2007 Crushed Ice Crashed Ice course in Quebec City, image from the event’s website.
Over the past three weeks, half a kilometer of Old Québec’s steep and winding roads have been transformed into a smooth – if perilous – ice skating slope in preparation for tonight’s Crushed Crashed Ice competition.
The press release (English pdf) reads like a cross between a guidebook to Québec’s historical charms and a testosterone-pumped announcer at an an extreme fighting match. The gist of it is that 80 participants will race down the 550-meter long course, which covers a 56-meter vertical drop, and the event will be broadcast on TVA and TSN HD at 8:30 this evening.
Having struggled with getting insurance and permission to hold a low-key concert in a public park, I can’t imagine the amount of cash that corporate sponsors, Red Bull, must have thrown an event like this. Although ice-hockey-meets-downhill-skiing may not be everyone’s cup of tea – I can’t help but think that blood will be spilled before the night is up – I remain impressed that Quebec City has been willing to massively transform their city streets into a venue for unique, edgy spectacles like this and the phenomenal Moulin-aux-images last summer.
21 comments
We should ask the city if we could use the Hotel de ville street to do the same in Montreal ;-)
I think it’s absolutely insulting to have an international event with an English name in Quebec. Does “Red Bull” have no respect for anything?
Débile!
Avoir été plus proche, c’est certain que j’y allais.
:)
Don’t worry Marc, the Quebec gvt is already on it:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Sports/Bull+thin+with+Quebec+government/1210991/story.html
English names attract more international tourism. English event names are common in non-English-speaking countries around the world and normally few people find them insulting. Bilingual names are better though, at least in a country like Canada, as long as the names are both simple and catchy, not a horribly long description of the event.
I guess the bad thing about French is that, unlike Italian for example, too many French spellings don’t sound well or simple when they are read in most other languages, and that makes it quite difficult for people to come up with good international names in French. I know French is the “pride” of Quebec, but there are simple reasons why these things happen, and Quebec has many more things to be proud about, so much that I don’t see why for some many people the language is the priority. In my opinion it should not be, and Quebec should focus on other things like infrastructure, tourism, economy. In my humble opinion, too much time and too many brain cells are wasted in the language debate, to the point that it appears as if French was the most important topic of Quebec’s “nationalism”, when it actually should be making Quebec strong enough to be able to survive by itself. If Quebec gets to separate from Canada, it is supposed to be better than Canada in every aspect, or at least in the economic aspect. That is usually the point of nationalism, isn’t it?
A Quebec language rights group is pressing organizers of a popular extreme skating race to translate the event’s name to French.
About 30 of the group’s members protested in downtown Montreal Friday afternoon, chanting slogans like “Red Bull spits on French.”
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/01/23/mtl-extremeskate0123.html
Adolfo, it is ridiculous to have an English-named event in Québec City – tourists are going there to be in a quaint francophone town.
There are plenty of French words that are known and used in the English-speaking world and in the western world, at least.
Language is a key part of culture, at least literary and sung culture. A society isn’t a business, important though economy and infrastructure are. As for tourism, French language and culture are draws, not drawbacks. Tourists have no problem being served in English, and increasingly, other languages, not only in Montréal but also in Québec City.
Italian and Spanish spelling are much more phonetic than French spelling – to say nothing of English! Though Ghiaccio is a notoriously difficult word for non-Italians to pronounce!
Adolfo: I guess you have no problem with Québec becoming another Louisiana or Detroit?
But I have no patience for extremists, but obviously, there should be French branding for this event in Quebec City. I mean, come on. It’s a no-brainer.
Given that there seems to be such a controversy regarding the name, it might be worth pointing out that the event was called “Crashed Ice”, and not “Crushed Ice”, as mentioned in the post.
I think the real travesty is the cheesiness of the pun.
The name should at least be bilingual because it is a Canadian/International event (it can go by its English name in the Anglo press, but have the logos posted at the actual event be uniquely in French).
Although I find it odd that the people who are complaining seem to be from Montreal (Mouvement Montréal Français) and not Quebec City. They should just be a little more careful that they don’t scare the promoters into moving this event elsewhere.
Although it does seem rather odd to hold an English-named event in Québec City, I think that everyone is missing a rather important point. ‘Crashed Ice’ is a touring event and has been held in numerous non-English cities: Stockholm, Moscow, Prague, Helsinki, Klagenfurt Austria as well as Duluth Minnesota, and it has always been called ‘Crashed Ice’.
