It's great to have an almost-all Habs radio some of the time on XM Radio Channel 172, "Franc Parler." It should have been named "Habs Parler" or "Les Problemes de Cheveux aux Gardiens du TriColours." The latter title might have been too long for the radio's tagging capabilities, though.

To hear a live press conference on Jose's hair problems and use of Propecia as a preferred remedy, all during rush hour while driving home thousands of miles from Montreal...what more could anyone ask in this life!?! What better use of satellite bandwidth could there be?

What is dismaying, though, is the shoddy programming job of the XM Canada stations. As with the NHL channel, the reruns of programming are a disgrace. I mean, either try and sell legit advertisements to put on the air instead of inane repetitive promos for the station that you're already listening to. That way at least, you can get some budget money to expand operations to full time.

At best there's maybe 8 hours of live programming a day. And with the reruns, even the news bits are sometimes two days old!

I think the budget for the new Canadian channels went down the drain long before they ever started when the geniuses paid a bundle to Opie and Anthony and other worthless crap. XM is drowning in red ink.

If I had my say, they would have reserved more Opie money for keeping Benoit Brunet on the air live for a few more hours. I don't know how many hockey pucks hit him in the head during his career, so it's hard to say if they can squeeze any more intelligent analysis out of him, though.

Franc Parler does carry the Habs broadcasts in French as of recently and have just starting taking phone calls.

So, if you're bored, have nothing to do, and want to find out how Jose's hair is coming along...and understand French, then this is exactly the station you've been waiting for.