Habs Press Release - Geoff Molson's Statement on Coaching Change

COMMENTS FROM GEOFF MOLSON FOLLOWING THE HEAD COACHING CHANGE WITH THE MONTREAL CANADIENS

MONTREAL (December 19, 2011) – Team owner, President and CEO of the Montreal Canadiens, Geoff Molson, made the following comments today on the head coaching change over the weekend.

“On Saturday, our general manager Pierre Gauthier made a coaching change and named Randy Cunneyworth interim head coach of the Montreal Canadiens until the end of the 2011-12 season.

This important decision was made with the objective of giving the team a much-needed spark after disappointing results since the start of the 2011-12 season. We are responsible for providing our fans and partners with a winning team and believe that this move will contribute to improve the overall performance of our team and produce positive results this season. The action was taken to remedy the situation without further delay.

Randy Cunneyworth is a qualified and experienced coach who has earned the respect of the players and everyone within the organisation and he was ready to take over the responsibility of head coach. As Pierre Gauthier indicated, the head coaching position will be revaluated at the end of the season and, at that time the selection process will be carefully planned.

Although our main priority remains to win hockey games and to keep improving as a team, it is obvious that the ability for the head coach to express himself in both French and English will be a very important factor in the selection of the permanent head coach.

Like all our fans we hope for the Montreal Canadiens to be among the top teams in the NHL and we are doing everything we possibly can to win.

We would like to thank all our fans for their understanding.”

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