MONTREAL — It was like watching Clark Kent unbutton his shirt to reveal his true identity.

Seated on the padded rink boards at Maurice Richard Arena, Charles Hamelin pulled up the jacket of his national team training suit to reveal … the white and blue jersey of Montreal’s Major League Soccer team.

The three-time Olympic gold medallist is, in fact, “a super fan.”

The best men’s short-track speedskater on the planet, Hamelin has never played organized soccer. But he’s a huge fan not only of the Montreal Impact, but of the beautiful game in general.

“It’s something that is fun to watch,” said Hamelin shortly before leaving with his Canadian teammates for the 2015 World Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Moscow.

“Sometimes you watch them play and you think they’re going to lose the ball, like they can’t pass to anyone and they won’t make it, but then they do something that you wouldn’t imagine and get the ball to their teammate, and you see and learn something new.

“It’s something special, and maybe because I don’t have the mindset for team play like that — I have a little bit, but not at their level — so it’s something really special and something that I really admire from them, and maybe that’s why it’s fun for me to watch and be impressed with those plays.”

Hamelin is looking forward to watching the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada later this year, with strong hopes for the home side. While following the World Cup last summer, he also rooted for the host nation, Brazil.

“I don’t know why, but I always liked the Brazilian team,” Hamelin says. “When I started to watch the World Cup they were up there and I think they made it to the final. I don’t remember if they won the first one I saw, but I just remember getting stuck to that team. The Brazilian team was so awesome to watch. Everything looked easy for them on the field. I have their jersey, and when the World Cup is on I’m wearing my Brazilian jersey.”

Needless to say, Brazil’s 7-1 loss to eventual champion Germany in the semifinal proved a tough pill for Hamelin to swallow.

“Yeah, my feeling was, ‘I think I’m going to take off my shirt’,” Hamelin says. “The Germans were just too strong last year. They proved to everyone that they were better by far in every aspect of the game. The Brazilians were just trying to hold on during the whole World Cup. They had some good games, but they had a lot of games that could have gone way worse than they did, and it all exploded in the semifinal.

“After the third goal I was like, ‘Is it going to continue at this pace? Because if it does, it’s going to finish like 15-0!’ So I was a little bit disappointed, but there are three years to improve for the next World Cup, and I’ll be there for Brazil.”

Although Hamelin didn’t play soccer growing up, he has been developing his skills by kicking around a soccer ball with his short-track teammates.

The beauty of that, for Hamelin, is how it brings all the national team members together and unites them for a common cause in a fun way.

“Our sport is different because we do an individual sport when it gets to competition, but we need to practise as a team,” Hamelin says. “If we were alone at the rink skating by ourselves we wouldn’t be as good as we are right now because everyone pushes the other one further, and I think the chemistry of the team from the boys’ and the girls’ side just gets better and we construct that team chemistry with playing soccer, doing something as a team, team-building activities, something like that, so it’s something that is fun.

“And sometimes we have so much fun it makes me wonder, why don’t I do a team sport? Why don’t I get into a competition with teammates? But I love short track too much to leave it, so it’s something fun that we do as a team and I always enjoy it.”