Celtic Soul Extra: Jay Baruchel discusses the legacy of his two favourite teams: the Montreal Canadiens and Celtic FC. Both Celtic and the Canadiens were positive outlets for the working class in Glasgow and Montreal, respectively.
See additional footage from our documentary feature "Celtic Soul" at celticsoul.ca, and check back every Wednesday as we release a new video from Jay and Eoin's #CelticRoadtrip!
Celtic Soul follows Canadian actor and funny man Jay Baruchel on an epic road trip through Canada, Ireland and Scotland with his new friend, well-known Irish soccer journalist Eoin O’Callaghan. It’s a story that spans 200 years of colorful history and that will take the duo eastward from Montreal to Westport, Ireland – where Jay’s ancestors set sail for Canada, like so many others – and finally Glasgow, where Jay will fulfill a lifelong dream: to watch a match at Celtic Park, one of the wildest and most hallowed grounds in world football.
Transcription:
00:00:00
Jay Baruchel: The kind of connections or analogies between the Habs and Celtic, there's a bunch of them. Both of them mean far more in their respective communities than the average team in any sport does in any city. What the Habs mean to Montreal and Quebec and Canada, and what Celtic means to Glasgow and Scotland and the rest of the world, transcends sport and takes on cultural, civic, political, implications.
00:00:32
Jay Baruchel: One of the first things you see when you show up at Celtic Park is poverty, charity. Celtic wasn't a business venture, Celtic was a charitable deed. It was a means of keeping poor Irish kids occupied and keeping their noses clean. It started as giving them something to do, and then it evolved into giving them something to love. The fate of so many working class people in Scotland has been so tied to that club, and similarly, the fate of the Habs has been tied to the fate of working class people in Quebec for the duration of their existence. The Habs are pretty much the only hockey team outside of France whose official language is French. And so it embodies their language and their church and their culture and their way of life.
00:01:19
Eoin O'Callaghan: There is a holy quality to it, isn’t there? You know, you feel like you have to whisper.
Jay Baruchel: Not every football team means what Celtic means. Not every hockey team means what the Habs mean.
Eoin O'Callaghan: It's not a coincidence.
Jay Baruchel: No no I don't think so.
Jay Baruchel: There's a passion. There's something in the water. Not every place is alive in that way.
00:01:39
Jay Baruchel: There’s something incredibly special about the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the underclass of a society having some beautiful thing to bond over.
00:01:54
Jay Baruchel: You couldn't get jobs at certain places given the language spoken at home or the church you went to. But you had the Habs and you had Celtic.
