McGill grad coaches QMJHL franchise set to move Mar 18, 08 Ice Hockey (M)

By Matt Chesser, The McGill Tribune

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: REAL PAIEMENT: Montreal juniors the Real deal; McGill graduate coaches QMJHL franchise set to move to Montreal

By Matt Chesser
(reprinted from The McGill Tribune)

After mixed success in past incarnations, junior hockey is coming back to Montreal. In September, the St. John's Fog Devils will find a new home at the Verdun Auditorium as the Montreal Juniors-or, in French, Le Junior de Montreal. The current coach and general manager of the Fog Devils, Real Paiement, is a former McGill student who played defence for the hockey Redmen from 1983-85 and also served as an assistant coach for the team during his time on campus. Paiement recently sat down with The Tribune to discuss his time at McGill, his career in the QMJHL and the return of junior hockey to Montreal.

After spending some time in the QMJHL you played defence for the Redmen in the early 1980s. What did you think of your time at McGill as a student-athlete?

It was a great experience. I was coming in as a Francophone student who didn't know anyone when he walked in, which could have been really difficult if it wasn't for my teammates on the Redmen. They took me under their wing, showed me around and helped me find my way at McGill. I know that it's a cliché, but a bunch of those guys became friends for life-I'm still in touch with a lot of them twenty years after graduation. I was told before I went that the four years in university are supposed to be the best of your life, and now that I'm 48 I can say that is definitely true.

You were an assistant coach with the Redmen in the 80s, was that your first experience with coaching and, if so, how did you get into that job?

It was my first experience as a coach. I got into it because the head coach at that time, Ken Tyler, asked me to help out on the bench when I was still a student-I had eligibility problems for half a year so I couldn't play. I was back on the Redmen as a player the next season, but that little time as a coach really got me thinking about the future. I was a 5'8" 190 pound defenceman, so I figured that if I wanted to pursue a career in hockey, playing might not be my best option. I wasn't exactly an imposing, Larry Robinson figure, let's just say that much.

You're the first coach in QMJHL history to work over 1,000 games, an odyssey that you started back in 1986. What has been the most enjoyable part of coaching for over 20 years?

It's really rewarding to see kids grow, both as people and as players. In the QMJHL and the CIS you're getting players while they're really young, and it's incredible to be a part of their maturation process. You see a kid come into your program at 18 or 19 and then leave your team as a different, more confident person, and it's a great feeling to be a part of that. I refer to it as a duel process of growth: You're helping your players grow individually, but you're also trying to bring your team together so at the end of the year they operate as a single entity.

You've had a chance to work in both CIS and major junior hockey; do you think there is a big discrepancy in the quality of play between the two leagues?

In university hockey the players are bigger, stronger and have more experience than major junior kids-remember that to get into the CIS you often have to be a top-flight, blue-chip player in the CHL. When I talk about the CIS I usually get opposition from people who have never really followed university hockey and think it's inferior, but as someone who has played and coached in both leagues, trust me, the top-to-bottom roster strength is better on university teams. People don't remember this, but there used to be an All-Star game at the Montreal Forum between the CIS All-Star and major junior All-Star teams, and in the last couple of years the university team was winning by a large margin. That's probably why they stopped playing each other-it's easier for both teams to exist in their own bubble.

What do you think it is about Montreal that has caused junior hockey teams to struggle here in the past?

I've played for the old Junior de Montreal team in front of 13,000 people in Montreal, so I'm not going to say that junior hockey can't succeed there. The market for hockey fans is so rich in Montreal; I just think that recent versions of the team haven't done a good job taking advantage of that. A poorly run organization isn't going to succeed anywhere, especially not in a place where you can go watch the Canadiens instead. The team needs to win, as well. The best marketing plan is a winning record because it attracts attention from fans and the media.

No hockey team is ever going to come in and take the place of the Canadiens in the hearts of the Montreal people, but at one time the Montreal Junior Canadiens were drawing more fans than the Habs. Now, obviously, the juniors aren't going to draw 22,000 people to the Bell Centre these days, but they have a chance to carve a niche in the city. Hockey is such a big part of the fabric of Montreal life that you would think someone could figure out how to make that work to his or her advantage.

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