Great interview | Inside the mind of Martin St-Louis

Hired on February 9 as interim head coach of the Canadiens, Martin St-Louis took part in a media tour this week. Our journalists Simon-Olivier Lorange and Guillaume Lefrançois spoke for about thirty minutes with the former player who is starting a new career.

Guillaume Lefrancois
The Press

A discussion with Martin St-Louis can be daunting when you don’t know him in person. Not intimidating because of the two tree trunks that serve as his legs, but rather in the intensity he exudes at all times. In his look, in his way of thinking before giving each answer, in the bits of sentence he formulates while gritting his teeth.

It was this Martin St-Louis who gave himself up to two scribes from The PressWednesday, after training in Brossard.

And it was certainly when it came to his family that he got carried away the most. The basis of his reaction: a question about one of his three sons, Lucas (the youngest), who was recruited by the very prestigious Harvard University. Starting in the fall of 2023, this is where Lucas St-Louis will play his college hockey.

Martin St-Louis himself studied (and played) four years at the University of Vermont, where he earned a degree in administration. Nothing surprising here, since the new interim head coach of the Canadiens does not hesitate for a second when asked what his strength was at school.

“I was good at math. French wasn’t too much fun. Math, I liked that, because it was problem solving. »

His gaze lights up. At another time, St-Louis must have exhibited at its coach in Tampa, John Tortorella, his vision of hockey as being a sum of arithmetic operations. “He thinks in equations,” explains Jim Tortorella, John’s brother, met for an upcoming report. “He told John, ‘I’ll be wrong sometimes, but the more good plays I make, the more confidence I’ll have.’ I think he will do that with his players, he will allow them to make decisions based on their reading of the game.

In fact, without even mentioning the conversation with Jim Tortorella, St-Louis unpacks his thoughts.

“Are you able [il s’interrompt, claque trois fois des doigts] to solve it? The best players will solve it on the fly. »

From Mont-Laurier to Harvard

When it’s not the intensity, it’s the pride that comes out. Look, when he talks about the social mobility of his family, over four generations.

“My father is a guy from Mont-Laurier. He grew up on a sawmill, he started working at age 8,” recalled St-Louis. He then recounts that only one of his uncles went to college. It is Rémi, 83 years old today, the oldest of the 14 children of the family on the paternal side.

“They are all workers, they are not cowards. But they never had the chance to be in a field where education was an option,” continues Martin St-Louis.

Normand St-Louis, Martin’s father, left school after his 12^and year, but he, too, had the trick in mathematics. “I even skipped my 10^and year, says the father. But I hated school. I could have continued, but I didn’t like it, and there was no CEGEP in my time. Stay seated, I found it boring. Me, I move, that’s why I became a postman! »

“Me, I was lucky, my father always pushed me to play in American universities, because he didn’t have that chance, recognizes Martin St-Louis. You look at my generation, where my father and my grandfather left… It’s a great evolution of the St-Louis family, and I’m proud of it. »

Lucas St-Louis will therefore attend Harvard, a name that always attracts attention. He will then be a few kilometers from his big brother, Ryan, a student and player at Northeastern, another good university in the region.

“All of this was implanted by my grandfather,” he adds. My father always worked hard and I have that in me. These are values ​​that allow you to be successful in life, and I’m not talking about money, I’m talking about work, always trying to improve your lot. »

The student turned teacher

With his almost morbid passion for hockey, St-Louis recalls those players who are called “hockey students”. Moreover, when we ask him about other sports, other coaches, he remains evasive, he certainly names Bill Belichick, but we don’t feel that he could describe his philosophy by heart either. Hockey is big.

St-Louis has had a great career, there is no need to go into details, and it is in particular thanks to his thinking developed above. However, his hump of mathematics, on the ice, it is taught to players who do not have the same “hockey intelligence”? Yes, he assures.

“There are some who already have it, others who have it a little. Such a player might just improve by 2%. Another, 10%. Not everyone improves at the same rate. But that doesn’t change the desire to show it. »

And when he talks about “showing it”, he wants to be clear. “I’m not here to show Cole Caufield how to shoot the puck. The paradox is interesting. St. Louis had 1,033 points. He won two Art-Ross trophies, had a 100-point season and was producing at a 103-point pace in the shortened 2013 season.

We often joke about the euphemism of “good without the puck” players, but St-Louis had the profile of a guy who excelled with the puck. However, it is not this aspect that he wishes to transmit to his players.

“I really believe in teaching the four guys who don’t have the puck. The guy with the puck, I don’t mind what he does. Of course there are times, at the end of a match, when you have to play more simply. But if you teach the four guys without the puck to be in different places, not to always be in the same place, the guy with the puck is going to have more options for his decision. »

St-Louis reminds us, however, that intelligence, the famous “hockey IQ”, is not everything. Work is also an essential ingredient, as the influence of the grandfather is not just a phrase in the air.

“Guys who are not afraid of work and who are mentally engaged, they will get into the concept much faster than someone who is stubborn and doesn’t feel like engaging his brain. »