Places Behind The Races: Montreal Edition
From Poutine and arts festivals to Chappell Roan and WWE, I have your fix of Canadian pop culture for the week.
Welcome or welcome back to ‘Places Behind the Races’ :) Throughout the 2025 season, Formula 1 will be visiting 24 different locations across 21 different countries. The global expanse of the sport is one of its best features, but I find that we don’t often talk about the places behind the races. With that in mind, I thought I would delve into everything fun and trending in the many locations that Formula 1 visits. From events and national holidays to movies and food trends, I have you covered. So, let’s get to it!
Events & Holidays (Montreal Specific)
Mtl en Arts (throughout June) - This major outdoor event invites visitors to meet more than 100 artists from various disciplines through a host of activities: major outdoor expo-sale in visual arts and crafts, interactive performances and installations, live painting and activities for kids.
Music Under A Tree (June into July) - An open-air world music concert series featuring local musicians
MURAL Festival (June 5th - 15th) - As an international public art festival bound to the celebration of creativity and the democratization of urban art, MURAL transforms, for a week, the Saint-Laurent Boulevard into a real open-air museum where local and international artists will unite their talents in the most creative manners.
Fête nationale du Québec (June 23rd - 24th) - This holiday originates from the tradition, prevalent in several countries, of celebrating the summer solstice by lighting bonfires and performing popular dances. June 24 was officially designated Québec's National Holiday in 1977. Shows and bonfires will take place in several municipalities. Since 1984, the Mouvement national des Québécoises et Québécois (MNQ) has been the national coordinator of this event.
Festival International de Jazz de Montréal (June 26th - July 5th) - Every summer, thousands of music lovers from around the world flock to downtown Montréal for the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. Some 3,000 performers and musicians from over 30 countries treat audiences to a vast number of indoor and outdoor concerts, most of which are free, at and around the Quartier des spectacles.
Top 10 Songs This Week (Billboard)
Ordinary - Alex Warren
Pink Pony Club - Chappell Roan
What I Want - Morgan Wallen ft. Tate McRae
A Bar Song (Tipsy) - Shaboozey
Just In Case - Morgan Wallen
Beautiful Things - Benson Boone
APT. - ROSE & Bruno Mars
Die With A Smile - Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars
Messy - Lola Young
That’s So True - Gracie Abrams
Top 10 Shows This Week (Netflix)
Ginny & Georgia: Season 3 - As Georgia's trial sends shockwaves through Wellsbury, Ginny and Austin become entangled in a web of lies and betrayal, where no one emerges unscathed.
Dept. Q - A brash but brilliant cop becomes head of a new police department, where he leads an unlikely team of misfits in solving Edinburgh's cold cases.
Sirens - Worried about her sister's too-close relationship with her billionaire boss, a scrappy everywoman seeks answers at a lavish seaside estate.
Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders - Who really laced Tylenol with cyanide? This true-crime series examines alarming theories behind the unsolved killings — and tracks down a key suspect.
The Survivors - Fifteen years ago, the loss of three young people tore this sleepy seaside town apart. Now, the mysterious death of a young woman dredges up the past.
WWE Money in the Bank: 2025 - WWE Superstars compete in the annual Men's and Women's Money in the Bank Ladder Matches. Jey Uso & Cody Rhodes take on John Cena & Logan Paul.
Raw: 2025 - CM Punk delivers a message to Seth Rollins before competing in one of Raw's two Money in the Bank Triple Threat Qualifying Matches.
Tires: Season 2 - Fueled by a surprise marketing victory, Will and Shane have steered the tire shop into the fast lane. But sudden success brings its own challenges.
Sara - Woman in the Shadows - The suspicious death of her son pushes a former secret agent back into action, investigating a series of crimes that grows increasingly sinister.
American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden - Featuring rare footage and interviews with CIA insiders, this edge-of-your-seat documentary series traces the epic hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Top 5 Movies This Week (Netflix)
The Equaliser 3 - Robert McCall vows to stop an Italian crime syndicate from brutalising and extorting the residents of a small coastal town that has won his heart.
STRAW - What will be her last straw? A devastatingly bad day pushes a hardworking single mother to the breaking point — and into a shocking act of desperation.
A Widow’s Game - When a man is found dead, the investigation shatters his widow's perfect facade and exposes a hidden double life in this thriller based on real events.
Joy Ride - Four Asian American women experience mishaps and mayhem as they set out on a journey to China in search of one of their birth mothers.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom - When the vengeful Black Manta returns wielding a powerful ancient weapon, it's up to Aquaman to reconcile with a former rival and save the world.
Top 5 Movies This Week (Tribute)
Lilo & Stitch - A lonely Hawaiian girl befriends a runaway alien, helping to mend her fragmented family.
Ballerina - An assassin trained in the traditions of the Ruska Roma organization sets out to seek revenge after her father's death.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - An assassin trained in the traditions of the Ruska Roma organization sets out to seek revenge after her father's death.
Karate Kid: Legends - After kung fu prodigy Li Fong relocates to New York City, he attracts unwanted attention from a local karate champion and embarks on a journey to enter the ultimate karate competition with the help of Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso.
