For the first time since 1952, Canada’s Olympic men’s hockey team will include no players from Quebec.
This comes after the team of pros that laced up for the 4 Nations Face Off in February, included just one from La Belle Province - third-string goalie Sam Montambault, who did not play a shift during the tournament.
“It has to raise an alarm for the Quebec-born players’ development and to see them maybe change, or maybe see Hockey Quebec change,” said RDS commentator Meeker Guerrier.
Author Brendan Kelly called the Team Canada roster announcement on Wednesday an “indictment of Hockey Quebec.”
“Why is it that the province is not producing NHL stars any more? Quebec is not production the goalies like it used to,” wrote the author of “Habs Nation: A People’s History of the Montreal Canadiens.”
The lone Quebecers on staff are assistant general manager Julien Brisebois and video coordinator Elliott Mondou.
In Nova Scotia, however, home-grown superstars Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon and Brad Marchand will all lace up for the maple leaf. Nova Scotia’s population is just over 1 million, to Quebec’s 9.1 million.
| Province | Goalies | Defencemen | Forwards | Population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BC | 0 | 2 | 2 | 5 million |
| Alberta | 1 | 4* | 2 | 4.2 million |
| Saskachewan | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.1 million |
| Manitoba | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1.3 million |
| Ontario | 1 | 1 | 6 | 14.2 million |
| Nova Scotia | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 million |
*Thomas Harley was born in Syracuse, NY to Edmonton-born parents.
In Oslo, less than a decade after the end of the Second World War, Canada was made up entirely of players from the Edmonton Mercurys. That Olympic team won the country’s last gold medal before 2002 in Salt Lake City.
Every team since then has included players from Quebec.
Since the NHL began allowing teams to send players to Olympic rosters, Canada has averaged four Quebec-born players per squad and each year featured at least one goalie from the province.
| Olympics | Quebec Players | Number of players |
|---|---|---|
| 1998, Nagano | Marin Brodeur (G), Patrick Roy (G), Éric Desjardins (D), Ray Bourque (D) | 4 |
| 2002, Salt Lake City | Brodeur, Simon Gagné (LW), Mario Lemieux (C) | 3 |
| 2006, Turin | Roberto Luongo (G), Brodeur, Gagné, Martin St. Louis (RW) | 4 |
| 2010, Vancouver | Brodeur, Luongo, Marc-André Fleury (G), Patrice Bergeron (C) | 4 |
| 2014, Sochi | Luongo, St. Louis, Bergeron, Marc-Édouard Vlasic (D) | 4 |
In 2010, all three goalies were from Quebec.
In the past two Olympics, when NHLers did not attend, Quebecers have featured on both rosters.
In 2018, goalie Kevin Poulin (Montreal), defencemen Marc-Andre Gragnani (Ile-Bizard), Maxim Noreau (Montreal), and forward Maxim LaPierre (Brossard) made the squad that headed to PyeongChang, South Korea.
In 2022, Noreau returned and laced up in Beijing, along with goalie Devon Levi (DDO), defencemen Jason Demers (Dorval) and Mark Barberio (Montreal), and forward David Desharnais (Laurier-Station).
Kevin Lafrancois responded to Kelly’s post on X, saying that Quebec’s decline in production began in the 2000s and was exemplified by former Habs goalie Jocelyn Thibault resigning as head of Hockey Quebec, citing a “resistance to change” among the regional associations.
“Unfortunately, we turned a deaf ear and let things slide as if nothing was wrong,” said Lefrancois. “Over the years, the number of Quebec hockey players in the NHL has not stopped declining. What had to happen happened today.”
Looking at Canada’s roster at the World Juniors doesn’t offer a suggestion that the 2026 roster is a blip. Only 18-year-old forward Caleb Desnoyers (Saint-Hyacinthe) made the roster from Quebec.
