It bothers me in the small brain since I read with amazement and astonishment that Chantal Machabée was leaving RDS for the Canadian. I have known and loved Chantal since her beginnings. A passionate intelligent, resolute, solid, daring, and put it in. As soon as you know her, you love her. Her two big guys, her job, her life as a woman, her joie de vivre, she convinces you of everything in bulk. Crazy for life. When she’s serious it’s dramatic, when she laughs it’s a party. A great person.
Yes, under normal conditions, it’s a damn good job in the upper echelons of our society, in one of the most legendary sports organizations on the planet, and the chance to conclude an extraordinary career.
Where the shoe pinch is that the conditions are not normal, very far from it.
Long before harmonizing the relationship between the journalistic world and its organization as it wishes, long before facilitating contacts between players and the media, long before bringing the public closer to the team, alumni, etc., it there are mountains of rock that have hardly ever been faced before.
SIDE TO PIC
Starting with this endless pandemic which has come to assassinate the rivalries, the calendars, the natural developments of a high level sport. Nothing holds, the athletes are sick, the spectators are no longer welcome through the multiplied and unpredictable cancellations.
Chantal sits in front of her desk and the product that she is entrusted with has never been so low, so puny and exhausted. It’s been weeks of depression with not only a quantity of injured people like we have rarely counted, infected like we have never seen, but also psychological problems among key players.
You come in and your club is last, and how do you explain to the world that the NHL doesn’t even have the respect to call off games where there isn’t a minimum respectable number of competitors on the bench. How to explain to people that Jeff Gorton did not have the reflex to call Bettman to tell him that he does not have any more club to send on the ice, if only for a form of decency towards people who pay top dollar to see them when they’re not around.
Chantal arrives with her brand new boxes, but in what becomes the comedy of GM Académie, as José Théodore wrote. The Canadian and the GM with two heads, this situation is consummate ridiculous, while we let information, false and true, flow by the drop.
HIT THE ROAD
I wish you that Montreal changes, Chantal, with its innumerable journalists who ask for exclusivity and who pull out the dagger as soon as they have the opportunity. Yes, some of those scribes who often think they are good analysts and who don’t know the difference between a good game and a mistake. These rumors who trade in 5-7.
What will emanate from your office, your creation, your genius, I have no doubt, no apprehension. For the rest, there is work to be done and we haven’t really left the hostel.
But you are so wonderful Chantal. I only wish you happiness, like the one you have been spreading around you for so long.
Have fun.
From the enclave
- Message to the sympathetic Matthew Barnaby, ex-tough guy from the QMJHL and the NHL. I like to see you again the beast in the messages of Bet99 in French, but we do not understand anything of the first sentences of your message. All we know is that we have to bet.
- There are about thirty players currently playing in the NHL whose father also played in the circuit. Never has this number been so high.
- In Winnipeg, since the departure of Paul Maurice, Dave Lowry has been a coach and now leads his son Adam. Father-son, that had not been seen since the Geoffrion in Montreal, at the end of the 70s.
- Are you not surprised that Loto-Québec has not yet launched the lottery for the next general manager of the Canadian? I would put a 5 on Marc Denis.
- It is estimated that around 15% the rate of all stakeholders (players, coaches, officials) in the QMJHL have been affected by COVID since the holiday season. The League will not resume its activities until January 17 if it is authorized to accept 50% of the spectators in the stands.
- It is next Saturday and until January 23 that the International Snowmobile Safety Week is being held. The Fédération des motoneigistes, the government of Quebec and the Sûreté du Québec are involved and there will be visitors on the trails.
- And if you are a fan, you need to get to know the new “snowmobile” application. Info and security.
- Hi old boyfriend Donald brashear who celebrated his 50th birthday the day before yesterday. Tell the big guy about you.
- Yes, it’s true. Guy Lafleur has already served at mass and he has already been with the scouts.
- I did not know. Twice we removed the number that Tim Horton wore, but be careful, not with the same team and not the same number. The 2 with the Sabers and the 7 with Toronto. Charlie and Pif, I owe you a coffee and a donut.