A Montreal-based TV and radio personality whose career started in Winnipeg is coming home for the holidays — or at least for a standup comedy gig.
Former Winnipegger Chantal Desjardins, best known for her Sportsnet coverage of the Montreal Canadiens, discovered she had a knack for making people laugh a few years ago and has been a rising star on the comedy scene ever since.
She’s back in town for a show on Thursday at Rumour’s Comedy Club and told 680 CJOB she couldn’t be happier to be home.
“When I was posting I was coming into town, people came out of the woodwork,” Desjardins said.
“I had my high school teacher say they were coming, my piano teacher… a friend I haven’t talked to since kindergarten is coming out.
“I love Winnipeg. I’ll make fun of it but I’ll also defend it to anyone that listens. It’s a big part of my act.”
No stranger to speaking in front of large audiences, Desjardins said her first time on stage performing standup was more nerve-racking than even her most high-profile sportscasting gigs.
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“I’d done Hockey Night in Canada — two million viewers — and I was more nervous telling jokes to these 200 people,” she said.
“I was backstage telling jokes into a plunger, crapping my pants, I came back out and I did it, and I killed it. I had two people come over and say: ‘I’d like to hire you to tell that exact same bit at our corporate event,’ and I thought, ‘Wow, there’s a thing here.'”
Although she’s well known for her serious, expletive-free work as a broadcaster, Desjardins said she has a few off-colour jokes in her act — something that works, in part, because of people’s expectations of who she is.
“I like a little bit of edge, something that kind of makes people go, ‘Ohhhh, she said that?'” Desjardins said.
“I come across as pretty clean-cut, and my stories are very clean, so if you just throw in a random one-liner, I do think it has more of an effect.
“If you put too many in, then it’s not funny anymore, but if you put a few well-placed lines, then I think it can really add to something.”
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Desjardins — along with her newest prop, a guitar she barely knows how to play — hits the stage at Rumour’s on Thursday night.
“I know three chords, and they’re all taped to my guitar, so don’t expect much,” she said.
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