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Habs Season Thread: 2024-25 Regular Season

GEEMAN said:
Its clearly a clique of who you know and regimes are more comfortable those hires in hockey opps.

I can see guys like Brisebois employed in legal affairs or Anthopolous in MLB or Tulsky the brilliant mind moving up the ranks without being handed gigs by buddies...but they are rare .
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And that's the point.

There are people who manage to climb the ladder in hockey. From time to time, you find a Ken Hitchcock and Jon Cooper who had no experience playing hockey at any level of hockey worthy of note and making it to the NHL.

But the vast, vast majority of people in hockey are friends (or friends of a friend) with someone looking for a job. Paul Maurice got a job right out of Junior as a coach the season he stopped playing for the very same team he was on.

This is a story as old as time. You can read up about how Doug Harvey was hired as a scout here by Serge Savard to make sure he had a job, only for him to just drink in the booth until he basically died.
 
GrandWazoo said:
Brisebois was working on on NHL and MLB arbitration cases through his firm, so that got him some exposure. Tulsky did his work in hockey analytics and fetched a few NHL consulting gigs before getting hired by Carolina. Teams are just not going to offer you jobs out of nowhere unless they know you in one way or another.
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If you played its mainly who you know

The ones I mentioned had no ties to the game
 
Another thing with Boisvert is, he's publicly said multiple times that he wouldn't be interested in just being a scout for a team. There are plenty of scouts that work all year round in an area and none of their players get taken, hello Christian Rockholm. If he was going to give up his media gigs and discussing hockey publicly, he'd need to be in charge of a draft and he knows that he'll never get that.

Meanwhile, he has a job in the Q because... funny enough, Mathias Brunet's old gym teacher was a GM for a team in the Q and setup an interview for him.
 
GGpX said:
So what you're saying is, for every one Eric Tulsky, there's ten Teddy Purcell, Martin Lapointe, Paul Byron & Francis Bouillon types? The former players that gets a job when they're done playing without any actual qualifications? As opposed to an Eric Tulsky or Tyler Dellow that have spent ten or more years thoroughly analyzing hockey through analytics?

Thanks for playing.
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No I’m saying the new breed of NHL ownership don’t much care for hockey people, they all seem to be finance people who are very comfortable w the analytics world, in fact that’s how they ran their businesses and those owners will put analytics people in charge.

Dundon was the first, John Henry didn’t know Dubas or hockey people, he wanted an analytics guy, NJD ownership will be next if their hockey GM doesn’t win now.
 
GrandWazoo said:
There is a path, a difficult one, for outsiders to make their work into the hockey world, but you have to put in the work, as for the most part, it is a boys club and more about connection and familiarity than actual skill.

I don't think Boisvert actually put in the necessary work to try to make it. He got known by commenting on a blog in La Presse and Brunet took a liking to him and actually introduced him to the Cap Breton GM that gave him a part time gig. It didn't last very long. Other than that his work has mostly been podcast appearances, hardly worthy of impressing NHL GMs. Plus he's like a local "celebrity" in Quebec, so I don't think his exposure is that great.

Had he really wanted an NHL gig, he would have put in the work and find a way to get himself known to people in charge, work his way up the rank of minor hockey or something, but it seems like it's more of a hobby for him than an actual career path.
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Yep.
Unless you (an outsider) want to take a massive paycut to get yourself in the door. It is pretty much impossible. The average scout has a day job for example.

Some folks get triggered so easily because somebody has a different opinion than them.

Most nhl folks are really fucking shitty at evaluating prospects as well.
 
Sal_Butera said:
No I’m saying the new breed of NHL ownership don’t much care for hockey people, they all seem to be finance people who are very comfortable w the analytics world, in fact that’s how they ran their businesses and those owners will put analytics people in charge.

Dundon was the first, John Henry didn’t know Dubas or hockey people, he wanted an analytics guy, NJD ownership will be next if their hockey GM doesn’t win now.
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It's actually an area that the Habs should be exploiting. Probably a ton of outsider talent around the world.
 
