About the Play:

Winner of the 1977 Chalmers Award for Best Canadian Play

Les Canadiens is a full-length drama by Rick Salutin, with an "assist" from former Montréal Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden. A power play! 1759 to 1976: From the Plains of Abraham to centre ice at The Montréal Forum, Les Canadiens celebrates the legendary Québécois hockey team while exploring the history of Quebec's "face-off" with the rest of Canada.

Les Canadiens begins on the Plains of Abraham in 1759, when England's army beat France in a field near Quebec City and made the territory an English colony. In the pivotal scene, a dying French-Canadian soldier tosses his rifle – and his cause – to his son. The son catches what turns out to be a hockey stick. It ends in the Montréal Forum on the night of November 15, 1976, when Montréal Canadien fans turn a hockey game into an election victory rally for the indépendantiste Parti Québécois. Les Canadiens is a funny, fast-paced look at Canadian identities in the 1970's that uses hockey as a brilliant gloves-off metaphor for the rise of Quebec nationalism. The book contains a preface by former goalie Ken Dryden, who backstopped the Montréal Canadiens to six Stanley Cup championships, and an introduction on hockey, politics and theatre by Rick Salutin.

Les Canadiens premiered in 1977 at the venerable Centaur Theatre, the oldest English-language theatre in Montréal, followed a sold-out run getting raves from critics and audiences at Toronto Workshop Productions. This ultra-Canadian hit won the 1977 Chalmers Award for Best Canadian Play.

Cast: 7 male

What people say:

"An examination of the Canadiens has never been mastered so well – even in a town that searches every pore of its sports heroes." — Montréal Gazette

About the Playwright:

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright, journalist, and critic. One of Canada's most experienced authors, he has been writing for more than forty years. His many plays include Les Canadiens, written with an "assist" by hockey great Ken Dryden, about the famed hockey team and its relation to the spirit of Quebec nationalism.