The Canadiens must now renounce the Logan Mailloux draft pick

And one of Canada's leading sports marketing authorities thinks that still could happen. 'People are asking, 'Why are you keeping this player?' That will be the next thing for sure

Logan Mailloux was dragged into this storm when he asked to be kept out. Now it’s up to the Canadiens to remove him from it.

It was not enough for the Montreal Canadiens to have screwed up Day 1 of the NHL draft for just about everybody involved. Then, in an attempt to bury the controversy they singlehandedly created, the team’s owner came out with an awkward, mixed-message mea culpa on the first day of free agency, arguably the busiest day of the year on the hockey calendar.

Canadiens owner Geoff Molson acknowledged in a statement to the fan base that, “we let you down,” with the selection of Logan Mailloux in the first round of the draft and referred to the selection as “this mistake.” In a later news conference to which only selected media were invited, he took it a step further. “I take full responsibility for a lack of judgment on my part…” Molson said. “Shame on me for not taking into consideration the number of people that I impacted by not thinking beyond the fact that a second chance is a good thing...Shame on me for not taking into account the victim, and shame on me for not taking into account how many people we would impact with that decision.”

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It’s hard to imagine how anyone could have bungled this situation worse than Canadiens owner Geoff Molson and GM Marc Bergevin have.

And the next thing to come out of his mouth should have been the following: “Upon further reflection, we’ve decided we’re going to retroactively abide by Logan’s desire to not be drafted and renounce the draft pick. It’s the best thing for both the victim and the player. We’re going to give Logan the time he needs to get his life in order and allow him to do it out of the center of the storm we’ve created around him. We’ll see where Logan is next summer and, if appropriate, consider redrafting him then.”

Instead, what did Molson do? He said Mailloux, who was charged and fined for taking a photo of a woman in a consensual sex act and distributing it without her consent when he was playing in Sweden this season, would not be welcome at either the Canadiens’ rookie development camp or their main training camp. Basically, they’re going to stash Mailloux out of the spotlight until things die down. In times of crisis, leaders show their true character, and Molson just showed the world that he’s prepared to pay lip service to making a mistake, but not to taking tangible steps to actually make things right.

This cannot be stated clearly enough. The right thing for the Montreal Canadiens to do is to renounce this draft selection. And that may still happen if the heat continues to stay on this organization for making the pick. One of the leading authorities in Canada on sports marketing agrees. Dr. Cheri Bradish is a sports marketing professor at Ryerson University, the former Loretta Rogers Research Chair in Sports Marketing and the current co-chair of the Canadian Women and Sports Impact Research Committee. She called the Canadiens’ decision to draft Mailloux “tone deaf” and was confused by the mixed messaging afterward. She also believes that continued fan and sponsor backlash will ultimately lead to the Canadiens renouncing the Mailloux selection.

“We know (according to research) that, in the last year, more than 50 percent of sports fans in Canada expect their teams to make responsible social decisions,” Bradish told Hockey Unfiltered. “I don’t understand it and I don’t understand the messaging that followed up. There could or will be a (sentiment) saying, ‘Why are you keeping him with the club to begin with?’ That’s what people are saying. They’re asking, ‘Why are you keeping this player?’ And that will be the next thing for sure.”

In reality, it’s almost impossible to fathom any way in which the Canadiens could have executed and managed this entire situation any worse, in every facet – from roster building to marketing to sending a clear message to simply just doing the right thing. The Canadiens have long been the gold standard in the NHL when it comes to comporting itself with dignity and class. And over the past five days, they’ve been one of the worst. One thing I’ve learned in more than three decades around this game is that there is one factor that decides success, far overriding things such as market size and financial considerations. And that is leadership from ownership and high management. Organizations that don’t have it are doomed to mediocrity or worse, regardless of any other things they have in their favor. And at the moment, the Canadiens upper management and ownership leaves an awful lot to be desired.

The Canadiens could go a long way toward making this right by simply putting Logan Mailloux back into the pool of draft-eligible players in 2022. The way they’ve handled this situation, they’d likely be doing the kid a bigger favor than he could have ever dreamed. He wanted to stay out of all this and the Canadiens dragged him into it. That’s on them. That must change. And there’s still a chance it will.