The final nail in the conservative party coffin, keep dreaming after the Canadian TV rights are over, Bell and Rogers will outbid anyone and everyone. Then all you will see are the Leafs. So you don't have worry about HNIC in because all they will be showing are the leafs, so the Nords won't be available on HNIC anyways.
Again... Guh?
First of all, I never said that that would be the
final nail in the CPC coffin. I said that it would be
a nail. Defunding the CBC is exactly the kind of thing that makes fringe Liberals (etc.) nervous, and there is a strong history in Canada of Conservative governments being followed by long periods of Liberal dominance. If the Conservatives step too far out of line (remember, a majority of Canadians did not vote Conservative) all of the fringe Liberal supporters (i.e. the 'swing votes') would be out in full force next time, and the Conservatives would lose Ontario and parts of Atlantic Canada without even trying. Again, I digress...
Sportsnet, TSN, and RDS all play teams other than the Leafs already. In fact, TSN has whole channels dedicated to the Habs and Jets. If the CBC and HNIC were to disappear (again, not happening), Bell and Rogers would absolutely show the other teams too. If you play with the blackout restrictions a bit, Rogers could probably even show weekly national broadcasts on CTV. We would also see the further growth of the Sportsnet family of stations (likely with more national broadcasts too), and maybe the emergence of TSN3, etc.
That means that the Nords will only be on TVA, just for the people who can understand French and not to the public outside Quebec,
I don't speak French, but I listen to all of the Olympiques road games on the radio, in French. Trust me, as an Anglo-monoglot with a little bit of French vocabulary, it didn't take me long to be able to learn enough to follow the play.
Furthermore, I live in Ontario. I have both TVA Sports, and a slew of local TVA stations. I only get a few of the local TVA stations, but I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to call up Shaw and subscribe to the rest. Irrespective of language, there will be a lot of Canadians who will want to watch the Nordiques. PKP isn't so stupid that he would insist that all Nordiques games would be broadcast
exclusively in French. Again - I'm an Anglo-Ontarian monoglot, and I have every intention of following the Nordiques on a regular basis.
I find it difficult to think that the Nords will get the same coverage and public attention that the Jets got because they will be all about "get a French coach, we must only be on French TV, we can only be on French newspapers"(just like Montreal). The Winnipeg Jets were more about exposure, success(win a stanley cup), money.
Now, I agree with you here, in part. First of all, the Habs are in the English Media and are televised in English on an extremely regular basis. Secondly, people in Québec (Ville de...) tend to be less touchy about the whole English/French thing than Franco-Montréalers (Montréalois?). The reason for this is quite simple really - the Franco-Québécois (and Québécoises) are the substantial linguistic majority in their city, whereas that is not the case in Montréal.
Yes, they will likely want a French speaking (not even necessarily French) coach and GM for the sake of addressing the media, but the team-building strategy will still very much be about success - i.e. exposure, winning the Stanley Cup, and making money. Remember, their big superstar in the 1980s was a Slovak! All of those Å ťastný brothers seemed to make people in Québec 'happy.'
Now, I agree that they likely won't get as much English media attention/coverage as the Jets, but they will still get quite a bit. I think the major omission from the English coverage will likely be analysis of their games. Trades, how they're doing in general, game highlights, etc. will still be covered in the English media, regardless of where the individual (regular season) games are being televised.