MONTREAL, QC.– On Saturday night at the Bell Centre, it was Philadelphia vs Montreal. Unfortunately for Canadiens fans, it was a WBC light heavyweight title match with Philly boxer Bernard Hopkins trading punches with Montreal’s own Jean Pascal. Hopkins had planned to wear a Flyers jersey into the ring — instead that honour went to his corner man.
The 46-year-old Hopkins prevailed for a unanimous decision to become the oldest champ in history.
It’s worth noting that neither boxer was managed by Pierre Boivin, the former president of the Montreal Canadiens. Boivin left his Bell Centre office for the last time on Wednesday having served as the man who steered the Habs ship for 11 years.
You see, if Boivin had been managing either Hopkins or Pascal, the bout would have been over quickly — certainly a fraction of the 12-round fight. Boivin would have insisted that his boxer have one hand tied behind his back. After the match, a frustrated Boivin would complain to the assembled media that his man was severely and competitively disadvantaged by only being allowed to use one hand.
The manager would have his cover — silly to even hope for a championship under those conditions. Montreal media would nod in agreement. Most everyone would ignore the coiled rope peeking out of the pocket of Boivin’s suit jacket.
Proposterous you say? As crazy as it sounds, that’s exactly what happened during Boivin’s tenure as president with the Canadiens.
Before bidding adieu to the Canadiens, Boivin sat down with a reporter from the Montreal Gazette. In the interview, Boivin said that the Canadiens hockey team is “severely competitively disadvantaged” when it comes to recruiting talent, which he calls a franchise’s best asset.
What is the vile force, the incidious law or organizational impediment that he is speaking about? Boivin said that it is a policy that requires the coach and general manager of the Canadiens to be bilingual.
“There’s one general manager in the league this year who speaks French and he’s in Montreal. If Pierre Gauthier gets hit by a bus, what does (team owner) Geoff Molson do? Every other team says: ‘There are 29 others out there, how many contracts are up?’ Thirty assistant GMs might be prepared to step up, like a Steve Yzerman (in Tampa), and then there’s 30 AHL managers.” — Pierre Boivin
“So they have a pool of 90, (even if) not all are good or are available. We have a pool of three, four, five maybe? Sometimes none? It’s the same thing with coaches. And that’s a huge disadvantage when human capital is your most important asset. So we have to groom them.” — Pierre Boivin
Damn, so that’s why it’s been so hard to win a championship lately? I’m sure that we’re all grateful to Mr. Boivin for the insight. I feel so silly because I was all set to label his presidency as a failure due the lack of a Stanley Cup.
But, you know, I have one more question. Who’s crazy idea was it to handicap the team so badly by instituting a policy that mandates language for political reasons while severely restricting the talent pool?
The answer to that question came in the news conference in February 2010, when it was announced that Pierre Gauthier would be succeeding Bob Gainey as General Manager. Boivin said that one of the requirements for the position was the “ability to communicate in both languages.” At the time , he conceded that the “list narrows down very quickly.”
Well that’s rich. While in office, Boivin instituted a policy that created an extra burden on the team and then on his way out innocently points his finger at the same policy as the reason he failed to accomplish his goal?
Winning a championship was his goal, wasn’t it? Of course, it is the organizational mission of every team in the NHL to win the Stanley Cup. But in that same news conference welcoming Gauthier, Boivin said, “You bet [bilingualism] is important. It’s our mission. There’s no question about it. Two-thirds to three-quarters of our fans and clients are francophones.”
We learned that the mission of the Montreal Canadiens during the Boivin reign was bilingualism. In addition the league’s most talented managers and coaches were bypassed in favour of one’s who could speak French. How did that lead to a better on-ice product?
Obviously, it didn’t.
Indirectly, this should also put an end to the nonsense that Gauthier and Jacques Martin were the best persons available for their positions. By his own admission, Boivin said they were among only a very few who met his self-imposed language requirement and they chose to fish in a shallow pond. Boivin said that Gauthier is the only GM in the league this season who can speak French.
One wonders why bilingualism was necessary anyway given that Gauthier hosted no more than a handful of news conferences, which is a tiny part of his job. Boivin’s words confirm that Gauthier’s bilingualism was useless when speaking to other general managers in the league.
