Mégan Brouillard is first and foremost a humorist. A comedian who touches a bit of everything. But for some time, she discovered a new role in spite of herself, that of the “clerk at the complaints office”.
Which Complaints Office is this?
Well, for the past three years, the comedian has been talking about sports on different platforms, particularly hockey – both women’s and men’s. In particular, she devoted a sketch to women’s hockey and the place of women in the world of hockey during her first Just for Laughs gala last July.
Since October, she has also written a column on the show Le 5 à 7 on RDS. In short, Mégan Brouillard often talks about hockey. So much so that she is often asked about the relevance of women’s hockey. A role of spokesperson, certainly unusual, but in which she likes.
“People come to see me to tell me that women’s hockey is really bad,” she said during a videoconference with La Presse. Who cares! That the players are rotten! I can respond to that world. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. I want to watch it because I find it fun. »
The first plaintiff she faced in oratorical jousting was one of her brothers. This debate, which lasted “two days”, was the genesis of the role of representative of women’s hockey for the comedian.
“I try to send a message and get everyone into it,” she explains. The goal is not to call people fools because they don’t know women’s hockey. It’s just bringing them with us in the sense that there’s something fun about it. »
After this strong plea, it would be normal to think that Mégan Brouillard has been a fan of hockey since childhood. However, she went from ordinary supporter to great hockey fan only during the pandemic.
The lack of activities on his schedule allowed him to watch Montreal Canadiens games with his father and learn more about Habs players. She then started making hockey jokes on her TikTok account before doing summaries of several women’s hockey games during the Beijing Olympics.
“I hope I make women’s hockey more accessible for people who want to jump on the bandwagon,” she concludes.
What Mégan Brouillard likes the most in hockey is getting to know the humans behind the athletes. Deconstruct this facade that these people belong to another world. It was with this research upstream that she realized that there are more similarities than she believed between the stars of hockey and her.
Thanks to her reading, she also discovered something about the daily lives of players. She also stole a page from Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews’ playbook.
“Matthews is the first player to jump on the ice and practice his wrist shots. Why doesn’t a CH player do this? In fact, why am I not doing this? Why don’t I practice like him? He eats well, sleeps well. I tried to target what was not working on my end to work on that.
“The only difference is he’s traveling in a private jet and I’m traveling in a 2008 Honda Civic with a broken bumper. »
A slight difference.
While Mégan Brouillard explains that her career has been shaped by so-called “impulsive” decisions, she admits to consulting many news sites and following her Twitter feed closely. She also mentions to your La Presse representative that she read her piece on Quebec goaltender Devon Levi1. Ultimately, his jokes don’t exactly come out of nowhere.
However, one could qualify his arrival at RDS as impromptu. “I looked my manager in the eye and said, ‘There, I’d like you to call 5-7. Tell them I’d like to be there.’ I don’t know why this idea stuck with me. It would be hilarious if I were there. Then we did it,” she says.
That’s not the only “bubble” she’s had. She also asked a friend to create an official Chantal Machabée jersey – which ultimately looks like the cover of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning album – and donated all proceeds to the Montreal Canadiens Foundation for childhood.
Because…why not? The logical continuation of this moment of anthology where the former star journalist of RDS brought her a few tears in the middle of the Just for Laughs gala.
“It doesn’t make sense where I’m at with hockey. I have fun every day doing that,” she notes.
The comedian will continue to comment on sports news as long as she enjoys it. Until then, she is democratizing women’s sport, one joke at a time.