Montreal Canadiens to Wear French-Language Patch During 2021 Stanley Cup Final

The Montreal Canadiens will indeed be wearing the French-language version of the Stanley Cup Final logo as a patch on their jerseys when the series gets underway Monday night in Tampa, Florida.

Thanks to a photo Tweeted out by the team’s massage therapist Claude Theriault we can see the logo sewn into the top right corner of Montreal’s home red sweater.

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The logo itself is basically the same as the English-language version, a straight-up translation of the English words to French (this results in FINALE being placed on top of the text rather than below as it is in English). The French-language version of the NHL shield is also used, reading LNH for Ligue nationale de hockey.

It’s the first time a Stanley Cup Final has been played in a primarily-French speaking city since the Canadiens themselves made it in 1993. Of course, since the relocation of the Quebec Nordiques to Denver in 1995, the Canadiens have been the only one in the league that falls under this designation (though the Ottawa Senators consider themselves bi-lingual, they wore the English language patch during their lone trip to the Final in 2007).

Stanley Cup patches have been worn annualy during each final round since the 1989 series between Montreal and the Calgary Flames. In that Final, the Habs wore an all-English version of the 1989 logo on their shoulders; this was corrected when they made it again four years later with an all-French version of that year’s special Stanley Cup Centennial Cup Final patch.

The 2021 Stanley Cup Final between the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning begins tomorrow (Monday) night at Tampa. The Lightning look to secure back-to-back championships while the Canadiens are trying to bring the Cup back up to Canada for the first time in nearly thirty years.

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