Like a couple of anglophone strangers clumsily introducing themselves in French just in case, The Gazette reporter and What the Puck columnist Brendan Kelly published his first book on the Montreal Canadiens in his second language.

After coming out in la langue de Beliveau a year ago, Habs Nation: A People’s History of the Montreal Canadiens, is now available in the author’s native tongue of English. Much like Kelly’s journalistic work in the hockey and pop culture spaces, the book stickhandles in and out the complex issues that make this unique market tick, from language politics to fierce nostalgia. It covers the gradual decline of the CH on the ice — or Habs for the Anglos — despite their continued dominance in the cultural conversation.

In true bilingual fashion, the book wasn’t writ

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