Martin St-Louis needed help translating a word… from French to English

Just over two years ago, Martin St-Louis arrived as head coach of the Montreal Canadiens. He returned to Quebec after years in English Canada and the United States.

By necessity, he was rusty on his French at press conferences, which is to be expected.

He decided to ask Chantal Machabée to translate the words he didn’t know into French, so that he wouldn’t always use anglicisms in his French answers. I’ve always respected that. You have the right not to know, but it helps to learn as you go along.

But this morning, following the day’s training session, the opposite situation arose: the coach was answering a question in English and he only had the French word in his head.

So he asked for help to switch from French to English.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember another time when he had trouble finding a word in English. Usually, it’s the French words that give him trouble.

But not this time… and he noted the irony of the situation in his answer about Joel Edmundson, who’s in town tonight with the Maple Leafs.

It’s usually the other way around! I’ve come a long way. – Martin St-Louis

He couldn’t remember how to say that the former Canadiens defenseman was a unifier in English. So he enlisted the help of bilingual journalists to translate the word.

He laughed, as did everyone in the room. To me, it’s just a nice moment.

In bursts

– David Savard is happy to stay.

– Nick Suzuki is happy to see David Savard stay.

– The Maple Leafs are in town.

– Yes.

– Yes, it is.