There's plenty wrong about saying "you, know, sometimes, it's not wrong if there's a few in the Gang called 'Smith'".
There's the "On Jase" video at the bottom titled "Pas de Québécois, une 1re en 100 ans". Try another browser, maybe one of your extensions is blocking it or something.
Found it by simply putting the words in quotations in my browser.
I do now remember the franco media onslaught when that lineup situation occurred. A lot of opportunists jumped on that bandwagon to score political points and drive a wedge between franco and anglo communities as if the lineups so constructed had been intended.
Denis is right on an historical basis and should have left it at that. However, he chose to frame it as "c'pas grave si y'en a quelques uns dans gang qui s'appellent Smith", which is unnecessarily condescending and which leads to the disturbing and highly contentious conclusion that the team should only feature a few non-franco players.
In English, his words: "it doesn't matter if some of those among the group of players on the team are named Smith." I don't think there is a way to defend that. I think he should have retracted. He tried to backpedal it by saying that he didn't have the talking points handy about it and that he'd do more research.
Be on TV long enough and something stupid will come out. I'm downcast that he just didn't avoid the leading and very loaded question he was served by that jokester bozo host with no judgment who was clearly trafficking in controversy in order to make a name for himself other than for being a clown playing jokes on his Hors Jeu segment.
Fact remains that Denis has been on the air long enough to know better but he still chose to throw himself into those troubled waters with an uncharacteristically highly controversial take couched in divisive and condescending language.
Marc, it's pro sports, not a national team. Respect tradition but in the end you win with the best regardless of language and ethnic origin. You can certainly win with representation from both locals and non-locals as it's been proven throughout the Habs' history. There is no need to marginalize one ethnic group to favor another when local players will always be an integral part of the Habs anyhow.
Thanks for sharing. I'm disappointed.