Little Montreal bakery’s big Super Bowl connect
NFL champ turned front-line pandemic hero will be watching Sunday’s big game from home
After the dough is kneaded affectionately and spread out onto a large rectangular tray, the bakers at Montreal’s Le Pain Dans les Voiles bakery cover it with cream, bacon and caramelized onions, before sliding the whole thing into the oven.
They call it the “Super Bowl pizza” — and football fans are quick to place their orders on time for Sunday’s big game — but the pizza’s inventors knows it simply as “Laurent’s favourite.”
It’s a nod to their son’s magical Super Bowl victory one year ago — and the year like no other that has taken him back home.
Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, the Montreal native who helped the Kansas City Chiefs to a Super Bowl victory last year, is sitting on the sidelines of this year’s big game.
The offensive lineman chose last summer to opt out of the NFL season, and use his medical degree to help out with the coronavirus pandemic in the best way he could.
Which meant coming home, to Montreal, where he has worked part time as an orderly at a long-term-care home for eight months while also training for next year’s football season.
According to the NFL, he deferred his $2.75 million salary to do so.
“He’s front line in every aspect, first as a lineman, now he’s protecting people in the (care home),” said Florent Fernandez, who co-owns Le Pain Dans les Voiles with Duvernay-Tardif’s parents.
“We just want to make a little souvenir of what happened last year. It was magic for the bakery for all the family and friends of Laurent.”
So, a special pizza was in order. The bakery owners made the Super Bowl pizza last year, too, as they prepared to watch their friend and family member play in the game that is America’s most watched television broadcast. Duvernay-Tardif’s mom suggested the recipe, which was the NFL star’s favourite as a kid.
They also had Chiefs-themed bread, and cinnamon sticks with DuvernayTardif’s number, 76, on them.
The game, which led to Duvernay-Tardif winning the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s top athlete along with soccer star Alphonso Davies, was nerve-racking for Fernandez, he remembered.
“I was in my home with my wife, I was just crazy about the end of the game. I remember Laurent having this little injury, a little struggle,” Fernandez said. “I was sweating in front of the TV almost crying.”
“I remember all those guys being on the field and Laurent losing his voice. I was so happy for him.”
But the crowds and cheering, and Super Bowl championship parade of one year ago faded into the harsh reality of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the future physician became the first NFL player to opt out of the season in July, when he decided to help with the pandemic at home.
“Those people are so dedicated, it’s crazy,” he told the Star’s Laura Armstrong last month. “It’s easy to go train and live and work out when you’re getting paid a ton of money to do it, and there’s thousands of people that are there to say, ‘Good job. You’re doing great. You’re so good.’ ”
“But to wake up every morning to go to the long-term-care home and do the work that they do, with the amount of passion and dedication that they have, that’s true heroics. Nobody’s there to cheer them on.”
For the Super Bowl this Sunday, Duvernay-Tardif and his family plan, of course, to watch the game from Montreal, likely munching on their own freshmade pizza.
“I hope the Chiefs are going to win and I hope Laurent is going to be happy about that,” Fernandez said. “Laurent is not playing this year, but he’s still part of the team.”