Final Destination: Bloodlines - Plagued by a recurring violent nightmare, a college student returns home to find the one person who can break the cycle and save her family from the horrific fate that inevitably awaits them.
Popular Foods (Montreal Specific)
Poutine: Poutine is a Canadian staple featuring a hearty, salty, satisfying plate of fries decorated with cheese curds and smothered in rich gravy. A particular version of Poutine is called Poutine Rapee. It’s an Acadian dish steeped in the traditions of Quebec, consisting of a unique, smooth yet coarse, boiled potato dumpling with pork filling, often served with apple sauce or molasses. This stands out starkly against the average poutine style, making it a must-try when expanding your idea of Canadian culture through food.
Tourtiere: This is a French Canadian meat pie that goes as far back as the 1600s, as a traditional dish made for Christmas. The filling consists of minced pork, veal, or beef (depending on the region) combined with potatoes, onions, garlic, and a blend of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg encased by a flaky pastry. One will often receive a side of ketchup or fruit chutney to complement the savoury flavours of the dish.
Pouding Chomeur: a classic Montreal dessert designed during the Depression era. It was developed by female factory workers who needed to scramble for ingredients and use what they had on hand. The dish is a sweet flour, sugar, milk, and butter cake. One puts the ingredients in a baking dish and then, before baking, adds syrup on top composed of brown sugar or maple syrup. As it cooks, the syrup creates a gooey, caramel-like sauce that envelops the cake.
Smoked Meat Sandwich: A classic meat sandwich is a brisket sandwich, where they cure the meat for ten days and serve it on rye bread with mustard.
Montreal-Style Bagels: The first type of Montreal-style bagels to mention are hand-rolled, boiled in honey-sweetened water, and baked in wood-fired ovens. St-Viateur Bagel and Fairmount Bagel are the best bagels in Montreal, Canada, for you to try this heartwarming style of breakfast bread. The second Montreal-style bagel is smaller than you might find in New York, but it is still enjoyed with cream cheese and lox.
Apparently, Montreal is the place to be in June, even outside of the F1 Grand Prix! So many events, and they all sound so fun, maybe I’ll have to take a June trip to Montreal one year.
It would also be impossible to talk about this race without mentioning its recent controversy. Now, technically, the race itself isn’t so controversial, it’s a staple on the calendar, it has given us some of the most iconic F1 moments (Hamilton & Riccardo’s first wins, Jenson Button 2011, Seb Vettel 2019), and it’s home to the famous ‘Wall of Champions. However, its usual spot on the F1 race season calendar has been altered for next year, meaning it will now clash with the Indy 500. The Indy 500 often clashes with an F1 weekend, but that weekend is usually Monaco, meaning that there is no actual crossover due to the difference in the European and American time zones. With Montreal and Indianapolis usually having the same time zone at this time of year, fans are concerned that the sessions and the races will actually crossover now instead of just fall on the same weekend.
My take on this is that we don’t really know anything yet. There’s still plenty of time for sessions to be finalised, so hopefully, Roger Penske (IndyCar owner) and Stefano Domenicali (F1 CEO) will be able to find some time and arrange a schedule that will appease all motorsport fans. Also, I can’t really fault the calendar changes much. It seems to be a lot more cohesive than previous years, with race locations being a major factor in which races fall when. In a time when F1 is trying to build on its sustainability, I think this is a great thing overall. When F1 and football crossover, usually I have one on the TV and one on another device. There are ways of working around these things!
Keeping on track, it has also been confirmed that Lance Stroll will return to racing this weekend after having withdrawn from the Barcelona GP to have treatment on an old cycling injury from 2023. The reception for this news on social media is slightly mixed. Many fans are happy that Lance will be back so that Felipe Drugovich and Stoffel Vandoorne will be able to carry on with their Le Mans weekends as normal. Some other fans are concerned that Lance is rushing back again, as he seemingly did in 2023. However, he apparently did some testing earlier this week to make sure that his body was up to it, so let’s hope that he can return in full health and in fighting form because Aston Martin really needs some better results for the remainder of the season.
Verstappen and Norris took the top places at this race last year and, if all goes as planned for them, it’s hard to see this year looking too dissimilar. Lando seems to be bouncing back from his struggles earlier this season, and Max is in his usual Max form. George Russell took the last step on the podium in Canada last year, followed by Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri, who completed the top five. Again, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some of these drivers in the top five this weekend, too, especially Oscar, who is still our Championship leader. Sadly, the driver who will probably struggle the most out of the ones above is Lewis. Unless it decides to rain (which isn’t currently forecast), I can’t see there being any major surprises for qualifying at least, but this currently is one of the better tracks for overtaking so the race could be a different story.
Either way, everything is still up for grabs, and I am so excited for another amazing weekend of racing. Don’t forget to keep tabs on F1 Academy, Le Mans and Indycar, too!
See you next time :)
You should definitely visit Montreal in June or anytime in the summer as there is always something to do and the city is at its best :)