Preservation of the language is extremely important in Québec and we should be concerned when the predominance of french is threatened, but I don’t think that this event poses a threat any more than the soccer ‘U-20’ did when it was held in Montréal in 2007, even though the ‘U’ clearly stood for ‘Under’.
I can’t say for certain that there was no language controversy when ‘Crashed Ice’ was held in Sweden, Russia, Czech Republic, Finland or Austria but I suspect that there probably wasn’t. If we decide to run our own event then we will have the naming rights. I don’t expect Red Bull to change the name of their event any more than I would expect Cirque du Soleil to change theirs when touring outside Québec.
“Red Bull” gave a fully Italian name to its Ferrari team (or operation?) so why can’t they have a French name for its event in Québec? English has no place is Québec City. None whatsoever. People flock to Québec City not only because of its beauty, but also because it’s NOT English.
Ça fait 20 ans que j’habite MTL, et ça fait 20 ans que de telles discussions m’attristent.
Quand je suis arrivé, un jeune anglo de Vancouver, j’ai été flabbergasté de voir comment tout fonctionnait si bien ici, dans les deux langues (et non pas juste 2, plusieurs). Tout roule bien, les gens sont extrêmement courtois, on s’entend très bien. Et ce qui m’a frappé le plus était la tolérance, voire appréciation et même célébration des différences ici. En fait, plus que ça : l’esprit de MTL est plutôt “Vas-y, amuse-toi bien; si ça me dérange personnellement, je vais dire de quoi, mais sinon, je ne vais pas me choquer à cause des principes, ou parce que tu ne suis pas les règles.”
Mais quand je lisais les journaux : ooh, là là. Que des cris d’INJUSTICE! MANQUE DE RESPECT! INSULTE! partout, des deux côtés, tant franco, tant anglo. Donc, ma conclusion : en réalité, y’a pas de problème. Mais on aime donc ça trouver des injustices et des raisons pour se choquer, à crier assimilation, à parler des horreurs du passé, à chercher du tort.
Je ne vois pas de menace ni d’insulte ici. Je vois une compagnie qui n’est pas tout à fait sensibilisé aux enjeux de la langue au Québec, c’est tout.
Mais tu m’excuseras si je ne réussis pas à me choquer à cause de 2 mots en anglais sur une affiche, même dans la belle ville de Québec que j’adore tellement pour son côté français. Et tu me permettras de continuer d’apprécier les sons du français, de l’anglais, de l’espagnol, du créole, du vietnamien, du cantonais, du wolof, et ainsi de suite dans le métro.
Tristou- what a sane, reasoned, eloquent response. I think the majority of people in Quebec feel exactly as you do- too bad INJUSTICE! MANQUE DE RESPECT! INSULTE! sells more papers.
Thanks for your reply Maria. I am assuming, however, that most people that attended to this event were there because of the event and not as a result of a coincidence (maybe I am wrong). In that case it makes sense to advertise the event in English outside Quebec. Yes, French is attractive for tourists, I love French, but an English event name is simply way more catchy than a 20-letter+ name with accents, specially for such an international event. I do agree however, that a bilingual name would have fit nicely.
I am not saying that it is not possible to come up with a good international marketing campaign in French, but that it is quite difficult, and even more difficult when the event has already a well established brand in English.
Concerning phonetics, indeed English is way worse than French but sadly English has somehow made its way through the whole world, to the point that almost any poorly designed campaign in English is good enough to attract a great deal of clients.
Marc, what do you mean by “English has no place is Québec City. None whatsoever”? Luckily most people in Quebec are not like you, but sadly people like you give a bad name to the province. I tell you, the few people I know that say they wouldn’t want to come to Quebec, avoid the province precisely because of comments like yours.
This thread should have ended with Tristou’s comment, which is definitely the best of all, so I apologize for writing back and strongly advise anyone reading these posts to read Tristou’s comment above.
Typical quebec. Rather than enjoy themselves in the snow and let loose, they’d rather take to the streets in a fit of xenophobia over 2 words of english. sucks to be you.
Adolfo: I ask you again, are you fine with Quebec becoming yet another Louisiana or Detroit?
