Around 18-19 years old, I started out as a sports journalist for the student newspaper of the Bois-de-Boulogne CEGEP. I covered the activities of the college’s sports teams, and I also had the privilege of seeing my texts published in the local newspapers Courrier Laval and Courrier Ahuntsic. As I had dreamed since the age of 12 of covering the Montreal Canadiens for La Presse, I had made an approach, through my spiritual father Daniel Proulx, to the editor-in-chief Daniel Marsolais, also responsible for a page, La Jeune Presse, allowing apprentice journalists to express themselves. I drew from my immediate circle for my first subject. The Cavalières de Bois-de-Boulogne were a powerhouse in women’s volleyball in the country and were led by Jean-Pierre Chancy. I therefore chose to paint a portrait of Jean-Pierre, obviously praising his merits in a less than objective manner. Our man was not so bad, one must believe, since he then managed the women’s team at the University of Montreal, then worked on the development of the Canadian team, before ending his professional career as coordinator of the Carabins’ sport of excellence. I wouldn’t dare say that I launched his career, but his mother, they say, always treasured my first ever article in La Presse about her son.
Page 7 of the La Presse Sports section of July 9, 2007 was displayed in my home for a long time. Not for Ronald King’s column which occupied three quarters of the space (“A cod with olives with that?”), but rather for the text at the bottom, published without a photo. At the time, the Montreal Impact played a match every year at the University of Sherbrooke stadium. And La Presse, rather than sending a reporter to the site, decided to publish the report from La Tribune, where I had been working as an intern for several weeks. I have no memory of Charles Gbeke’s double which allowed the Impact to snatch a 2-2 draw. But I vividly remember my excitement as I turned the pages of the largest French daily newspaper in America to find “my” article. It is very painful for me to reread my old texts because I hate everything about the pompous style or the overly long sentences that I used to make myself appear intelligent. Strangely, I don’t mind this article too much – it’s actually really generic, almost tasteless. I am led to believe that I had particularly forced myself. For once, you might say.
It was the portrait of Robert Prévost, an athlete who had just won first place in solo at the Canadian Masters Championships in artistic swimming. “I feel a bit like a pioneer setting new foundations for my sport. It’s probably more exciting than doing laps all day,” he confided. A quarter of a century later, morals have evolved. For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, men will be able to participate in the artistic swimming events next month in Paris.
A highly enjoyable exercise if ever there was one, because it is an opportunity to rediscover texts that we had forgotten, for example a 70-word opus that I had written about a recall of potato-flavored potato chips. Buffalo chicken wings. You should know that when I arrived at La Presse in June 2014, I was reporting general news for a very educational one-month stay which was an opportunity to get out of my comfort zone. So it allowed me to write about news stories and attend a trial at the courthouse, among other things. My first field report focused on a curious phenomenon in Mile-End: a wave of thefts of powdered baby formula, perhaps by drug traffickers who used it to dilute cocaine. I then had my first day at Sports on June 30, the day before the free agent market opened, and I am not a little proud to say that I wrote one of the last mentions of goaltender Peter Delmas in our pages. More seriously, I was lucky when I came across Manny Malhotra’s agent, who confirmed to me the Canadian’s interest in his client. The next day, his hiring was confirmed.
My first article, in the Sortir de La Presse notebook in June 1995, focused on an evening of gothic music in a bar on rue St-Denis, with a photo of fake vampires, but let’s move on. My first article in the Sports section was therefore a trip to Dallas, freelance and on my own initiative, carried out somewhat in the form of an audition. This time, the Cowboys welcomed the Carolina Panthers and their Quebec halfback Tshimanga Biakabutuka. It was a great opportunity to talk to him and also to catch up with many former Canadiens players who were playing with the Stars at the time, including Guy Carbonneau. At the end of all that, the head of Sports, Alain de Repentigny, offered me a job (“my best decision”, he declared, but I may be paraphrasing), and that was it.
I was hired a year after the start of the pandemic, in May 2021. The La Presse offices were still empty, everyone was working from home. For my first day, I joined Sports Director Jean-François Tremblay on site. I remember sitting at a desk, that of Silvia Galipeau, I think, in the superb, completely empty newsroom when he relayed to me an email in which we were offered an interview with Alex Labbé, NASCAR driver. . While the Canadian Grand Prix is now my favorite work weekend of the year, at the time I knew very little about auto racing. I was destitute; I really didn’t want to mess up from the start. The interview ended up going well, Alex was very nice – let’s just say I had prepared more than adequately before speaking to him. I proofread my text at least 50 times before sending it. And I remember sleeping really badly, knowing it would be published when I got up the next morning!
I have had the privilege of covering several Olympic Games, but none have been as important as the final of the Quebec Games in Alma, where I concluded my summer internship for the “largest French daily newspaper in America” in 1999. A young pole vaulter made a statement to me that gave a good title: “We do this for the crowd, the style, we don’t care.” Twenty-five years later, the memories are a little blurry, but I have not forgotten the ovation that my colleagues at the internship gave me after my return from Alma by bus! I must have done quite well since a few weeks later, the director Alain de Repentigny hired me at the Sports tabloid. Like the pole vaulter, I always do it for the “crowd”, even if I don’t care about the style…
When I arrived at La Presse in the winter of 2021, I had the humble ambition of continuing the mission that I had given myself when I worked for other media: to highlight amateur and Olympic athletes. So I was delighted to cover, from a distance, the skier Laurence St-Germain during the slalom event at the Lienz World Cup. Especially since I had been following the activities of St-Germain since I started on the radio. So I was on familiar ground. A very gentle introduction that made me feel in my place very quickly. Even if in hindsight, the text “Laurence St-Germain can finally breathe better” will surely not be retained if one day we published a compilation album of the 100 most significant articles in the history of La Presse.
I discovered the joy of working at La Presse late in life, so I’ll mention my first “article,” which was actually a brief on Richard Matvichuk for Radio-Canada Sports. The former Stars and Devils rearguard was battling knee pain when I started in the business. I would like to thank Jean-François Chaumont, who brings great joy to LNH.com, and who was a great trainer. But you should know that I had obviously always read La Presse, especially for Ronald King’s columns, and that fabulous day when I could make sure that my NHL statistics compiled by hand every day were indeed up to date!