Montreal Canadiens

[ericdaoust]

Playoff games bring in a lot of cash. Just saying...

[bergman]

It's a lucrative formula, including their bilingual approach, that they're clearly not unfamiliar with. Like I said.. take a look at the return, I'm sure Molson has few regrets.

[agentzero]

Thats still a limitation though. Any model that puts a handcuff on your options isn?t good. And, ever since Bob Gainey lost his daughter to that horrific accident, the team has been hampered by the model.

Overall and since their inception, given that they are historically the most successful franchise in the sport, it can't be that bad a model. It has been recently, but I'm pinning more and more on the scouting and development program. Just too many misses in the mid and early first rounds. Especially prior to Bergevin.

[rataylor22]

It’s beyond baffling to me how anyone can’t see or admit that choosing your candidates for GM or coach from virtually one province compared to choosing from that one province and the entire rest of the hockey playing world isn’t severely limiting. Severely.

Imagine being a chef in a cooking competition vs 30 other chefs with the caveat that you can only select ingredients from Quebec while all your competitors have no limits as to where they obtain their ingredients.

Level playing field? Nope.
Professional suicide? Yup.

I mean, if fans want to be ok with this, fine I guess. Right now it’s the bane of my existence. But, just don’t act like there isn’t massive negative fallout with this model. This isn’t playing with one arm tied behind your back. This is chopping off your goddamn arms and legs.

The language factor is mostly for the media and politicians. They love it because they can get people in uproar over things they don't really care much about deep down. Perfect in the current clickbait era. Just like US politics ATM.

Most fans will fall under "screw you, entertain me". They might bitch and complain a bit but they want a winning team above all else. I mean, Toe Blake didn't speak the language and somehow that worked just fine at a time when that should have been a major issue.

lol to the Chef comparisons haha

Except no one said they are limited to people from Qu?bec, just to people who can speak French. Bob Gainey was from Peterborough.. Frank Selke from Kitchener..So it's not about being from that province.. it's about speaking French. I don't see that as an insane requirement, given the above.

This is the crux of culture vs. success. IF culture is more important than success, than a francophone coach is absolutely a requirement. IF success is more important than culture, than the current team philosophy is counter-productive to it's goals. Note when I say culture, I don't mean internal team culture, but team connection to market culture.

IF the fans truly want a successful team above all else, Montreal needs to abandon their francophone requirements. Accept use of a translator. Etc. If fans care more about how the Canadiens relate to their personal identity, Montreal should continue their francophone requirements. Fans can't then complain about not getting A while requiring B.

Also, as an aside, the province of Qu?bec also seems to produce an awful lot of hockey talent. By concentration, historically and even today, it is probably one of the best pools.. and again, no one said this was limited to la Belle Province.. it has to do with speaking the language of your market.

By concentration, I guess it's top 5. I guess. That feels a silly way to consider it. Yes more players from Quebec play in the NHL than from Arizona, but it's not such an overwhelming percentage that it matters, and it's not such an elite pool that it matters, and also most of that group doesn't play for Montreal, so again I don't see how it matters. It did matter when the Habs were getting all of those players in the original six era, but it seems pretty naive to base your opinion on the process and success of a franchise in a 31 team NHL based on what they did in a 6 team NHL.

Overall and since their inception, given that they are historically the most successful franchise in the sport, it can't be that bad a model. It has been recently, but I'm pinning more and more on the scouting and development program. Just too many misses in the mid and early first rounds. Especially prior to Bergevin.

Historically? You mean back when there were 6 teams in the NHL? It was certainly a successful model when some of the best players were coming from Quebec, which is not the case now. It was also pretty successful with the comical ineptitude of early expansion. There's been lots of books written on how masterfully the Canadiens destroyed teams in trades and team building in the pre-expansion area just by having a better understanding everything than anyone else. I'd hardly point to the past 30 years of the franchise and say that the model they used to win prior to 1980 is the same model they employ now. The only consistency is the francophone requirement.

Scouting, drafting development. You can blame many many different aspects, but they all fall back to the GM and staff, which, require a francophone component. By not hiring the best possible candidates, you impact all of these areas. By restricting your hiring pool, you're inherently preventing yourself from hiring the best possible candidate. Identifying symptoms of the problem doesn't change the problem. You're approaching this from a results-based perspective, not a process-based results. In the long term, if your process is poor (it is), your results will be poor (born out).

