Transcription: a sit down with Ian Mendes and Sylvain St-Laurent

I recently had a chance to sit down with Ian Mendes, the Senators’ vice president, communications and Sylvain St-Laurent, their director of communications for The Hockey News.

We spent about half an hour talking Senators hockey and how these two unexpectedly changed careers and pivoted to the world of public relations and communications. My article ran at The Hockey News last week, but if you have not had a chance to read it, please follow this link and give it a whirl.

A lot of quality fodder hit the cutting room floor, so rather than let it linger unused as a document on my computer, I’ve decided to publish the full transcription of our conversation here on the blog. It’s been too long since I’ve posted here anyway, so it’s a win-win.

Thanks again to Ian and Sly for taking time out of their busy schedules to chat with me.

I hope you readers enjoy it.

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Nichols: “Alright, Ian, you said when the news first broke it had been in like a crazy 10-day stretch leading up to the announcement. So, first things first, how did this ever come to fruition?”

Mendes: "Oh man, like to run the whole thing back, probably the first time that I really thought that this could happen, I had a conversation with Michael Andlauer in Vegas. It was the second day of the draft. He indicated that they were possibly looking at doing some changes and I think (he approached me) because I had been a PR guy before. It was funny because people were like, 'Oh man, Ian is going to go run the comms team." But, until that time in Vegas was the first time it sort of really felt real. What Michael said is, 'Listen, in full transparency we have interviewed, are interviewing or will be interviewing other candidates.' This isn't, 'Hey would you like the job? It's yours.' It was more, if you're interested let's start the ball rolling and get you to put together a plan. So, he asked me to put together a vision board of what a comms team would look like in the year 2024. How I would run it. How I would staff it and etc. That's when the ball really got rolling there in, I guess that was July."

Nichols: “What's your first reaction when you get approached about something like that?”

Mendes: "I was in a weird spot because of my contract with The Athletic. Here's the craziest thing and I told The Athletic this at the time. My contract was up on August 31st with The Athletic. They were allowed to negotiate with me starting June 1st, but they didn't start. That's the way it works. They were going to get to me, and I think there was any doubt in either of our minds that something was going to get done, but they didn't really get the ball rolling till around Canada Day. To be blunt with you, if they came to me on June 1st and said here's a contract, I would have signed. I never would have really thought about anything else because I just loved it there. So, my first thought when this came together was more like my brain was really scrambled at the time. I never thought that this was a possibility. So really, it was really hard. It's hard to even go back and think about where my mind was at because I think my heart and my mind were always with The Athletic until all of a sudden, this door opened at the NHL Draft."

Nichols: “So, how do you pivot from pursuing this possibility to reaching out to Sly or how does, how does Sly come into the picture?”

Mendes: "When I put that sort of vision statement together for Michael, I had sort of mapped out how I would see the staff. The one thing Michael said is, 'Listen, if we go down the road of going with you, you're a unilingual guy. That's really not going to fly with us that we have a unilingual PR department moving forward.' He said, 'We have to have somebody who is extremely strong and bilingual, but can deal with French press.' That sounds like a coffee joke. Anyway, the (Senators) wanted to deal with (appealing to the market) in Gatineau, and I'm like, 'I have the guy.' When I put, I don't even think Sly knows this, but when I put the vision together, it had him in there as in the role.”

St-Laurent: “I know that that's how I learned that you've been approached. You called me during that.”

Mendes: “Oh, yeah, that's right.”

St-Laurent: "Basically, you called me and said, 'Just so you know. If you ever get a phone call from Cyril Leeder or Michael Andlauer, I just put a plan together and put your name in it.'"

Mendes: "Yeah, that's it because I didn't want him... all of a sudden, if (Sly) gets a phone call about, 'Hey, I hear you put a plan together,' and then he's like, 'What the hell are you talking about?' Right?"

Nichols: “You were working for the PWHL franchise here in Ottawa. You transitioned obviously from Le Droit to that. What made you decide to pursue that avenue as opposed to just sticking out with journalism?

St-Laurent: "Well, honestly, the last real decision that I made was to leave Le Droit, and that was June 2023. That was just… basically the timing was right to just make that leap. I had a bit of a plan of what I wanted to do, and it didn't involve any (media) relations. When the word came out that I was going to leave Le Droit, the PWHL reached out. They were scrambling at that juncture. It was November. The season was getting closer and closer and the (circumstances were similar). They needed somebody who understood the market, the French market, who could deal with French media and the media in general. So I said, 'You know what? It might be fun to help start something.' And that's why I told them, "I've never thought about doing media relations in my life, but I'll give it a try. I want to see what this league is about." And, I had a blast. It was a super fun time. I was convincing myself that I could do it for a second year and keep going because it was so much fun. Then (Ian) called. That was when I had a decision to make it that time."

