The Quebec provincial government is reportedly paying upwards of $7 million to the Los Angeles Kings to play two pre-season games in Quebec City against Boston and Florida next fall. Critics say the money had better uses considering the Canadiens offered to play there for free.

Update: On Friday, Quebec premier Francois Legault defended the money being paid to bring the Los Angeles Kings to Quebec City.

Legault said the people of Quebec City want a hockey team and the return of the Nordiques during a press conference during a trip to the Gaspe Peninsula. 

"I hope (NHL commissioner Gary) Bettman will come to those (two pre-season games in Quebec)," Legault said.

The premier also slammed the province's opposition parties and unions for linking the multi-million-dollar subsidy to the L.A. Kings to ongoing wage negotiations with several public sector groups (explained more in the original story below).

He said if his government accepted union wage demands, it would cost Quebec $3.7 billion more.

"The capacity of Quebec taxpayers is limited," said Legault. "We won't raise income and other taxes."

Quebec finance minister Eric Girard said his decision to subsidize the Los Angeles Kings up to $7 million to play two exhibition games in Quebec City next October is a win for tourism in the provincial capital.

But as the firestorm of public anger and ridicule that was ignited when the deal was announced earlier this week continues to burn across Quebec, it’s looking more like the minister has scored in his government’s own net.

"I have the benefit of seeing all the subsidies that the government grants to sports and cultural events, and I can confirm (this deal is) in the right order of magnitude," Girard said when he announced the deal at a news conference at the Videotron Centre in Quebec City on Tuesday morning.

He was accompanied by L.A. Kings president and former NHL star and Hall of Fame member Luc Robitaille, and Martin Tremblay, president of Gestev, the Videotron subsidiary that manages the 18,000-seat arena.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Kings will stay in Quebec City for four days beginning Oct. 2 and will play the Boston Bruins the following day and the Florida Panthers on Oct. 5.

Depending on various factors – notably revenues from the sale of tickets, which will range from $55 to $170 – the Quebec government will pay the Kings between $5 million and $7 million for the team’s four-day visit.

“I’m very pleased to wind up our 2024 pre-season schedule at the Videotron Centre,” Robitaille said in a press release issued by the Kings.

According to the release, the team is unable to play its pre-season games at home next fall due to renovation work at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

It also lauded the bonding benefits of pre-season road trips like the one in September, when the Kings and the Arizona Coyotes played two exhibition games in Australia.

“More than a week together on the road had its perks,” read the release. “Perhaps it’s part of the reason why the Kings are 7-0-0 on the road in the early goings (this season).”

Like Robitaille, the release also alluded to the presence of two Quebec-born players on the team’s current roster: Pierre-Luc Dubois and Phillip Danault.

“I know how passionate Quebec City fans are about the game (of hockey),” said Robitaille. “Fans will be able to see our stars and watch young players compete for a spot in our 2024-25 line up.”

Girard said the government subsidy was in line with the government regularly providing similar funding for popular tourism events like the Canadian Formula 1 Grand Prix in Montreal, the Presidents Cup Golf Tournament and Mosaicultures, a travelling horticultural exhibit.

For his part, Gestev’s Tremblay said the pre-season event will help to showcase NHL hockey in the $450-million Videotron Centre, an NHL-ready rink built in 2015 with provincial and municipal funding in the still-unfilled hope of attracting an NHL franchise back to Quebec City.

Quebec’s picture-perfect provincial capital has been without an NHL team since 1995 when the team moved to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche.

Almost immediately, however, all four Quebec opposition parties and hockey fans of all stripes cried foul against Girard and Quebec Premier François Legault’s CAQ government.

The outrage only grew when the Montreal Canadiens later acknowledged to La Presse hey had offered – albeit after they got wind of the signed Kings’ deal in early October – to play some pre-season games for free in Quebec City next year.

A top Habs executive also reportedly called Robitaille, a Montreal native, to complain about the Kings making deals to play in the Canadiens backyard.

“Yes, I love hockey - but not at this price," Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, spokesperson for the Quebec Solidaire provincial party, posted in French on X, formerly known as Twitter. "The CAQ is passing the puck to the NHL rather than to the people who are struggling.”

Quebec Conservative Party (CPQ) leader Eric Duhaime called the Kings deal “indecent,” saying it was announced in the midst of intense labor negotiations between the government and teachers and nurses, among others.

Hundreds of thousands of Quebec public sector workers are set to hold a one-day strike on Monday, a move that is expected to paralyze the province.

"The CAQ doesn't have extra money for its employees or taxpayers, but it does have billions of dollars for multinationals and millions of dollars for an American NHL team," Duhaime wrote on Facebook in French on Wednesday. "The CH is ready to come to Quebec for free. This is insulting to Quebecers."

For his part, Liberal MNA Gregory Kelley said on X in French that Quebec food banks currently need $8 million.

"Thousands of Quebecers are hungry," wrote Kelley. "It's more important than two hockey games."

Hockey fans, too, continue to attack the deal on social media platforms.

"Only in Quebec would you snub a local team for a foreign one," one fan commented on X on Tuesday.

“I love hockey and go to sports events regularly,” wrote another. “But never will I pay to watch a pre-season game of millionaire athletes funded by our government when food banks are empty, and the politicians just voted themselves a 30-percent pay raise!”

Others are calling for a boycott of the Kings pre-season games in Quebec City next fall.

Neither Girard’s office nor the Kings’ media relations department returned requests for comment about the public backlash to the deal.

A Gestev spokesperson said on Friday that Tremblay was out of the country and could not be reached for comment.