pubs in Quebec?
 

I'll be spending the three day Thanksgiving weekend in Quebec, and I'd love to catch late night US football highlights and have a few beers. I've done just that in Toronto and Vancouver, and I'm wondering about the popularity of pubs in Quebec.

More specifically, is there a pub near the Courtyard Hotel
(850 Place DYouville)? It doesn't have to be fancy or English speaking.

On a related note, I spoke with reservations people at several Quebec hotels this afternoon. One of them (who spoke English with a thick French accent) told me that Thanksgiving is basically an English Canadian holiday and isn't celebrated all that much in French Canada. She said the banks and schools are closed, but people treat it as though it's just a day off from work. She admitted that this would be her first Thanksgiving in Quebec City (she's from a small town somewhere in French Canada.) Is she correct?

Yes she is. There are exceptions of course, but my Quebecois in-laws never did much for Thanksgiving until I joined the family.
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Forgot about the pub question.

There are restaurants across Place Youville from the Courtyard, one of the bar areas may have a TV going. Or you could walk through the fortifications and go down rue St-Jean. I'm quite sure there is an Irish pub down that way. Or ask the hotel to pont you towards the nearest Cage-aux-Sports.
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Are there any fans of US football in Quebec? Somehow I assumed they'd be more oriented to hockey and European football. After all, France is their point of European orientation, isn't it, rather than England?

I'm not expecting to watch an actual game, I"m hoping to find a pub (around 10pm) whose TV is tuned to something like ESPN.

I know that the Seattle Seahawks are very popular in Vancouver and that my Chciago Bears played the Buffalo Bills in Toronto last season and the stadium looked filled to me.

American football and Candian football are both very popular in Quebec. Over the past decade, the Montreal Alouettes and the Laval University (Quebec City) Rouge et Or have been the two most successful teams in the country.
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Non-Canadians will be amaze at the popularity of US/Cdn football in QC. Both the CFL and Canadian university champions are from QC.
Even with French roots from <1759 there is hardly any soccer on the QC spectator radar. I think the surrender in 1759 by France predate International Football.

Yes, she is correct. Thanksgiving is not an important holiday for French Canadians. Mostly it's just a day off. I imagine many people do not spend it with their family even but just see it as a long weekend to do whatever they want. There is definitely not the idea that you have to have a turkey or anything like that. This is surely because it really is English (or anglophone or whatever you wanna say) holiday and seen that way by the majority of Québécois.

Even in English Canada, Canadian Thanksgiving simply isn't the big deal it is in the USA.

Sure, we might cook a turkey and get together, but then again we might do that on any Sunday, and we might just as easily head out of town for a long weekend in Seattle (or wherever). Certainly nobody I know 'flies home for Thangsgiving' in Canada. Families come home for Christmas, not Thanksgiving, and the big shopping day is Boxing Day.

I wonder if Orthodox Christians have any celebrations like those of Western Rite. Just occurred to me they could get great deals on presents just because their advent starts so much later. Canadians shop on Boxing Day? I thought that was when gifts get returned. Another thing specific to US culture, I guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day#Shopping

Most stores won't accept returns on Boxing Day. They're too busy with their sales.

Our boxing day is the equivalent to Black Friday in the US.

None of the major retailers will take/process any return until after the new year.

There are at least four distinct cultures north of the US/Mexico boarder in North America. Canadian, US, Quebec and Texas. :D

That's what I have found, it's a nice day off, but Christmas is a much bigger deal, and boxing day sales are huge, just like the UK. I had a Canadian coworker ask me today of we got Oct 10th off, it just doesn't seem that big a deal.

A good option is Pub St Patrick which is down Rue ST Jean from the Courtyard. Another option is Saint Alexandre which is on your right a couple of blocks after you pass the city walls.

Both have large TV's and show sports

Have a Great trip.

Follow-up on Quebec pubs and Thanksgiving
 

I visited the Irish and English pubs on Rue St. Jean, but I was most fond of Le Chantauteuil - a great little bistro with nice, chatty patrons. As no one was watching the Leafs/ Canadiens game on TV, I asked the bartender to turn on the baseball playoff game and she was happy to do so. (I'm not making this up.) There was a great local lager beer on tap (whose name I can't recall). Like everything else in Canada, especially beer, it was more expensive than I'm used to paying.

Regarding Thanksgiving... it's a tale of two provinces.

In Nova Scotia, I saw several signs in supermarkets urging folks to order their Thanksgiving turkey. There were no silly turkey cartoon displays, however, like I see at home.

In Quebec, I asked all the young people working at the Courtyard if Thanksgiving was a big deal in Quebec. They all smiled and said, "It's a holiday, but that's about all."

We spent ten nights in Canada, and except for a speeding ticket in Quebec, we loved every minute of it (okay - every minute not involving the metric system).

Saint John, NB, gets a bad rap in the travel books. We loved it.