Nichols: “Just to clarify, how long were you with Ottawa in the PWHL?”

St-Laurent: "I started on December 27, 2023, and I guess I finished around August, the start of August. So, about six months."

Nichols: “How long has it been since you were affiliated with the Senators?”

Mendes: "When I was a PR guy? I left in the middle of the 2001-2002 season. So, the heyday. 22 years roughly."

Nichols: “Obviously you guys take your new positions with the team. The old guys get punted. You had pre-existing relationships with those people. Was it a difficult decision because obviously, you never want to see people lose their jobs?”

Mendes: "No, you never do, and it sucks. It really does. Again, if I didn't pursue this job and (they would have hired somebody). Like I said, they had been pretty transparent that they had identified some candidates. I know that they interviewed other candidates other than me. So that part of it, it sucks because you're talking about people that either have kids or they personally put a lot of time into it. It's really tough. I sent them both notes and I'll just say that I think I have a ton of respect for the job they had to do under the circumstances in which they did it. And, now sitting in the seats that we're sitting in, I think we have a greater appreciation for the many directions that PR people get pulled in and fires that you're putting out. But really, you do feel awful. I'm not going to lie, you feel awful that you're taking somebody's job that you intimately know and have worked with for 10 to 15 years. And yeah, that part of it, you don't never... I don't feel very good about that."

St-Laurent: "Same. Ian just put it perfectly. They are people we worked with for over 20 years. You don't always agree with PR people, but that's the nature of the business, I think. I appreciate and respect the fact that they had a tough job to do for many, many years."

Mendes: "Yeah, but they're both like, to me, without divulging too much of what they've written back, I will just say beyond classy and beyond professional and friendly. I don't want to divulge exactly what they said, but I do want to indicate that both of them have connected in a manner in which they didn't have to. If they wanted to be super sour and irritated, I would totally understand that. But again, I'll go back to, they were interviewing other people. Like, it wasn't like, I phoned up the Senators and said, 'Give me this job!' There was a process there."

Nichols: “Was the transition smooth when you first came in? Was it like starting at ground zero? How would you describe the process of leaving journalism and stepping into these PR comms roles?”

St-Laurent: "Well, first of all, I was floored by the fans' reaction the day it was announced. I knew we were respected in the market, but I didn't expect people would appreciate and welcome this news so much. When we first got in, we knew pretty much everybody in the hockey operations department, but they couldn't have welcomed us any better. Everybody was nice. From day one, I felt like something had shifted, and they welcomed us into the organization.”

Mendes: "Yeah, I would say the same thing. Actually, I was a little underwhelmed by the fans' support. No, it was jaw-dropping because, again, you never know (what the response will be) when you do this. You're worried, but not worried. If I was worried about what other people think I would have been in the wrong profession. But, you're curious about how is the news going to land? Are you going to be viewed as a turncoat, a sellout, a shill? There's a lot of ways it could go. So, I agree with Sly completely. I was blown away. It was almost universal in the response from the fanbase. A lot of people are like, 'It's too bad that we won't have you covering the team.' I still get that from time to time. People are like, 'Man, I really miss your writing,' or 'I miss you on the radio.' That part is tough, but the switch has been, like, now it doesn't feel weird to walk into a press conference and say, ‘OK, Travis (Green) is ready.’ The first few times I did it, I was like, ‘This feels so weird. It feels surreal.’ I'll tell you, the best thing for me, the best example was I moderated the press conference for the NCC announcement. So, there's Tobi Nussbaum and Cyril Leeder and as the press conference was going, I actually had the urge to ask a question. I'm like, ‘OK, so I'm going to ask a question.’ But I'm not asking questions. Holy shit, I'm not asking questions. A couple of times I was like, I don't have that urge anymore, but I certainly did in the first six weeks of the job when press conferences and availabilities were happening. I still had the journalist's hat on and was like,'You just got triggered, man.'"

Nichols: Was it the same with you?

St-Laurent: "Yeah, but that's actually a good thing because part of the reasons why we're doing this is. We're in a place where, and Cyril Leeder spoke about that publicly, where the Senators are going to look into producing more and more of their own content. That's where having two former reporters on staff helps. I'll never stop thinking like a reporter. I've been in this job for 25 years. It's good also to build bridges between players, coaches, and the media. Sometimes we can go to players and tell them a little bit more about how the reporter thinks and why a question was asked. Sometimes it's a good thing, so I don't want to lose it.”

Nichols: “When you guys first stepped into these positions, were the shortcomings, obvious shortcomings that you identified, that you could step in right away and say, ‘You know what? I can fix this.’”

