I like hockey as much as much as the next guy.

I remember those take-no-prisoners battles between the Habs and the Nordiques. It was classic stuff.

I was living in Quebec City when the team left town, and it went with a whimper. Hardly anyone seemed to mourn it, even though the erstwhile Nordiques won the Stanley Cup in Denver the following year,

Now, the capital is in the hunt for another franchise.

But first it needs a new building, the old Colisee is pretty much a big barn.

And that's where we come in, because it will be a new arena built with our money.

Quebec has already promised to pay 45 per cent of the cost, or about $200 million, and Ottawa will probably make the same pledge.

Because both the feds and province know hockey fans vote.

The Jean Charest Liberals are already on the hook for about $300 million for a new roof for the Olympic Stadium

And now this.

The Tories need those seats and so do the provincial Liberals.

It's not hockey, its politics.

Just connect the dots.

The guy who wants to bring a new Nordiques team to Quebec City is Pierre Karl Peladeau. He is the emperor of Quebecor, which owns TVA, Videotron, Le Journal de Montreal, Le Journal de Quebec, etc...

He wants a new team to be the cornerstone for a new TV sports network.

He is also behind the proposed new Sun Television, the so-called Fox News North. Which presumably would be very Tory friendly.

Do the dots connect?

Coincidence?

Quebec City will get a new arena, and some sad-sack failed U.S. team will move there.

And more than likely we will pay. The fix is in.

Liberal Anglo contempt

How much more contempt can the Charest Liberals show for the English-speaking community?'

Let's see, there's Bill 103 which strips education rights, a new education minister who doesn't speak English, and a new intergovernmental affairs minister who doesn't speak English either.

The Liberals also have the nerve to parachute Jean-Marc Fournier into St Laurent riding for Monday's by-election that will cost us half a million dollars because Jacques Dupuis saw greener pastures elsewhere.

Fournier, the architect of the demerger legislation in which the deck was stacked in the most anti-democratic process in memory.

This all highlights our desperate need in this province for a credible, federalist third party.

Will St-Laurent voters send a message to this government?

I would be surprised

But it probably wouldn't be such a bad thing if they did.