Here are a few ideas to lift the Habs from the gutter
Montreal Canadiens management needs to stop living in the past, add a president of hockey operations, and stop worrying about language.
by Brendan Kelly, Montreal Gazette
After 25 years of underachieving, maybe the time has to come to radically change the way the Montreal Canadiens are managed.
Given that I and most other fans are not keen to match the Toronto Maple Leafs’ stunning record of 50 years of failure, I’ve decided to make a few modest proposals that would help pull this once-storied franchise out of the gutter.
The most important thing is that Habs executives must learn to live in the present and not in the past. You might think the idea to be obvious, but the reality is that for a quarter century, successive owners and managers have spent way too much of their energy looking back at the glories of years past and have often built their business model around selling nostalgia to fans.
This is not a minor point. Set up a Canadiens museum in the 1909 Taverne Moderne if you want, but the folks running the team need to realize Montreal is only one of 31 National Hockey League teams and has not been in the elite top third since Patrick Roy left town. When Canadiens president Ronald Corey hired Réjean Houle as GM and Mario Tremblay as coach back in 1995 — one of the dumbest decisions in the history of the team — there was a lot of boasting about how the management and coaching team had won some 20 Stanley Cups.
And we all know how that worked out. In other words, it is idiotic to hire old Habs legends and assume the magic of their hockey-playing lives will rub off on your team.
But more importantly, management has to stop thinking this is the greatest team in hockey, akin to Manchester United or Barcelona. Man U and Barcelona don’t trade on their past victories, they fight to win their respective leagues every year.
Canadiens owners and senior executives also have to stop worrying about language. Hire the best GM, the best coach and the best players available and if they’re all Finnish, then they’re all Finnish. Like most people, I am happy to see Dominique Ducharme and Joël Bouchard arrive in the Habs’ coaching ranks, but I am not convinced that Bergevin would have hired two non-franco coaches with the same pedigree. And it’s just silly to insist the GM speak French. Bergevin speaks to the media three or four times a year, so the GM’s grasp of the language of Drouin is not of paramount importance.
Team management also has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The people running hockey operations have to start following what’s happening in hockey in 2018, not 1978. That means using analytics to the maximum, realizing that today’s NHL is all about speed and skill, and once and for all ditching the antiquated notion that the most important factor in winning is some nebulous notion of character. Earth to the executive suites of the Canadiens — attitude isn’t everything. Skill is. Get a new T-shirt!
Let’s move from theory to practice. What needs to be done tout de suite is that Molson needs to create a coherent management structure, something they haven’t had over the past 25 years of mediocrity. I believe Molson could be an excellent president. He’s passionate about the team and Quebec, is fluently bilingual, and is only too happy to get out there and talk to fans in the streets, arenas, and coffee shops of the province.
But there has to be a president of hockey operations between him and the general manager and that person has to be someone who’s already had success in Gary Bettman’s league. We tried training someone on the job with Bergevin and … well let’s just be polite and say it hasn’t worked out so well.
Then the president, president of hockey operations and the GM need to sit down together and hash out a plan. That might seem obvious, but I’d argue the Canadiens haven’t had a coherent long-term plan since Sam Pollock left the building in 1978. And as I mentioned last week in this space, it’s abundantly clear that Molson and Bergevin don’t have anything even resembling a plan.
Last but not least, stop treating your fans like they’re irritating mosquitos you have to put up with on your summer vacation. This is our team, not yours. The Montreal Canadiens might be a private business on paper, but in the real world it’s actually a sacred trust and it’s time for successive owners to stop treating it like a private plaything.
Yes transparency is the way to go, but it’s not just about words, it’s about actions. Formulate a strategy, tell us what it is and then stick to it through thick and thin.
A few ideas to lift the habs from the gutter
This is a very good article & i totally agree with Mr. Kelly.