What problem do you have with a society trying to safeguard its language and its heritage from being “Americanized?”
Well, we all want the last word, don’t we, so here goes — I just love to hear myself write, so sorry for the length.
First, Adolfo:
A bad French slogan is better at reaching a francophone population than any English slogan no matter how catchy, unless the English words used are already part of the language. There are two options with international advertising: make it local, or make it English everywhere. I much prefer the first, and I’m constantly pleased to see really good Québec-specific ads. I’m not a fan of English everywhere, but I’ve noticed that just as Québec leans towards restricting English, other places lean towards glorifying it. I don’t buy into either approach. I once worked at a conference where the new Belgian boss gave a great speech to motivate the Québec sales people, and just as he was getting to the best part, he switches to English to make his point even more pertinent. In Europe this may have worked well; here, not at all, and he lost his audience.
There are places where one-language ads are a good solution — in places in India or Africa, for example, where there are so many languages, colonization has given a common language. Where a local language dominates, you’ll see more ads in that language, but where there are many languages shared among relatively few people, you’ll see more ads in English or French to reach the largest audience.
English in Québec City (and French in Louisiana and Detroit)
Actually, Marc, there has been English in Québec City for quite some time, with a small English bourgeosie. Like other small communities surrounded by another language (think immigrants to any country), the English in Québec City have slowly become more francophone — people named something like Peter MacLellan who speak not a word of English, for example. Same thing with francos in Detroit and Louisiana and New England, with Benoit Dupree who speaks no French.
It popular here in Québec to think that English will eventually overtake French and that unless we fiercly ban all English and staunchily support French, we’ll all be speaking English in just a few generations (look at Louisiana, Marc says). We also point to how dreadful it was in times past — the famous “When my mother went to Eaton’s, she couldn’t even get served in French!” Or times present — “I just called company X in the West Island, and they couldn’t even say bonjour, here in Québec!” Therefore, each word of English that slips through is eyed suspiciously as a sign of the Coming Assimilation.
Language is a little more complicated than that. Even in a shrinking world with international travel available to all, and English being the language of choice to communicate, most people’s lives are actually spent within a very few kilometers, from work to home to the hockey rink, interacting with many of the same people every day. Within those interactions, if everyone speaks French (or Spanish or whatever), there’s good chance you’ll speak French (or Spanish or whatever), too.
A small group of fiercely determined people can indeed maintain their language, but their children invariably want to do more than work at the family store and live in their little enclave. So when they go off to university across town or decide to start a family in the suburbs, well, they naturally switch to the predominant language. If they continue to speak their own language at home, their kids will understand it, but may not speak it that well.
Applying scale to this idea — saying Québec is an island of French in a sea of English — isn’t quite accurate, since most people, again, live nicely within the same few kilometers. If you move across town here, you’ll probably still speak French. If your sister moved to Detroit or Louisiana, she and her children probably speak English by now, and perhaps your nephew speaks no French at all. But should he one day move back to Québec, he and his kids will undoubtedly end up speaking French. It goes both ways.
Montreal and bilingualism
Montreal is unique in that there is such a huge number of bilingual people, and everything is available in both languages, that you can survive very well being unilingual in either French or English (or even a few other languages, such as Chinese or Italian or Arab). Here, bilingualism is in fact the predominant language, and it isn’t a step towards English as is a popular belief in Québec. Unilingual francos and anglos tend to have bilingual kids, and immigrants tend to have trilingual kids. And when these trilingual kids move across town outside of their enclave and have kids in turn, their kids tend to be… you guessed it: bilingual. Again, the predominant language.
Randy and Typical Quebec:
Hmm… I don’t think there is a typical Québec any more than there is a typical Canada, although I’ve noticed that typically, the québécois are a little better at having fun (in the snow and elsewhere) than Canadians are. Xenophobia is a very easy term to throw about, but I don’t see it as that. I see it as a very earnest desire to protect one’s own identity, which the rest of Canada with its own brand of anti-Americanism can certainly understand. My point is that we don’t need protection at all. We can easily absorb a few words of English, or some American movies that contain some values that we don’t actually share, and maintain our own identity, easily.
Phew. All that to say: stop worrying and pointing fingers. French is not going to disappear, nor is English, a few words here or there aren’t really a big deal, so let’s all get back to playing in the pretty snow together, ok?