are missing out on a great event. Worse still, a local mental health organization is missing out on tens of thousands of dollars, because proceeds from ticket sales were supposed to go to it.
Yesterday, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously joined the City of Gatineau and 7,700 petitioners in calling on the league and the Senators to back down. Quebec is Habs country, and that includes the home region of “Le Démon Blond”.
Fans should be able to get together to cheer the Canadiens on all the way to the cup, because the people of Gatineau are chanting “Go, Habs, go”.