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Then came golfgate. The story of Habs management supposedly not going to the Pacioretty tourney was first reported in July by Marc De Foy in Le Journal de Montreal and still it took a tweet Aug. 13 to finally set off some alarm bells in the executive suites at the Bell Centre. If Molson & Co. were always planning to attend, why didn’t the organization say that immediately a month ago when the rumours first surfaced?

At the same time, Pacioretty’s new agent, Allan Walsh, who knows a thing or two about working (social) media, has been mounting an impressive PR campaign to drive home the message that his client loves Montreal and that Montreal loves him. Walsh and Pacioretty are winning the PR war.

These things matter. Because how you deal with the media is, in the end, how you deal with your fans. The go-to position for the Habs in recent years has been to treat the media like an enemy force, and that’s a mistake. I know all too well that corporate types mostly tend to have a mix of fear and loathing of media hacks and that attitude is a bad one. I’ve always told the suits: Get out in front of the microphones and plead your case. It always works out better.