QUEBEC CITY — Tucked away on the occasion degree contained in the Videotron Centre is 20,000 sq. toes of empty area.
It’s principally used for storage, and generally catering. However the area, in accordance with venue workers, has been put aside with the hope of sometime turning it right into a state-of-the-art locker room for the return of the Quebec Nordiques.
It’s been virtually 30 years for the reason that NHL left Quebec Metropolis. The Nordiques moved to Denver in Could 1995, turning into the Colorado Avalanche. Varied makes an attempt to revive the franchise over the intervening many years have been unsuccessful.
“It was a tragedy,” stated Jocelyn Thibault, who performed within the Nordiques’ closing two seasons. “While you lose knowledgeable staff, it leaves an enormous gap in a metropolis. It put a gap in lots of people’s hearts.”
On Sunday, regular-season professional hockey returned to Quebec Metropolis for the primary time in many years.
The Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League introduced its “Takeover Tour” of neutral-site video games throughout North America to town, with the Montreal Victoire taking part in the Ottawa Cost in entrance of a sold-out crowd of greater than 18,000 followers — the second-largest introduced attendance of the season.
“It was simply unbelievable to see that crowd in entrance of us,” stated Montreal ahead Catherine Dubois, who grew up in Quebec Metropolis. “I had chills the entire time. It was very particular.”
Une journée de rêve, tout simplement magique, pour Catherine Dubois, native de Québec 🥹
A magical homecoming for Catherine Dubois pic.twitter.com/XWhQxa8PEL
— Victoire de Montréal (@PWHL_Montreal) January 20, 2025
The PWHL, which is in solely its second season, is already trying so as to add as much as two groups as early because the 2025-26 season. With its facility, proximity to the league’s different Canadian franchises and fan help, Quebec Metropolis makes a powerful case for growth.
Is a ladies’s hockey staff the almost definitely method to deliver again professional hockey to town?
It is probably not an NHL metropolis anymore, however Quebec Metropolis continues to be a hockey metropolis.
On Friday night time, two days earlier than the PWHL sport, followers filed into an area rink to look at the Cégep Limoilou Titans, the top-level ladies’s staff within the metropolis. The Titans are one of many high groups within the Quebec school hockey league — although Cégep will not be school within the conventional sense, however somewhat a pre-university program that’s distinctive to Quebec’s schooling system. With the return of beginning goalie Marilou Grenier, who had a shutout for Group Canada within the gold medal sport of the U18 ladies’s world championship earlier this month, there was motive to have a good time.
“We all the time have numerous attendance round right here,” stated Titans assistant coach Laurence Beaulieu, who performed one season within the now-defunct Canadian Ladies’s Hockey League. “It’s not like this in all places within the league, solely (Quebec Metropolis). That’s what makes it a hockey city and unbelievable for skilled hockey.”
One of many key arguments in favor of the PWHL increasing to Quebec Metropolis is the passionate followers who’ve been ready not only for professional hockey however for any skilled staff to get behind. There hasn’t been a top-level skilled franchise within the metropolis for the reason that Nordiques left, however that hasn’t stopped folks from exhibiting up for his or her native groups.
The Laval College soccer staff set a document for attendance with over 20,000 followers at a sport in the course of the 2024 season. The Quebec Capitales baseball staff had the second-best common attendance within the Frontier League final season. The Quebec Remparts, who play within the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, have one of the best attendance throughout Canadian junior hockey with greater than 9,000 followers every sport regardless of the staff’s present rebuild.
“No matter sporting occasions there are in our metropolis, followers are all the time current,” stated Tommy Castonguay, the vice chairman of hockey operations for the Remparts. “The neighborhood is actually supportive of sports activities they usually’re behind their groups.”
Fan help — together with ticket gross sales — is simply one of many many areas PWHL executives will look at when contemplating the place to doubtlessly add its subsequent two franchises. The highest precedence, in accordance with Amy Scheer, the league’s senior vice chairman of enterprise operations, is the venue.
Quebec Metropolis checks that field, too.
