It was an ambush, pure and simple. The reporter, Charles Faribault of TVA, asked no other questions during yesterday's Canadiens news conferences and showed interest in no other answers.

Faribault, a reporter with 30 years of experience, knew exactly what he was doing when he jumped Saku Koivu yesterday.

After pestering Canadiens GM Bob Gainey earlier with questions about Koivu's lack of French, Faribault waited until Koivu had answered several questions about the eye injury he suffered in Game 3 of the playoffs.

Then he pounced, asking a long, convoluted question in French until Koivu cut him off:

"You can stop there," Koivu said. "I'll have to have that in English."

With that, Faribault had his nasty little triumph. He asked, in English, his question about whether the captain of the Canadiens should speak French and got a better answer than he deserved:

"If you look for the ideal situation," Koivu said, "yes, it would be better for Montreal to have a French-speaking captain. ... Should I or could I make an effort to learn? Yes, I think, yeah - but when you're not forced into something, you become lazy.

"The schedule is very demanding. When I was selected as team captain, I was selected by my teammates, which for me means a very big deal. For the players, it's not about where you come from, it's not about what language you speak. For us it's about the team and it's about the CH that we're very proudly wearing.

"I've gone through a lot here in Montreal, with this community, with all the history that I have. I think I've shown also, giving back to the community, that I love this place. To me, it's home.

"I don't think it's a problem for the people that we're dealing with every day that I don't speak French."

In response to Faribault's earlier questions, Gainey pointed out that Koivu's wife, Hanna, speaks excellent French and said facetiously that "perhaps he should spend more time with his wife."

I asked Koivu how good his French really is and whether he thought it might help to have a French-speaking assistant captain to field questions in French.

"My French is not good enough to speak to you in French. I understand it but that's about it. Would it help to have an assistant captain who is French-speaking? I think a team has to have a lot of leaders to be successful. It's not enough that your captain or your two assistants are leaders. Our French-speaking players are doing a great job, giving their opinions after every game, after every practice.

"I don't think it really matters if they wear a letter on their jerseys or not, but maybe it would make a difference."

It would make a difference, though players such as Mathieu Dandeneault, Francis Bouillon, Steve Begin, Mike Ribeiro and Cristobal Huet are almost always available for questions in French. Perhaps the difference is only symbolic, but symbols are important in this province.

But the issue here is not the issue: It's not Koivu's French, but the disgraceful behaviour of some segments of the francophone media toward the Canadiens. This marked the second time in a week that Koivu has been treated in brutally rude fashion by the local media, First it was the reporter/photographer crew from Le Journal that barged into the Montreal General, found Koivu watching television in a darkened room and popped flashbulbs in his face - an experience, as Koivu made clear yesterday, that was acutely painful to his injured eye.

Yesterday, it was Faribault doing the same with words rather than flashbulbs. It was not Faribault's question itself that is unfair: Within the linguistic, cultural, political and historical complexities of Quebec, it's fair to ask why the captain of the city's fabled hockey team does not speak the language of the majority.

(It is, one French-speaking reporter once explained to Koivu while on a visit to Turku, as though the captain of the team in Turku was a Swede who spoke only Swedish and English.)

The problem is not the question but the context. Koivu had the courtesy to spend 45 minutes in a brightly lit room discussing his eye injury; in return for that courtesy, he was deliberately humiliated by a reporter who set out to do just that. Faribault could have asked the question at a different time and in a different context - but as he knew very well, he would draw a lot more attention to himself by asking it yesterday.

Faribault was no more embarrassing than CJAD's Rob Marteer, who followed Faribault's earlier grilling of Gainey by asking Gainey and Guy Carbonneau whether it isn't true that the mission of the Canadiens is to win a Stanley Cup, without worrying what language their players speak. Gainey and Carbonneau had no choice but to say "yes," but Marteer's question merely revealed an abysmal ignorance of the realities of Quebec.

It was a pity yesterday's news conferences were hijacked by Faribault, because Gainey made a point earlier of saying he believes the Canadiens have an advantage in their pursuit of free agents because of the hockey atmosphere in Montreal - that if players have a passion for the game that matches that of the fans in this city, then the hockey fever and the spice of Montreal will lure players.

Unfortunately, Faribault and the Le Journal crew remind other free agents why they don't want to be here. If anything, French-speaking players are subjected to more abuse than others: Remember, this season began with a TQS-generated flap over Jose Theodore's flying fickle finger of fate - and Carbonneau himself was traded away to St. Louis in the summer of 1994 after he flipped the bird to a Journal photographer pursuing him on the golf course.

It is, however, time Koivu learned a little French - enough so that the next time he is ambushed by the likes of Charles Faribault, he can tell him to "go play in the traffic" in the language of Moliere.