Paul Houde has found his new team: 91.9 Sports.
Posted at 6:45 a.m.
The most courted free agent on Montreal radio will host the weekend morning show. Debut: September 3. And if his show is as entertaining as our meeting on Tuesday, when he visited the Laurier Avenue studios for the first time, you will be in for a treat.
Because Paul Houde loves sport.
“I am a real “, he confides, laughing.
Implied: a real sports fan. The type to cheer on his Chicago Blackhawks and San Francisco 49ers on the road. Or packing the car for a college football game.
I have been, since 1977, one of the few Canadians to be a member of the International Association of Athletic Statisticians.
Paul Houde
Are you surprised?
Neither do I. His love for numbers is well known to the general public. His interest in athletics too – he was a television analyst at the Games in Barcelona and Atlanta. “Athletics was an irrational and devouring passion! This is still the case, he says, despite statements to the contrary issued a few years ago.
“And be careful, Paul is a bad loser”, launches his collaborator of the last 15 years, Kathrine Huet, who will participate in the show. “When his favorite teams lose, he can go up to 72 hours without speaking to us…”
With the Blackhawks roster, there will be long periods of silence, I pointed out to them.
“Worse than the Blackhawks’ losses are those of the 49ers,” he replies. If they go very far and they lose, I’m really in a bad mood. »
At the microphone of 91.9 Sports, he will be able to chat with thousands of fans whose mood also varies depending on the performance of their favorite team. An unexpected challenge, which thrills him.
What will his show be about?
Canadian, of course. Of football. “I love the NFL. It’s rare that I don’t watch the three Sunday games on RDS and the Monday Night Football. For me, the first Thursday night game is an antidepressant to get through the changing seasons. »
Also expect lots and lots and lots of anecdotes. In an interview, one does not wait for the next. “Once Bruny Surin told me…” “I practiced my German with Katarina Witt. “Have you seen the Texas Rangers stadium?” Wonderful. »
It has attention to eye-catching detail and well-crafted punch.
He also says he has already found the subject of his first show: the 50th anniversary of the Series of the Century, of which he quotes the highlights by heart. “We will open the lines. It’s not true that everyone is young. I’m going to ask the listeners: do you have any memories of that madness, of another era? From the Cold War. Soviets. Of their old pipe skates. From their famous phrase, we have come to learn, which we have also taken up in The Boys. »
Paul Houde also knows what he will not do.
PHOTO PHILIPPE BOIVIN, THE PRESS
Paul Houde
Don’t count on me to do raw raw. I wouldn’t want to fall short, to be polite and speak French, of athletic support. I don’t want to fall into the talk of jockstrap. I wouldn’t be good for that. It’s not my view of the sport.
Paul Houde
Paul Houde had been with Cogeco for nearly 25 years when his bosses decided last spring not to renew his mandate as the weekend morning host. A decision he says he respects, but which saddened him.
“When we started the weekend at 98.5 FM, three years ago, we had five market shares. We ended up at 23%, in a niche where there were no listening habits [pour Cogeco]. Radio-Canada was the reference, because it had invested in the weekend. It’s quite ironic to leave 98.5 FM when we beat Joël Le Bigot and Franco Nuovo in the last poll. It’s as if, in athletics, we had beaten the others at the finish line of the 10,000 meters. And our reward? We’re leaving ! »
Today, he says it with a laugh. But we guess that, at the time, it hurt him.
“A few minutes after the announcement of his dismissal, his phone started ringing,” says Kathrine Huet. These were the competing networks, specifies Paul Houde.
” It really touched me. I had approaches from everyone in the industry. I couldn’t talk to them because I was still under contract. I could not follow up with them, negotiate or compromise with them. »
Paul Houde therefore left for the United States to shoot a documentary series, Paul in all his states, intended for Quebecor platforms. It was his lawyer who negotiated his move to 91.9 Sports. The popular host will also have a weekly column at ICI Première.
There had already been discussions between Paul Houde and 91.9 Sports, a few years ago, when Mario Cecchini, now president of the Alouettes, ran the station. But it never got very far. “The conditions weren’t favorable,” says Paul Houde.
This time they were. His new boss, Yves Bombardier, displayed the smile of a child after the passage of the Easter bunny, Tuesday, when I met him in the corridors of the station.
“It will be a show where sport and society intersect,” he explained to me feverishly. “We expect to come out of play by play. We will rather ask ourselves: how can we see sports news, or news in general, through a sports filter? An example: the upcoming elections. How will we cover them?
“Paul will be the ideal running back. He’s a generalist. A library on two legs. He knows everything. And he loves sports. Both the amateur and the professional. He will work with Greg Lanctôt on the airing. Both share the same interests. We’re gonna put the ingredients together, and something’s gonna happen. »
For that, sure.
Something will happen.
And it promises to be entertaining.