The Videotron Centre opened in 2015, and was inbuilt a really public try and lure the NHL again to town. It seats simply over 18,000 for hockey. And regardless of largely being a junior hockey rink – residence to the Remparts – it’s a really skilled hockey facility with a big residence locker room and 4 massive further locker rooms, which could be made into eight smaller ones when extra groups come to city, as they do in the course of the historic Quebec Worldwide Pee-Wee Match. There are household and staff lounges, exercise and coaching services and workplace area for employees.
🔥@quebec_remparts pic.twitter.com/0RGY0pbRWa
— Victoire de Montréal (@PWHL_Montreal) January 19, 2025
“We constructed it with all of the services for NHL hockey,” stated Martin Tremblay, the CEO of Quebecor Sports activities and Leisure, which owns the Remparts. “It’s why the Remparts are so nicely handled, and it will be the identical factor for a PWHL staff. They might have the identical entry to all these services too.”
The Videotron Centre is a public area, owned by Quebec Metropolis, however is managed by Quebecor. A Quebec Metropolis PWHL staff would doubtless nonetheless be owned by Mark Walter, the billionaire proprietor of the Los Angeles Dodgers who owns the PWHL and its six current franchises, however might be operated regionally in partnership with the staff at Quebecor — or at the very least supported by the venue workers.
Ought to town get a staff, Tremblay stated they might construct a brand new locker room, places of work and extra remedy rooms for the staff with a few of the area that’s been earmarked for the Nordiques. And whereas some live shows and different occasions are held on the venue, there ought to be greater than sufficient dates to provide a PWHL staff 15 residence video games. There’s additionally the Pavilion Man-Lafleur just a few hundred metres away as a secondary follow rink choice.
“Now we have the area, we’ve our staff to assist,” he stated. “So I believe all of the elements are there.”
The league may even have a look at the youth hockey panorama and the way the PWHL can have an effect on the neighborhood.
Women hockey registration within the province has elevated by virtually two thousand during the last three years. In 2023-24, almost 8,000 women registered to play hockey in Quebec, in accordance with Hockey Canada, which is fourth amongst provinces within the nation, behind Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. That’s up from round 6,000 in 2021-22.
Regionally, numerous women nonetheless play in opposition to boys, and the Cégep Titans staff is the one Division 1 women hockey staff within the metropolis, which has lengthy led to many high gamers leaving town to play in Montreal or at non-public faculties within the U.S.
“A whole lot of women simply cease taking part in as a result of they don’t wish to transfer away,” stated Daphné Morin, one other goalie for the Titans. “I believe if there was a professional staff right here, numerous women would proceed to play hockey. It might give us one thing to look ahead to in our personal metropolis.”
Quebec Metropolis can also be geographically near the PWHL’s present footprint with groups in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, New York, Boston and Minnesota. The league’s collective bargaining settlement mandates groups fly to video games greater than six hours or 400 miles away.
Which means Montreal, Ottawa and maybe Boston — the Tsongas Middle is throughout the CBA restrict, however their major venue may change if attendance doesn’t enhance — may all take bus journeys. That’s in comparison with different Canadian growth candidates comparable to Vancouver or Edmonton, which might necessitate air journey for all six present franchises.
There’s a college of thought {that a} staff in Quebec Metropolis may siphon help away from the league’s profitable Montreal franchise. Nevertheless, having a staff in Quebec Metropolis may additionally reignite one of the intense rivalries within the sport.
“Rising up in Montreal, we hated the Nordiques,” stated Thibault. “The rivalry was so alive. I believe having an NHL or PWHL staff in Quebec Metropolis would simply assist each franchises.”
To not point out, a staff in Quebec Metropolis would doubtless draw extra followers from the areas surrounding town — even from neighboring Maine or New Brunswick — which might be a lot farther from Montreal. In fact, the PWHL will look additional into the ticket gross sales from Sunday’s sport and see the place folks got here from — did they arrive from Montreal or Ottawa? What number of had been from the native space? — to see how sustainable the help for a staff may be, and if it will have an effect on its different franchises.
