It’s now official: Montreal has lost his Formula 1 Grand Prix because a single man, Mr. Bernie Ecclestone not to name him, wants more and more millions in exchange. And thank God our politicians told him to put his requested millions in his ***!!!

It is a sad thing that out city lost such an international event. But when I think about it, it doesn’t make me that much sad. Why? The product itself has lost a lot of its quality and its interest in the last years. 10 years ago a F1 race was fun to watch. Dubbing on the track was permitted, accidents occurred, races were what they were supposed to be: races. Today, F1 events are ultimately boring to watch on TV. Racers are scared to dub other racers because of the fines imposed by the IAF if an incident occurs. And most of all, the race’s final order is almost always determined trough the qualifications. A race should not be like that. Take a look at a Nascar race, it is a lot more exciting to watch!

But the saddest thing in that story is the fact that the F1 in Montreal is viable. We have all the required infrastructure to make it happen. We did it for 30 years. But Bernie wants more and more money in his wallet. He asks for millions and millions just to assure that a race could be presented in Montreal. According to me, these requested millions are not justified. They’re only asked to satisfy Mr. Eccelstone’s greed. So he can go suck millions in another city and that’s it. If other clowns have no problems to transfer massive fortunes to a single man, that’s their problem!!!

I hear that the status of the F1 Championship is not that encouraging in the other cities that are still on the calendar. If Montreal refused to pay useless millions to Bernie, I hope that other will follow. Let’s wait and see then…

I don’t know if you feel like me these days… The news we hear about the American economy are everything but reassuring. It just sounds like the American (and even worldwide) economy is falling into a downward spiral. When a federal government has to inject 700 G$ of public funds into the financial industry to make sure it does not collapse, it’s because thinks aren’t going so well. In fact, they are going a lot worse that what I expected. Indeed, I just read that the Chamber of Representatives did not even agree on Bush’s plan.

Specialist and economists from everywhere around the globe tell us that this is the worst financial crisis that the USA have to face since the Great Depression of the late ’20s. This does not sound very good to me. What about you? How in the world were these financial titans (the CEOs of the banks in trouble) able to destroy an economy like that in the span of a few months? How can big banking behemoths like Washington Mutual, Lehman Brothers, AIG and others can just disappear from the market, just like this?!?! Somebody tell me please…

Here in Quebec we do not really feel the effects of that crisis because our economy is going a lot better… for now. How long will it take before the storm its the TSX and make collateral damage to the local economy? The latter the better. But be sure that there will be some consequences at some point. I don’t know when but it will happen…

Now let’s just hope that the American financial crisis won’t drive the worldwide economy on its knees because God knows what will happen there. And if we remember how was the state of the world in the years following the Great Depression, we can confirm that nobody wants to go through this again. Our grandparents suffered too much!

I know I sound quite alarmist this afternoon, something which is not in my habit. But did you just take a few seconds to imagine how big is an amount of 700 G$?…

The King is back in town! After an absence of 13 years, Patrick Roy is back with the team he should have never left: The Montreal Canadiens!

Patrick has been, and still is, my all time favorite professional hockey player. He has been my idol since he won his first Stanley Cup the evening of my 11th birthday! What a present that was! Since then, I have always admired this guy as a superb athlete with such an attitude. He was a winner, nothing less. He is the last one in the line of impressive players that have played for the Montreal Canadiens. A true superstar!!! And we have still to see the next player in this line…

So yesterday was that long awaited press conference. I was so happy to see Patrick put on a Habs jersey again after all these years, and knowing what it was like the last time we saw him with this jersey on. Bad souvenirs for a lot of fans including me. But now I am looking forward to the special evening that will be on November 22nd, 2008. I will be very proud of him when his #33 will be raised in the Centre Bell’s rafters.

Pat, welcome back in the family! You belong in the Habs family, there’s no doubt about this!!!

… and without any incident! That was the thing I feared the most. I was anxious to see some terrorists plot something bad during the two weeks of games. But finally nothing happened. Only good performances by super athletes from all around the world. And this is how everybody (including me) wanted it to be I guess. Olympic games are supposed to be an event where all nations must celebrate through the sports.

Now we can say that Michael Phelps, from the USA, stole the show with his 8 gold medals. What an athlete. Usian Bolt from Jamaica was very impressive too. And we can also say that the people from Beijing definitely know how to organize opening and closing shows. The spectacles were just fabulous (even if a bit tricked for the TV).

Even if the Canada did not finish in the top-16 countries, we can be proud of our athletes. 18 medals is 6 more than what we got at Athens. So we cannot complain.

We had two good weeks of Olympic performances. Now this is over and we’ll have to wait until 2010 in Vancouver for more of this. In the waiting, we have good NHL hockey to entertain us that starts in a few weeks!