The argument for a bilingual coach claims that francophone fans who buy tickets and merchandise demand to hear from the coach in their own language. I would counter that the prime consideration for all fans is winning, and not social engineering. The Montreal Alouettes, GM Jim Popp and Head Coach Marc Trestman can attest to that.
As far as grooming coaches, it would appear that Boivin is being rather disingenuous. Guy Boucher was allowed to leave for Tampa and it seems that Kirk Muller will be the next to go.
Sure there are bigots like Michel Bergeron who will criticize the team for considering talent over language. There are also lunatics like Pierre Curzi who believe that anglophones on the Canadiens are part of a federal governnment conspiracy to take over Quebec symbols. It would seem that Boivin was more concerned about their warped opinions than the moderate voices of average fans.
Speaking to the Gazette, Boivin said “What really upsets me is when people don’t accept or believe that we put significant effort into doing much more than any other team to try to get francophone players.”
What about recruiting the best players? And the best coaches? And the best general managers?
Gauthier was chosen over Steve Yzerman as the Habs GM. Louis Leblanc was selected in the 2009 draft over power forward Chris Kreider. Let’s keep an eye on this small sample comparison to see how it plays out.
Sports is a meritocracy. It is not the place to settle petty political scores.
Let’s hope that owner Geoff Molson and COO Kevin Gilmore adopt a new mission statement — winning. One step towards that goal would be to unburden the Canadiens from Boivin’s language policy. Let’s unleash the full potential of the Habs, and see what happens when they compete on a level playing field.
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It shocks me that these revelations from Boivin haven’t had more play. The guy essentially admits to sabotaging the team, and he’s getting away with it.
I will be stunned if the Canadiens repealed Boivin’s policy. I doubt they are willing to even attempt to unring that bell.
How luducrous is this policy? Well, if the Canadiens boast this self imposed rule, I imagine a future team in Quebec will have a similar one. Too bad the Canadiens have the only French-speaking GM around. What will the Nordiques 2.0 do? Hire the French national team’s manager? Maybe they turn over every stone and throw an obscene offer at Jacques Martin to run their club.
Perhaps there’s a silver lining after all!
That’s a good point Kyle. It’s stunning to me too that the bomb shell dropped by Boivin hasn’t receive more attention. Some might say that Boivin has large stones to complain about the policy when he was the advocate of it, but it seems he was confident of the media’s lack of same to call him on it. The Gazette article plays along titled “Language issue hobbles Habs: Boivin” as if the policy and the person are disconnected. It’s disingenuous on both of their parts.
The mandate to hire bilingual GMs and Coaches comes from ownership, not the President.
The hiring policy predates Boivin while he’s climbed up the Habs management ladder. Of course he’s also pushed for bilingualism where possible and it would have been his guidance to new ownership each time the team was sold.
What I take from Boivin’s comments is that the talent pool has grown so shallow it’s unavoidable to finally admit it’s hurting the Habs chances of winning.
Boivin’s words of caution are refreshing to hear and confirmation of what many of us have been saying for years but nothing will change unless ownership wants it to.
The Molsons are very aware and sensitive to public perception but if winning a Stanley Cup is truly the priority, it starts from the top. It’s up to Geoff Molson to give the Canadiens the freedom to hire the best, no matter what.
Anything less is an insult to fans who’ve voted with their wallets that winning is more important than politics. Martyrdom in a highly competitive league isn’t how you build a team committed to winning.
It’s just appeasement for profits.
Thanks for your comment Jamie. In most every organization, it is the president and his management team who devises organizational strategy and then sells that to the ownership group. But I think that we are just arguing semantics.
The important point is that while having a bilingual coach was a preference or a practise prior to Boivin, it appears to have been elevated to the status of policy. It is now stated as part of the hiring criteria. Same goes for the General Manager which is definitely a new approach. In fact, as described by Boivin, bilingualism seems to be the first checkpoint of the search process.
There is no debate that Boivin was the first to have publicly articulated bilingualism in those terms, and particularly as an organizational mission. In fact, Boivin went one giant leap further when he said that it is the goal of the Canadiens to have francophones (not just bilingual anglophones) in key positions in every part of the organization. Gauthier repeated the line at the same news conference.