Marie-Philip Poulin, arguably the best ladies’s hockey participant and captain of the Montreal Victoire, grew up 50 miles outdoors of Quebec Metropolis. (Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Photographs)
All that stated, a few of the challenges the Nordiques confronted at the moment are query marks for the PWHL.
With a inhabitants of round 560,000 — 850,000 if we embody the metropolitan space — Quebec Metropolis is a smaller market in comparison with different candidates for PWHL growth, comparable to Detroit with round 630,000 within the metropolis and 4.3 million within the metro space.
Quebec Metropolis was the smallest market within the NHL, and the second smallest major-league metropolis behind solely Inexperienced Bay, Wisc., residence of the NFL’s Inexperienced Bay Packers. And when the NHL finally expands once more, it’s extra prone to look to Atlanta and Houston, huge tv markets, over reviving the Nordiques.
There was additionally a restricted company base within the area on the time the Nordiques existed, and regardless of fan help on the outdated Colisée, the franchise was financially ailing earlier than it in the end decamped to Denver. The native financial system is extra various now than it was then, with main insurance coverage corporations (comparable to Desjardins and Beneva) primarily based within the metro space and a rising info and communication applied sciences business.
“We’re not the identical metropolis that we had been 30 years in the past,” stated Tremblay. “At the moment we had been a civil servant metropolis. Now we’ve insurance coverage corporations, (tech) corporations. Now we have massive head places of work in Quebec Metropolis and with younger professionals.
“The explanation why (the Nordiques) left don’t exist anymore in my thoughts.”
Nonetheless, Quebec Metropolis might want to compete with main North American markets additionally concerned with PWHL growth. In accordance with Scheer, the league will look at greater than 20 proposals from events. Earlier stops on the league’s barnstorming tour included a sellout in Vancouver (19,038), and a U.S. attendance document in Denver (14,018). Detroit, St. Louis and Pittsburgh are different robust candidates.
“We’ve been to many markets which have supported us, have been there for us, and there’s numerous cities that need us there,” stated Montreal goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens, who grew up outdoors Quebec Metropolis. “Clearly my coronary heart helps Quebec Metropolis if they need a staff.”
There’s additionally the sensible problem of the PWHL including a staff to a Francophone metropolis. The league already has a staff within the province of Quebec, however Montreal is a extra various, bilingual metropolis in comparison with the predominantly French-speaking Quebec Metropolis.
Desbiens stated she didn’t suppose the language could be a serious barrier and that any points English-speaking Nordiques gamers had had been “a special actuality.”
“That was a very long time in the past,” she stated. “Youngsters these days be taught English method quicker than what we did. Individuals are so welcoming (right here), and I do know the inhabitants would go above and past to make everyone really feel welcome … In order that’s not a fear of mine.”
The league understanding the tradition, language and Quebec id could be essential to a staff’s success. And the PWHL would doubtless want some Francophone stars to market to native followers. The most effective ladies’s hockey participant on the earth, Marie-Philip Poulin, grew up round 50 miles outdoors of Quebec Metropolis, however she already captains the Montreal Victoire. Desbiens performs for the Victoire as nicely.
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Fifteen years after first ‘golden objective,’ Marie-Philip Poulin returns to the place her legend started
Would they be keen to depart for his or her hometown staff?
It’s additionally honest to wonder if followers’ need to deliver again the Nordiques would equate to help for a PWHL franchise. Whereas many locals say the “dream” continues to be an NHL franchise, they’re additionally resigned to the truth that a return is unlikely.
The PWHL, nonetheless, seems like a way more sensible dream.
Even with a rival staff (Montreal) on the town, followers packed the Videotron Centre on Sunday with an introduced sellout of 18,259. Poulin, Desbiens and Dubois — who scored her second objective of the season within the first interval — got loud ovations throughout participant introductions and almost each time they touched the puck.
“This metropolis misplaced their NHL franchise they usually’ve supported their QMJHL staff (higher) than wherever within the nation,” stated Thibault. “I don’t see why they wouldn’t help their PWHL staff.”
(Illustration: Will Tulos / The Athletic. Pictures: Michael Chisholm, Chip Somodevilla / Getty Photographs)