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Dans les coulisses

Lions coach: Canadian to have his say

Kent Hughes has had a near-perfect track record since joining the Canadiens.

In recent weeks, the Trois-Rivières Lions have been in the news for some rather disturbing news. The club was on the verge of being forced out of business, with no owner and mounting debts.

For a while, it looked like the end… until a new owner, Jeff Dickerson, stepped forward to buy the club.

Of course, Dickerson had only recently arrived, so he had some urgent matters to deal with in terms of the club’s immediate future. That said, he has now had time to settle in, so we can start looking to the future…

And that includes renegotiating the partnership with the Habs, and it looks like the news on that front is good.

In an interview with Matthew Vachon (Le Nouvelliste), Dickerson mentioned that he has already had initial contact with the Tricolore, and not only do both sides want to move forward with renewing the affiliation, but the Lions want to arrange for the Habs to have a say in who will lead the club next year.

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These are reassuring words considering that in recent months, there was a growing sense that the Habs and the Lions were distancing themselves. The support from the Habs wasn’t immense, but we seem to be starting out on a new, more positive footing with the new owner at the helm.

But that’s another story.

Let’s not forget that during the season just ended, Ron Choules (who is the Lions’ GM and head coach) navigated an almost impossible situation to get his club into the playoffs. Dickerson seems to want to retain his services, but he also wants the Tricolore to have a say in who the new coach will be.

With Jean-François Houle’s future in Laval looking shaky, could the Tricolore want to bring in a candidate to train him and eventually succeed Houle? Houle was not hired by current management, after all.

We’ll have to keep an eye on this, but it seems that the Canadiens and the Lions’ new owner are on good terms. It remains to be seen whether the Habs will bring in their candidate, or whether they’ll be open to bringing Choules back.

In gusto

– Jonathan Drouin made the trip to Dallas. We’ll see if he’ll be able to return for game #1 of the series against the Stars.

– Joseph Woll was reportedly bothered by back problems.

– Good listening.

– I really like this format.

– Great news.

– Logic is respected.