Mendes: "I don't know if there's any... I'm trying to think of the obvious. As Sly said, we think like reporters and journalists. So, one of the things I wanted to do is with our game notes, put my brain to use to look up whatever, related stats, and different things that I feel from a content perspective we can help. That's going to be the big thing, we'd like to do some writing for the website. We'd like to do (content), whether it's some video stuff or whatever. I think what you're going to see, hopefully, is a bit of a merging between comms and content, at least on this side of the fence. Obviously, there's always going to be external media that we still service and handle, but really that's what when we come into this, we're like, "How do we...". Storytelling is at the heart of what I think makes for good PR, and what we're trying to do is say, "Okay, let's identify. We've got 20 great stories here, but we can't take all 20 of them and keep them in-house. We've got to give a couple to TSN. We've got to give a couple to The Athletic. We've got to give a couple to Postmedia." We need to spread it around, and that's one of our objectives. To try and tell as many stories as we can over as many platforms as we can and build really strong relationships with the media.”

Mendes: "I'll be honest too. I told Sly that one of the goals I have is that at some point in the first three years here, I'd like us to at least be a nominee for... they have an award for the best PR staff. I just want to get on the radar in the first three years. That's what I want to do. The only way you do that is you get to be known around the league as a friendly PR staff, a cooperative PR staff, and a professional one. Those are the tent poles or the pillars that we're trying to create here.”

St-Laurent: "It's funny that you should say that because that's what I was thinking. Not so much as a shortcoming from before, but I felt when we came in, the one thing that was the easiest was just to be ourselves. People know Ian Mendes pretty well in this market from his days as a TV reporter or as a radio host. The on-air personality is very much what you get off-air. It's great positive energy every single day.”

Mendes: "Hilarious too. Hilarious. Make sure that makes it in, please."

St-Laurent: "I feel I'm very much the same, so just when we got started, I think the people who didn't know us in the office figured it out pretty quickly. We're easy people to deal with, and I felt this was a very easy way for us to put our stamp on what we're doing right away by just being ourselves."

Nichols: “That permeates you right out of an organization, right? That's infectious. Once they see that in an office, hopefully that grows and is that kind of the idea that you're going for?”

Mendes: "Yeah, hopefully. But like Sly's said, the great thing is we just get to be ourselves. It's not like we're like, 'Oh man, I better be a certain way.' I think if you're just professional...and what's helped though immensely is that we've had relationships with the players. I've been really lucky with The Athletic. I flew to Germany to spend time with Tim Stutzle and his family. I've been to Shane Pinto's house. I've been to North Dakota to visit (Jake) Sanderson. So, you have these relationships that you're able to now take. The trust is already there from a lot of employees that are like, ‘Oh, okay. I know Ian. I know Sly,’ and that's helped big time."

Nichols: “Being in a Canadian market, it has felt at times that the fans are taken for granted. This is a Canadian market, the hockey should sell itself. It kind of lends itself to what you're saying about being better at internal storytelling and giving people a chance to know the organization and people better.”

Mendes: "Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things that sold me on potentially doing this job. In that conversation that I had with Michael Andlauer, any of the conversations I had with him, he is a fan first. Fan first. That's the whole lens that he looks through as the owner. I think if you go back and look at the reporting that Sly and I have done the last seven, eight years in particular, it was done with the fan's best interests at heart. That's all we cared about. That's it. Like we don't care. We never did this job for...it's flattering when people recognize you, but we do it because we understand the importance of this organization as a community asset. So when we come in, that's all like for us, it's through the lens of the fans and like you'll never see me criticize fans in this market because you've been seven years, you've been without the playoffs. This is one of the longest droughts of the salary cap era. You, as a fan, have the right to talk in any manner.”

St-Laurent: "One of the reasons why I decided to leave the PWHL and was super happy to follow Ian here was also how Michael Andlauer embraced the fact that this is Ottawa-Gatineau's team, not just Ottawa's team anymore. They were very serious. I think management was serious about trying to figure out, first of all, why Gatineau's such an enigma in this market, and then trying slowly but surely to try and make some grounds and gain some fans in that area. Again, that's Michael Andlauer."

Nichols: “That's been your mantra for the last eight to ten years that I've been reading your stuff.”

St-Laurent: "Gatineau is an underdeveloped market that the organization hasn't targeted at all. It's been taken for granted. Ottawa and Gatineau is a small market according to NHL standards, but the Francophone community accounts for 28-29% of the community. You're going to try and make this thing work in a smaller market, not work but thrive. You can't ignore 30% or almost of your market. We have to make them believe that this is the best place for them."