So one of the points of the article is that it is hypocritical for Boivin to champion the policy on one hand, and then use it as a point of blame for the team’s lack of on-ice success under his watch.
Your last point is well-expressed: “It’s up to Geoff Molson to give the Canadiens the freedom to hire the best, no matter what.”
Good to hear Boivin being candid, but i doubt Molson will ignore the call for francophone content. Not sure why you think this was self imposed by Boivin?
Boivin has advocated for the policy like we have never seen before. Once he chose to make those statements publicly, it puts the organization in a straight-jacket… it is very difficult to back away from. There is certainly much stronger evidence to connect Boivin as the architect for this policy rather than Gillett.
Let’s assume for a second that bilingual personnel wasn’t Boivin’s initiative. It is then his responsibility to communicate how the policy is killing the chances for success, and his inability to change the policy would be his failed legacy.
In any event, Boivin’s exit-interview struck me as nothing more than cover-his-ass excuse-making, and that is telling in itself.
Don,
The Molsons had the same policy last time they owned the Habs so I’m not hopeful it’ll change anytime soon. They did afterall approve the Gauthier hiring.
Rick,
Boivin explained the Habs hiring policy to me when he spoke at the Montreal Press Club back when the Bell Centre was half built. Speaking French at the GM & Coach position was critical hiring criteria back when he was in Communications so the policy was simply being maintained when he became team President later on.
He took 3 of us on a tour of Bell Centre afterwards, since the roof had just gone on, and was quite candid about a number of things.
Boivin didn’t advocate the policy, he enforced it and that came down from ownership.
It’s not surprising that an administrator in a communications role would credit ownership regardless of the origins of a policy. Whether the policy was mandated by 3 ownership groups or were adopted on the recommendation of the President isn’t really the main point anyway.
It is simply curious that Boivin was a member of the senior management group who is the constant here and held the top administrative position for most of it. It is incomprehensible that, if Boivin was so vehemently opposed to the bilingual policy as he pretended to be in Gazette interview, he couldn’t have instituted change. That would smack of a weak administrator and an ineffective communicator. It really doesn’t flatter Boivin to paint him as a complete innocent in this language-trumps-talent mess.
And even then, the interpretation doesn’t mesh with how Boivin acted as President. He was clearly an advocate during his tenure. You will remember that at the press conference announcing Gauthier as GM that Boivin launched into his emotional tirade more directed at scuttlebutt than a particular question. He passionately spoke about a policy and a mission of bilingualism. It was the first time those words had been uttered in a public forum. Until then there were rumours of a practice or guideline.
If Boivin was against the so-called policy, there was no reason for him to speak about it as strongly as he did. He also spoke about placing francophones in key positions throughout the organization. Boivin’s exit interview was a complete 180 turn in 15 months. To me, it was excuse-making for his lack of success and his passion had more to do with protecting his legacy than as a genuine critique of a policy he was attached to into his second decade with the organization.
The mandate from ownership is very much a driving factor how the Canadiens are run from the top down. The Molsons have always been very sensitive (overly so IMHO) to how the their seen by fans and consumers of the brands they sell, especially within Quebec.
If you recall the suspicion and distaste for George Gillett when he bought the Habs, there was no way a American owner was going to turn around and bring in an Anglo GM and Coach as well.
Now that it’s back in the hands of the Molson family, past policy continues but for different reasons. Make no mistake however, Boivin has always been a proponent of hiring bilingual talent which is why I’m stunned at his departing words. His admission that placing language over talent is hurting the team isn’t about protecting his legacy as it is a trial balloon to gauge reaction.
If the Habs owners are truly serious about winning instead of just making profits they’ll stop their martyrdom and hire the best people at all levels of the organization, language be damned. Until that happens, the Candiens are just as guilty as Boston and Toronto have/had been for decades.
Best to discuss it further over beers sometime ;)
Did somebody say beers?
Indeed I did. I’m taking some vacation in Italy 1st of July so maybe around the draft or perhaps sooner?
Just name a time and place and I’m in. Aside from a 6-month old, I am free nearly 100% of the time.
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