For 364 days a year, Canadians don't care about what the CRTC calls "simultaneous substitution" - the policy whereby cable and satellite providers replace a U.S. channel with a Canadian one when both are running the same program. (The logic behind this is so the Canadian station gets all the Canadian viewers and can charge higher advertising rates.)

For Montrealers especially, the U.S. ads are pretty forgettable. Local ads for Burlington businesses or ads for products and services that Canadians don't get. Besides, commercials in general are meant to be ignored. Nobody really cares whether the Ford ad lists prices in Canadian or U.S. dollars.

But then there's Super Bowl Sunday. And while the Saints and Colts fight for the National Football League's championship trophy, many television viewers will be looking at the full experience, which includes a halftime show and insanely-expensive commercials. Advertisers turn Super Bowl commercials into events, building up hype and spending through the nose on celebrities and special effects to justify the through-the-nose spending they're doing just to get the airtime.

So if you're a Montrealer watching the Super Bowl and want the U.S. commercials, what can you do?

Here are your options:

1. Watch WCAX-DT over the air. As much as the CRTC would like, it can't stop U.S. stations from transmitting across the border. So you can hook up an antenna and watch it that way. The CBS affiliate in Vermont broadcasts from the top of Mount Mansfield, which gives it good coverage in Montreal if you have a good antenna. The catch is that since last year it's broadcasting only in digital, which means you need a television with a digital tuner (most recent HDTVs have this) or a converter box (like this one or this one). (Also note, for antenna purposes, the WCAX-DT transmits on the UHF band, not VHF as it did on analog) Elias Makos has more details for Montrealers wanting to watch U.S. stations over the air.
2. Watch WCAX-DT on Videotron Illico digital TV (Channel 653). Videotron has announced that it will leave the CBS station's HD feed untouched during the game, instead of replacing it with the equivalent CTV feed. It can do this because of two rules about simultaneous substitution: that the Canadian signal be of equal or superior quality to the U.S. one, and that the substitution happen in an area covered by the Canadian station's over-the-air signal. Because CFCF is not yet transmitting over the air in HD (it has an HD feed that it makes available to providers), Videotron is not obliged to replace WCAX's HD signal with either the standard definition or high definition feeds of CFCF. Note that this is only for people with HD service. WCAX's standard definition signal on Channel 53 will be replaced by CFCF on Illico.
3. Watch WWJ-DT (Detroit) or KIRO-DT (Seattle) on Shaw Direct. For the same reasons as Videotron, Shaw Direct is not required to substitute the U.S. high definition signal for the local one in Montreal. Again, this only applies to the high definition signal. (via Digital Home)
4. Watch the game on Bell TV. The CRTC closed a loophole last year that would have allowed Bell to give most of its subscribers access to the U.S. Super Bowl feed. If you use Bell TV satellite service, you're out of luck.
5. Go to a bar or a friend's house. Some bars, like Winnie's and Winston Churchill's Pub, are advertising that they'll be carrying the "American broadcast" of the game, complete with U.S. commercials. Whether the bar has the U.S. feed available probably depends on whether they use Videotron, Shaw or Bell for their TV service.
6. Watch the ads online. These advertisers aren't about to sue people who put their ads online, and they're more than welcome to you watching them as many times as you want after the game. YouTube and Spike TV have special sites setup with Super Bowl commercials. The latter includes an archive of past Super Bowl ads. (UPDATE: Adweek has a section on Super Bowl ads too)