[J0e Th0rnton]

Overall and since their inception, given that they are historically the most successful franchise in the sport, it can't be that bad a model. It has been recently, but I'm pinning more and more on the scouting and development program. Just too many misses in the mid and early first rounds. Especially prior to Bergevin.

Historically being the most successful franchise in the sport is a redundant argument in today's business. Historically, they benefited immensely from having a large portion of talent locked and made unavailable to the rest of the league because of no entry draft, or a redundant entry draft(they had kids right locked away from other teams). It was in 1969 that they FINALLY dissolved and eradicated the Habs ability to "sponsor" kids and thereby retain their rights and make them ineligible to play for other teams. Even so, they had basically the equivalent of 10 1st round picks every year for decades and Sam Pollock was able to parlay several young skilled players to take 1st overall picks from desperate teams needing depth(that is how they got Lafleur)

The last Megastretch of their unhindered successful monopoly was the 70's Habs teams. Filled with superstars who evaded the draft and were habs property before the rules were even to all teams like Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe, Cournoyer, Lemaire. By the 80's, they began creating teams only from what they drafted on even footing with the rest of the league and could no longer give up hordes of prospects to get high 1st round picks because they no longer had hordes of prospects to give to desperate expansion teams.

They still won 2 cups in the last 38 years, mostly on the back of Patrick Roy, but their formula for success in past incarnations when they were able to monopolize talent should not be considered a successful "model" for business today. In business today, they are on a level playing field with other teams in terms of acquiring players.

[Thunder]

So knowledge of English is a proper requirement for the job in other provinces and US. But knowledge of French cannot be a requirement for the job in Quebec. Seems right.

[Thunder]

Wow the puck is actually going in tonight. Feels weird. Like I'm watching another team or something.

[ericdaoust]

Did the Habs just score 3 goals or did they play a "best of" clip from last year's team?

[Thunder]

4 goals! They've already surpassed their weekly goal quota.

[rataylor22]

So knowledge of English is a proper requirement for the job in other provinces and US. But knowledge of French cannot be a requirement for the job in Quebec. Seems right.

Universal business language vs. niche cultural quirk. Odd right.

And like I said. It’s fine to have that requirement, as long as all fans understand it’s a sub-optimal process and therefore don’t complain about having a sub-optimal candidate.

[rataylor22]

Also I actually doubt English is actually a requirement, just everyone knows it because, you know, universal business language and such.

[agentzero]

Universal business language vs. niche cultural quirk. Odd right.

Now now, let's not get insulting over a very nice argument..

And imagine, until the 1950s or so, the universal business language was French...

[Thunder]

Now now, let's not get insulting over a very nice argument..

And imagine, until the 1950s or so, the universal business language was French...

I don't know, personally I thought member of a quirky niche culture was a nice improvement over idiot.

The team has finished first in its division in 3 of the last 5 seasons and has qualified for the playoffs in 8 of the last 10. The empirical evidence is just overwhelming: the language requirement is absolutely crippling. It's the only thing preventing us from achieving the same continued success that the Flames, the Jets and others have been enjoying over the same years.

[rataylor22]

Now now, let's not get insulting over a very nice argument..

And imagine, until the 1950s or so, the universal business language was French...

That was insulting? Huh. Weird what people get offended by these days.

[rataylor22]

I don't know, personally I thought member of a quirky niche culture was a nice improvement over idiot.

The team has finished first in its division in 3 of the last 5 seasons and has qualified for the playoffs in 8 of the last 10. The empirical evidence is just overwhelming: the language requirement is absolutely crippling. It's the only thing preventing us from achieving the same continued success that the Flames, the Jets and others have been enjoying over the same years.

If only they could figure out how to have success like the Penguins, Bruins, Blackhawks, Kings.

Look. I don’t really care about the language requirement and I don’t really care about the success of the Montreal Canadiens.

You can accept the fact that limiting your hiring pool is a sub-optimal process, or you can not accept that fact. It doesn’t change that it’s a fact. I know we love to live in a society now where we can just pretend facts aren’t true if we don’t like them, but that’s not actually how the world works.

Have the Canadiens experienced some moderate success? Sure. Have they ever been considered a real contender over that stretch of time? Maybe once, but otherwise no. Have the Flames or Jets been successful over that period of time? It seems fairly irrelevant, but no. Lots of other teams have been wildly more successful though.