Nichols: “What's the dynamic like with your former colleagues?”

Mendes: "Is this on the record or off the record? No, it's been great. Honestly, it has been great. It's weird, again, to be standing kind of on one side of the curtain and you're looking across and you're seeing Claire (Hanna), Kyle (Bukauskas), Bruce (Garrioch), whoever, and you're like, ‘Hey, room's open.’ It's weird, but they've all been great. I've golfed a couple of times with a few of them and played some pickleball with a couple of them, even after I've switched. I don't want that to change. I think, again, we're trying to do something that hasn't really been done too often. It's not too often that two reporters kind of jump over the fence, right? But, I think there's a path here to try to improve the relationship between, like Sly said, between the media and the team, whether it's the PR staff, the players, the coaches. We're lucky enough that we pretty much know every single person who covers this team in a very personal and intimate manner and it helps. I think it really helps. So sometimes it sucks when you have to tell somebody, 'This guy's not available or he doesn't want to talk.' But, I'd like to think there's a little baked-in respect that they know that we've made the effort to try to get them what they want and maybe circle back to us in a year and see if we're still on speaking terms."

Nichols: “Obviously, I'm here talking to a non-traditional media background, doing some writing for The Hockey News. But it seems transparent to me that you guys are trying to provide more access and opportunity for people who wouldn't necessarily have those opportunities before. I feel like you guys recognize the industry is shrinking, and fewer jobs are going to be available. So, do you guys anticipate that being the way of the future, and that's why you are opening the doors a little bit more to others outside?”

Mendes: "I feel lots of people manage to build themselves audiences and positive reputations through hard work. You being a perfect example of this. We would be crazy not to pay attention to that. We're not going to open the doors to every single podcaster or blogger that's out there, but we are going to open the doors to the ones that have shown a great deal of professionalism, hard work, research, you know, all again, all the attributes you've had. All the attributes in my mind that Locked on Senators has, and Brent Wallace has. You're stupid to not pay attention to that. They have a huge, all of you have huge followers and readerships. To just shut them out because they're not legacy media (is dumb). Legacy media seems like a very 2014 approach to this job and we have to take a 2034 approach to this job, really. Where is this going in the next 10 years? The answer is it's not more legacy media. It's more independent outlets and journalists. But, you have we have to use a bit of a colander, right? A little sifting again. You can't let everybody in. But boy, the ones that are really smart and dialled in the stuff you've done over the years, you know, I'm a huge fan of everything you've done. Locked on Sens is the best example to me of like two people that really, just four years ago in the height of the pandemic, thought, 'What if we did a blog podcast every day?' But, then did it with professionalism, humor, hard work and research. They pull out stats that sometimes I listen to them. I'm like, 'Shit, I didn't know that.' I feel like they're the only guys that have the stat of the team's record with Pinto, Norris and Stutzle in the lineup. They know it because of hard work and research. So, we can open it up. We got them Steve Staios a few weeks ago.

That's great for us. It's great for them. It's a win-win. When you're collaborative with the podcasters and bloggers, and you see actually like for us, we make some decisions, but circumstances make some decisions for us as well. You see players accepting to go into these podcasts without even the help of media relations. If the players are at the point where they like and respect those podcasts, why would we ignore them? So, we are kind of just using that as a launch point."

Nichols: “You guys are new to the positions, new ownership, new management. Everything feels like it is still in the honeymoon stage. Everyone's happy with the job that you guys are doing so far. Lots of access and everything. If I ask for a player, it's, ‘No problem, we'll make that happen.’ We haven't really experienced any hardships yet. Do you anticipate any of that changing if the team goes through a lull, like another bad November? What's the game plan if something like that happens?”

Mendes: "Yeah, obviously, you have to game plan, unfortunately, for the worst. But, I would say the time to judge us as a PR staff is when things are going poorly when we're struggling, or there's a controversy. It's super easy to be smiling and happy in October when you've signed your goalie to a long-term extension. Everything's happy, and you've got an arena deal. Those are the easy days when you're going to learn a lot. You're going to learn a lot about us and where I'm going to learn a lot about myself and Sylvain and Erin (Campbell) and our department when things don't go well. Are we going to still be the same people? Are we still going to be upbeat? Are we going to be snippy with the media? Are we going to be snapping at people? Like that's when you're going to learn about us and that's when I hope we're actually really judged, is in those tough tough moments. It's easy when things are easy. Don't judge people when things are easy. Judge them when things are tough. That being said, no team has ever won the Stanley Cup by going 22-0. So I mean, it shouldn't be too hard for us to stay professional and to keep the course even when things get rough because we know they will get rough at some point. I don't want to see the headline of this article. St-Laurent says 81-1 is possible."