After 12 years, Réjean Tremblay’s adventure at the Journal de Montréal is over.
The veteran columnist, who also wrote for 37 years in the pages of La Presse, submitted his resignation earlier this week.
“I’ve had 12 amazing years. I traveled. There was the pandemic. You had to be imaginative. I worked with amazing colleagues. I’m going to do something else, I have plans, ”he says on the phone.
Mr. Tremblay says he received a “very correct” offer to write “one or two pages” only in the Saturday edition of the Journal. “I thought about it for two months. But if Lafleur had died on a Tuesday, I wouldn’t have felt like waiting until Saturday. If there is a big transaction, a boxing match, I don’t want to wait three days. I have always worked in the heat of the moment. »
Mr. Tremblay nevertheless insists on the pleasure he had writing in the pages of the daily, especially during the course of the Florida Panthers to the Stanley Cup final. “I covered a Panthers game in the owner’s old box, with a millionaire from Quebec who was homeless at 45, and I arrived at the arena in a Rolls-Royce. What more do you want? »
Mr. Tremblay leaves his post happy, but he is nevertheless worried about the industry in which he has worked for half a century, “53 years”, in his words. From the click race to news aggregation sites to what he perceives as increasingly tight control exercised by sports organizations – a subject that often came up in his columns – there are signs that concern him.
“I hope people can enjoy their craft for a long time, and that includes colleagues back home,” he says. With pressure from organizations and television networks, the proliferation of podcasts, organizations that control information…”
Réjean Tremblay was obviously not just a columnist during his career. He is the man behind the characters of Pierre Lambert, Marc Gagnon, Nounou, Léonne Vigneault and Romain Gabriel. So no surprise, despite his 78 years, soon to be 79, his list of projects is still long.
He names a TV series, entitled Le Septième, which will cover behind the scenes of the management of a hockey club. He is in talks with TVA about this. He also talks about a project with the radio station BPM Sports, where he could be heard daily in recent years. And he remains active in the field of publishing, with the series of children’s books Raconte-moi.
In his final column, he predicted a Stanley Cup for the Canadiens in 2027. He who sometimes made fun of the club and the famous “fefans”, he was not kidding in his last prediction. “For once, I took myself seriously,” he jokes.
Does this mean that this column will be the last of his career? “Are you crazy? I have projects that will be confirmed. But it will be different. »