A prime minister could be in a terrible mess and not have as big a communications and public relations challenge as managing the Montreal Canadiens in their year-opening golf tournament.

It was a spectacular Monday morning. When you immerse yourself in all of this, the media and the fans, everything seems normal. But that’s not it at all. It’s crazy that CH is a different and complex world.

The main question from the media was: Can the Canadians make the playoffs this year?

In the normal world, the answer is simple: the series are not in the plans this year and it would be surprising if management made acrobatic efforts to try to make them happen.

They have a good idea of ​​their happiness

It’s obvious that the team’s officials have a good idea about whether it can make the playoffs this year. A hockey scientist like Kent Hughes has a rebuilding plan that must necessarily include his payroll, his acquisitions, his contracts and the chairs he will give each player. Sportlogiq’s robots also place the Canadian well ahead in the ranking of goals scored (Our report can be read here).

But in the fascinating world of CH, that’s a different answer. Everything is really complicated. Try to follow:

-When management says they hope to make the playoffs, it puts pressure on the team and the rebuild. It creates expectations that can disrupt what happens next.

-But management also can’t say they don’t want to make the playoffs because they still won’t be that good. We must not aim to ensure the sale of tickets, the prices of which are constantly increasing.

-We must be transparent because Geoff Molson promised more transparency. However, in this case, management cannot do this because it could raise expectations or reduce ticket sales.

– So you have to look transparent without being transparent.

– We must not infantilize amateurs, but it is better not to talk too much about the goals and give the impression that we are talking about the goals.

-You should not answer the question while pretending to answer the question, otherwise the journalists will say that you have not answered the question.

In short, the world of CH is far from complicated. I worked in the National Assembly and I swear to you that it was rarely this complicated when an elected official went around dodging a question.

Skating

Jeff Gorton, Geoff Molson, Kent Hughes and Martin St-Louis all got to skate, not to mention whether the team could make the playoffs. I listened to everything again to find out what words were used instead:

“We want to get better every day”, “we will move forward”, “the most important word is growth”, “we want to be competitive every night”, “be happy, we want to see progress”, “we want “I want that the players continue to develop”, “The focus is on development”, “We want to go in the right direction”, “We want the team to achieve everything.” “We want to increase our game and our responsibility”, “aggressive patience “, “we have to be aggressive with time”, “we will take another step in the right direction”.

We therefore learned that the Canadian’s goal was to move forward. Its relaxing. The opposite would have been somewhat less the case.

I don’t care if CH goes for the playoffs or not. The trio of Gorton, Hughes and St-Louis seem to know the right path and look set for another year where watching CH in February will be boring. But fans are old enough to know the truth, and not a lot of vague sentences limiting expectations. That’s exactly my point.