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MONTREAL – Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume cracked them up during his appearance last week on the Télé-Québec talk show Bazzo TV.

This is the year the new 18,500-seat hockey arena opens in Quebec City, and there is no sign of the promised NHL team on the horizon.

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“What are you going to put inside?” host Marie-France Bazzo asked the man who was the project’s biggest booster.

“Listen, we’ll have public skating,” Mr. Labeaume joked. “My cousin Réjean wants to play there too,” he added, struggling to contain his own laughter.

As the September opening date approaches and the prospect of a return of the beloved Nordiques grows dimmer, the taxpayers who footed almost the entire $400-million bill can be excused for not seeing the hilarity in the situation.

“They didn’t build that to have romantic skating on a Sunday afternoon,” Université du Québec à Montréal business professor André Richelieu said in an interview Tuesday. “If you build a major-league infrastructure, it’s to have major-league events.”