Noel dragged into mess

Not pleased with allegation he is 'adding to' Habs' furor

By: Tim Campbell Posted: 1:00 AM CST Friday, Dec. 23, 2011

The Montreal Canadiens and their coaching "controversy" arrived in Winnipeg full-bore on Thursday.

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The Montreal Canadiens and their coaching "controversy" arrived in Winnipeg full-bore on Thursday.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/12/2011 (5094 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Montreal Canadiens and their coaching “controversy” arrived in Winnipeg full-bore on Thursday.

Adding to the tempest, Mario Beaulieu, general chairman of the nationalist Societe St-Jean-Baptiste, accused Jets coach Claude Noel of an anti-French role in the matter speaking on a Montreal television station on Thursday.

Beaulieu, in his comments (translated, of course) said the Jets were “adding to” the Habs coaching controversy surrounding unilingual interim head coach Randy Cunneyworth.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Canadiens interim head coach Randy Cunneyworth tells media at the MTS Centre that he is concentrating not on the headlines, but getting his team to play better. — WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Canadiens interim head coach Randy Cunneyworth tells media at the MTS Centre that he is concentrating not on the headlines, but getting his team to play better.

Noel does not normally speak French with reporters who cover his team’s games and this week the team has shielded assistant coach Pascal Vincent, a French Canadian and rumoured to be of future interest to the Habs, from all reporters.

“They’ve said… to support the Canadiens, the head coach of the Jets, who speaks French, and Mr. Vincent who is an assistant coach — we’re forbidding them from speaking French with journalists,” Beaulieu said on Thursday.

Noel was none too pleased at the attempt to drag him into the affair on Thursday.

“My situation not speaking French to the media is really nothing to do with Randy Cunneyworth and that whole scenario,” Noel said. “It has to do with my comfort level. I can’t express myself in French like I can in English… I’ve got a Grade 6 education in French and then I went to English school from Grade 7 and onward. It’s hard to be descriptive.

“If I want to say to the French media, for example, ‘I want to focus on the task at hand,’ I can’t say that.

“I don’t know how to say it. The words don’t come out, so I’m always half-English, half-French. It has nothing to do with their situation there. They can accuse me of whatever they’d like. They want to generate whatever controversy? That’s their right.”