Als will have a presser Thursday, Larry, Jim and the Doctor will be present.
http://www.rds.ca/alouettes/chroniques/288298.htmlGreat news for the Als and their fans...
Not so great for the rest of us :lol:
It's not great news for the rest of us, but he is a classy dude and represents his team and the league well. He is an asset to the CFL and we need to hold onto those.
Excellent news for the Als and yes for the rest of the league.
A truly great coach and more important a class guy.
Trestman could one of those guys that ends up staying in Canada for the long haul.
How long before the local media starts ripping on him because he can't speak French?
Sigh. If you follow the Als or live in Montreal, you'll know that language has never been an issue with Als coaches. The vast majority of fans understand that in a league dominated by American players and coaches, it would be silly to expect the HC to be bilingual. I don't believe anyone said a word about Don Matthews's lack of French in the five years he was here.
All that language nonsense only applies to the Canadiens.
Trestman signing longterm in the CFL is a real feather in our cap. :thup: It's surprising considering all the NFL rumours swirling around him. Head coaches in the NFL can make $1M-$2M-$5M+, plus all the prestige and notoriety that comes with "making it". Congrats to the Als!
Marc agreed to add 2 years to his contract. He will be the HC for 2010,2011,2012 at least. That will take us to the end of the Calvillo era.
Well, part of that was just about everyone had some level of fear for The Don, even among the media. But I did not know about the different treatment vis a vis the language issue. I had heard somewhere that since the Trestman era began, the Als are now the darlings of the Montreal sporting press. But out here we're limited to the odd article by Herb or Jack Todd. How are they regarded by the French press? Do they get coverage?
Coverage in Montreal always takes a backseat to the Canadiens, in the English and French press. Trestman has certainly done a lot to repair the relationship between the Als and the media. Matthews was very abrasive and could rub journalists the wrong way, for which he earned the undying enmity of hacks like Herb and Jack Todd. In general, though, the Alouettes have proven that if you field a good product and work hard in the community, neither the press nor the fans will care what language your head coach speaks. Winning is a universal language. 
With Trestman back, like 1 journalist brought up in the press conference, this might have a gravitational effect on some players (i.e: Chiu, Cahoon, Sanchez, Lambert,, ect...).
Next step should be Annis Stukus Trophy for Coach of the year in 2009 
It's a sure bet that Marc and deservedly so is the highest paid coach in the league at around $500K per season.
Hey Artie-Lange,
You should spend some time researching your topic before posting an inflammatory and ignorant comment pertaining to how Quebec's French-speaking population accept English-speaking people. Another post was partially correct in stating that Quebec's French have never had an issue with English-speaking coaches/players in predominately English-speaking sports where the game is "played" in English. For instance, Felipe Alou was the manager of the Expos for a lengthy period of time without ever being asked to learn French (in fact, no Expos' manager, GM, or President ever faced this issue). This certainly was not because the media "feared" him as he was very mild-mannered. By the way, Alou was even married to a French-speaking Quebec woman yet this issue never came up. Similarly, no Alouettes' head coach, GM, or President has ever been asked to do so. This is a non-issue in Quebec yet you have decided to generalize based upon a completely different situation which arose with Saku Koivu. In that case, people were miffed that he chose to learn English as a second language while not making an effort to earn French (even a rudimentary amount) while being with the Canadiens for over a decade. Other English-speaking HABS captains were never asked to do so (see Gainey, Robinson, Muller...). Non-issue in these cases.
Regarding your question about the press coverage of the Alouettes, they are front page news throughout the season at LaPresse and the Journal de Montreal while getting top billing on the Reseau des Sports (see their viewership figures) as well as Radio-Canada. Furthermore, CIS Football games are aired every week on RDS focusing on the Quebec conference. The rise of Laval, U. of Montreal, and Sherbrooke certainly shows that football is alive and well in Quebec which goes hand in hand with press coverage of football from the minors to the pros (the press certainly would not miss out on this groundswell).
Hope this helped get your head out of the sand,
partisandelalcf.
Relax ton corps, mon ami. Franchement. The guy was just asking a question based his understanding of what the issues are in a different part of the country. Just with your own review of Canadiens history, it seemed a fair question given that, as you point out, no other Canadien captian had been subjected to such an expectation before. Then one was so something changed in the recent past. It is a fair question to as if that change has spead over to other sports.
There is a considerable amount of ignorance (and I do not mean that in the perjorative sense at all, certainly not vis-à-vis Arte) about what goes down in Québec. I appreciate your effort to eradicate some of that ignorance but you don't have to be ignorant (and I do mean it in the perjorative sense this time) about how you go about doing that.
Arte - to answer your question from my perspective here in eastern Québec where I see more the Québec City press than the Montréal press: there is no doubt that CFL takes a back seat to the Canadiens, but during football season, there are easily a couple of articles a week in La Presse and certainly Le journal de Québec. There's definitely an article on game day and one the day after and some in between. So, even outside of Montréal, there is at least an ongoing recognition of the CFL - not overwhelming but not non-existent either.
Y'all have a wonderful day ... and New Year!!
I will add that there certainly is pressure on the ownership of the Montreal Canadiens to employ French Canadians in coaching and management positions. This became more prevalent once the Nordiques moved and the Quebec City scribes conveniently changed their focus and allegiance to the Montreal Hockey Club, integration and buyouts in by Corus and other media conglomerates also made this worse.
Alouettes manage this by having Larry Smith stay close to the media and the Francophone players and ex players such as Proux, Vercheval, Boulay and such.
My opinion is that Artie's impression are correct applied to the Habs but not so much to other sports. Mostly IMO because they are covered by the younger, more educated and less bigoted members of the media.