Conference call: Geoff Molson

MONTREAL -- With Phase 2 of the NHL's Return to Play plan underway in several markets across the League, Geoff Molson joined reporters via conference call to share updates on the progress in Montreal, the future of the team, and more.

Below is an abridged transcript of the call.

Question from Jessica Rusnak, CBC Montreal

Could you give an update on the ice surface in Brossard, with Phase 2 now underway in the NHL? Is the plan to have Brossard up and running sometime soon so that players can return to Montreal, especially those outside of Canada who will have to do the 14-day quarantine?

When the NHL announced Phase 2, they were announcing that players can come back, but they aren't being asked to come back or not mandated to come back. Marc stayed in touch with all of our players, especially with our player representative, Paul Byron, and it was decided that because of the 14-day quarantine in Quebec, it's probably wiser for our players to stay where they are at home, to keep working out with whoever they are working out with. Some of them are skating and they are all working out. It made a lot more sense for them to do that than to fly back to Montreal and stay home for 14 days without working out, without the guaranteed certainty that there would be a Phase 3.

Everything is ready. The Bell Sports Complex is ready. We have talked to all of our players about it. In fact, there are three of them in the market right now. They are coming on Monday and everything is prepared. We have done a lot of work with the NHL to get ready.

Question from Jonathan Bernier, Le Journal de Montréal

We've seen numbers indicating that the cost of disinfecting the facilities each day could range from $50,000 to $70,000, is that a good estimate?

I just spoke to Dr. Mulder, who has been in touch with doctors from other teams. We're trying to find solutions to find the most efficient tests and tests that are approved by the provincial and federal governments. When it comes to the costs, I'd just say it is what it is. We'll pay whatever we have to in order to protect our players.

Question from Renaud Lavoie, TVA Sports

There are teams like the Canucks and Flames who have mentioned the possibility of doing Phase 3 outside of Canada - in the United States - because of the 14-day quarantine rule here. Is that something the Canadiens are looking at as well?

Our hope is that the government would accept that, if our players are being tested every day, that it would be safe for them to be able to play before the 14-day period. Dr. Mulder is working with doctors in Quebec, the National Hockey League is working with doctors at the federal level, and we would absolutely want to be able to have that adjusted for us because we want to be able to have players train here, in Montreal. If it will have an impact on our performance or our ability to prepare for the playoffs, we'll find another solution. But today, our priority is to find a solution here at home.

Questions from John Lu, TSN

With respect to the release the club put out last week related to addressing racial inequality, I'm wondering what steps would you like to see the Canadiens undertake in terms of trying to support racial equality and the movements like Black Lives Matter given the type of influence the Canadiens have in the sports world and society at large, especially in Quebec society.

As you saw, last week, we issued a statement, we also had really heartfelt statements from our players such as Shea Weber and Brendan Gallagher. The whole world appears to be behind this, and for us, we will continue to support it, support the movement. With everything we do, we have been, and we will always be very welcoming of all fans and all spectators to any of our events. And certainly, we'll follow this as it goes along, and be very supportive of it.

In light of [the statements] of high profile NHLers like Jonathan Toews and Braden Holtby, do you sense a societal revolution within the League, too, especially when you consider Akim Aliu's column a couple weeks ago that addressed the questions of racism in hockey, do you see that there are steps being made that will improve the state of race relations within the NHL, given that players have spoken out on that issue?

I sure do believe we will, and I hope we will. The NHL has a task force of people that are dedicated to this to increase the respect for diversity in the NHL and across all teams. I'm entirely behind it.

Question from John Clipperton, The Canadian Press

We've seen other leagues come out in favor of a player's right to protest against police brutality and racial injustice, I'm just wondering if you think the NHL needs to draft something similar and what would be your reaction as an owner if a player raised a fist or took a knee during the anthems this summer?

I think that every player has a right to express themselves and we've seen it so much in the past couple of weeks, and I fully support that. The individuals have the right to protest however they want, or not protest however they want. For me, the most important thing is that I believe it's an important cause, and I believe our organization will continue to do what it can to support making it better for the next generation. And that's what we'll do. And based on the letters that our players wrote, I believe they're behind that as well. If we can find ways to contribute and make a difference, we will do it.

Question from Jessica Rusnak, CBC Montreal

Prior to the pandemic putting the season on hold, it was going to be the third-straight year that the Habs were going to miss the playoffs. Could you explain to fans why you believe that Marc Bergevin is the right person to have in place despite his recent track record?

Taking a step back a couple of years, we made some significant changes to our organization. Depending on who you were, everyone had a different word for what we were doing, but I'll call it a reset for now.

In the first year of our reset last season, we had a really strong year. In fact, I think we probably outperformed over what most of our fans expected. The hope going into this season was to go into Year 2 and build off of that. But we had an eight-game losing streak in late fall that we fought back really hard from to get back into the into the playoff race - just in time to have another eight game losing streak, and it was it was virtually impossible for us to get over that second one.

That doesn't mean that we don't have a solid plan. I think we ran into some roadblocks - and this is not an excuse - but we had some injuries. Perhaps our team wasn't deep enough overall to overcome some of those injuries, and we need to work on that.

I still believe that we have an extremely exciting next few years ahead of us. I believe that we have a great core group of veterans that are going to lead us through this. We have some young players that are already on the team that we know are going to contribute. We've got some prospects coming that we are very hopeful about. The plan overall has been well executed, despite some performance issues that we had this season.

On top of that we have 14 draft picks coming up in this year's Draft, and who knows what we can do with those; that's something that Marc is going to work on.

I always take a step back, because it's very difficult to make a decision based on a short period of time. When we embarked on this plan two years ago, we made a commitment to be successful with it. We haven't reached that goal yet, but we sure believe that we have a good plan.