GGpX said:
Another thing with Boisvert is, he's publicly said multiple times that he wouldn't be interested in just being a scout for a team. There are plenty of scouts that work all year round in an area and none of their players get taken, hello Christian Rockholm. If he was going to give up his media gigs and discussing hockey publicly, he'd need to be in charge of a draft and he knows that he'll never get that.

Meanwhile, he has a job in the Q because... funny enough, Mathias Brunet's old gym teacher was a GM for a team in the Q and setup an interview for him.
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Yeah I don't think he's ever been really serious about it. And just because you wrote a few blogs and got a few picks right doesn't make you qualify to run a scouting department.
 
GGpX said:
You make a dumb claim, get immediately proven wrong, then make no actual attempt to defend said claim. You being silly is quite the understatement.
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Dumb to you. Not dumb in reality.

Proven wrong? By whom exactly? You? Lol.

We disagree. I'll live.
GGpX said:
Feel free to do the exercise with literally every single team in the NHL. Plenty of people who got hired because of the people they knew and not their competences.
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Connections are important in any sector if business. Never argued that.
GGpX said:
The NHL has always been the old boys club.

"but but you defend your boy.", not really. I'm just stating facts.
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Sure it has, just that many have entered the club. Boisvert not so much. So I can be you and call your claims and anecdotes and cherry picking facts dumb, because I think they are, but I'll just agree to disagree.

Boisvert is a preening ass that loves the smell of his own farts like most hockey "pundits". It nauseates me the way some here present his views as gospel. His view is no more or less valid than your own. Nothing more.
 
worm said:
It's actually an area that the Habs should be exploiting. Probably a ton of outsider talent around the world.
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Habs brought in the best analytics guy IMO, in Chris Boucher who actually uses data + eye test. I suspect they lean heavily on him at both the draft & pro player deals

To bad he wasn’t in place when Lekhonen deal was made
 
Sal_Butera said:
Habs brought in the best analytics guy IMO, in Chris Boucher who actually uses data + eye test. I suspect they lean heavily on him at both the draft & pro player deals

To bad he wasn’t in place when Lekhonen deal was made
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Wasn't he with the sharks?

Great to have him but I mean real outsiders.
 
worm said:
Wasn't he with the sharks?

Great to have him but I mean real outsiders.
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MB specifically asked for Boucher when Habs contracted SportLogic for their analytics services and he did some work before SJS hired him, Habs ended up with that Jr woodchuck who got canned after publicly stating Habs got robbed on Weber deal

Boucher started of as a poster on one of these fan boards
 
GGpX said:
So what you're saying is, for every one Eric Tulsky, there's ten Teddy Purcell, Martin Lapointe, Paul Byron & Francis Bouillon types? The former players that gets a job when they're done playing without any actual qualifications? As opposed to an Eric Tulsky or Tyler Dellow that have spent ten or more years thoroughly analyzing hockey through analytics?

Thanks for playing.
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Precisely.

All you need to do is look at the Habs front office organization chart over the past 30 years. It's a veritable cornucopia of old boys and assorted retreads. In no other organization do stiffs like JJ Daigneault and Sylvain Lefebvre get hired, not to mention clowns like Rejean Houle. NHL teams are an embarrassment with the way they keep incompetent nitwits employed.

I don't discount what Boisvert says simply because he didn't play on the blue line with Bergevin back in junior or kiss Geoff Molson's ass for a job. I respect the methodology he uses to evaluate players.
 
Sal_Butera said:
MB specifically asked for Boucher when Habs contracted SportLogic for their analytics services and he did some work before SJS hired him, Habs ended up with that Jr woodchuck who got canned after publicly stating Habs got robbed on Weber deal

Boucher started of as a poster on one of these fan boards
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Omg is he xpofan?!?


Sure hope he wasn't the guy pushing for overage draft picks.

But yes. Do more of that. Get some outsiders and it doesn't have to be at the top.
 
worm said:
Yep.
Unless you (an outsider) want to take a massive paycut to get yourself in the door. It is pretty much impossible. The average scout has a day job for example.

Some folks get triggered so easily because somebody has a different opinion than them.

Most nhl folks are really fucking shitty at evaluating prospects as well.
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Former Canuck Gerry O'Flaherty used to be a part time scout for the Habs in the 90's while his day job was running a Midas Muffler shop in Surrey, BC.
 
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