Last week was the start of the new radio season in Montreal.
I used the word sur – and not à – in an attempt to be Parisian. It seems I’ll never get used to being on a city, not in a city (or somewhere).
Whatever. I digress (quite a bit)…
BPM Sports had a successful 2024-25 comeback last week, even if the station was off the air for most of Monday, the big comeback day.
Basically, I’ve been told that the shows Laraque and Gonzalez and Le Forum (by Tony Marinaro) were the two with the highest market shares, according to Numeris. They’re also the two shows with the most views on YouTube. That must be because these are the two shows I’m on…
Please note that last sentence was a joke…
Yesterday, Tony interviewed Serge Savard. Not surprisingly, Serge Savard once again took advantage of the opportunity to spit on Marc Bergevin. These two should (definitely) not be invited to the same party…
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But it wasn’t what he had to say about Marc Bergevin that made me react the most. No!
At one point during the interview, Serge Savard confessed that when he was GM of the Habs, he once went downstairs and asked Jacques Lemaire : “What are we doing with Stéphane Richer, isn’t it working out?
Coaching scorers like Richer and Patrik Laine can be a tricky business…
Jacques Lemaire replied that he would take care of his player.
“Let me get on with it. I know what he’s going to give me. I’ll tell you what, Stéphane, don’t you want to give me some tonight? Well, Stéphane, you’re coming on the fourth line tonight. You won’t be playing on the power play tonight. You want to give me some, you’re going to play on the power play.” –Serge Savard
Serve Savard admitted it was a much better solution to treat his goal scorer this way than to trade him…
So far, so good…
But the problem is that Serge Savard refers to Jacques Lemaire as the hockey decision-maker.
Except that Jacques was Stéphane Richer’s head coach for only one game in 1984-85.
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In 1985-86, Stéphane Richer’s first real NHL season, the Canadiens’ coach was Jean Perron, not Serge Savard. Instead, Jacques Lemaire was Director of Hockey Operations and assistant to the GM at the time (Serge Savard).
In short, Serge Savard unknowingly confirmed yesterday that Jean Perron probably didn’t make many decisions as the club’s head coach. But still!
It had often been said that it was Bob Gainey and Larry Robinson, then aged 31 and 34, who had taken control of the team.
“As soon as Perron left the room, Larry would turn around and tell the others: we’re not doing this, we’re going to do that instead. The strategy was Robinson, and the leadership was Bob.” – Lucien Deblois to Mathias Brunet (La Presse)
We now know that Jacques Lemaire also had a high degree of decision-making power over the Habs dressing room. Because no, I don’t think Serge Savard made a mistake by mixing up Jean Perron and Jacques Lemaire in his memories…
Larry Robinson, Bob Gainey, Jacques Lemaire… What exactly did Jean Perron do? What exactly did he decide?
But hey, Jean Perron still has a Stanley Cup ring tucked away somewhere in his Gaspé home. Respect for that!
Jean Perron told Tony Marinaro this morning that he couldn’t remember Jacques Lemaire having any power or special relationship with Stéphane Richer. How normal!
Extension
Listening to Serge Savard yesterday, I thought that Jacques Lemaire had been better at handling Richer’s ups and downs than Guy Lafleur’s. Richer played five seasons for the Habs, including two 50-goal seasons.
Lafleur – Lemaire, that lasted less than 40 games. #1ereRetraite
Maybe it would have taken a guy like Jean Perron to play the middleman between the two?
One thing’s for sure, if there’s one head coach who knows how to coach a guy like Patrik Laine, it’s Martin St-Louis. He’ll know which button to push and when to push it. #SpecialTreatment
If kicking the butt didn’t work for Richer – and it doesn’t work for Laine(according to Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre) – it takes other coaching strategies in this day and age. And Martin St-Louis is capable of going elsewhere.