Québec Kebs

The city’s brand-new basketball team, the Québec Kebs play at the 5000-seat stadium of Pavillon de la Jeunesse. In the Atlantic division of the Premier Basketball League, the Kebs play from December through March. Incidentally, the logo of the Kebs (a jumping frog that goes by the name ‘Dunky’) is a still a sore spot for some locals. ‘Frog’ has long been a derogatory name the English have used for French-speaking people and some consider it racist. When the man behind bringing the franchise to Québec City, businessman Réal Bourassa, said the new team name would be either the Québec Jumping Frogs or Kebekwa (how Québécois is pronounced in English), the uproar was heard across the country and all the way to France. Bourassa told people they should just relax. ‘We are in 2006 and we have to be able to laugh at ourselves, ’ he told the Canadian Press newswire service. Locals, however, didn’t find it so funny and the Jumping Frogs was jettisoned in favor of the Kebs, although the frog was kept as the team’s mascot.