The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Mario Cecchini - QMJHL Commissioner

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Jeff Marek sits down with Mario Cecchini, Commissioner of the QMJHL, for a deep dive into the latest developments shaping the league. From the exciting announcement of the 2025 Memorial Cup heading to Rimouski, to the strategic initiatives aimed at player development and league growth, Cecchini offers an inside look at the present and future of major junior hockey in Quebec and the Maritimes. He also reflects on his journey as commissioner, the evolving role of the league, and how the QMJHL is positioning itself as a key pipeline to the prosShout out to our sponsors!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼Ninja Kitchen Canada: https://www.ninjakitchen.ca/products/ninja-crispi-4-in-1-portable-glass-air-fryer-cooking-system-zidFN101CGY?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=olv&utm_campaign=25Q2-Crispi&utm_content=en👍🏼Budweiser: https://www.budweiser.ca/ca_enReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Pleased to be joined by the commissioner of the Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League, Mario Cicchini. Mario, thanks so much for doing this. I know it's a very busy time, so I very much appreciate your time today. How are you today? No problem. It's my pleasure and I'm feeling good. I know that tonight one Q team will win. It's the nature of the tournament. We've seen it before. Listen, you very well recall there was a long stretch where the Western Hockey League couldn't win a game year after year and now all of a sudden, Medicine Hat is running the table three and oh into the final on Sunday.

One thing that I know about you that someone told me is a really nice touch that you do. And a couple of people have mentioned this to me, Mario. As commissioner, you like to visit every single rink in your league every year, like you'll get in the car and you will drive to all of these ranks. Now, Rimouski is hosting this year. Rimouski has a long history.

And we think of Sydney and Brad Richards and Vinny LeCavillier, et cetera. What are you thinking? Like you're driving to Rimouski. What is going through your mind when you're going to this, you know, venerable, great junior hockey market? It's, it's very inspiring. You are absolutely right.

You know, between Crosby, Le Cavelier, La Frenière, our most recent first overall draft pick in 2019. Rimouski is a, is a, they literally call themselves La Terre des Champions, the land of champions. And they have those bragging rights. I mean, and they, and you probably are familiar with the Taguays. They do exceptional work in organizing. I slept very well over the past 18 months knowing that this was going to be a superb Memorial Cup and so far so good. Like everything I'm hearing from the logistics around it, the ice, the ice,

everything is perfect and we like it that way. And going into this one, you know, I looked at the teams and you know, Madison Hat is loaded with stars and London Nights are, you know, a Cadillac franchise in the CHL. I personally looked at watching all season long. I'm not saying to myself, like I think Moncton is the best team in the CHL. I personally look at watching all season long. I'm not saying to myself, like I think Moncton is the best team in the CHL and Wormuski is right there in the, in the Q final. It's an excellent squad.

I looked at this on paper and said, this has the makings of one of the best Memorial Cups we've ever seen. And the games have been great. Every single game is close. There's no blowouts. These are like from the opening faceoff to the final buzzer. These have all been competitive games. Oh You're absolutely right. I mean I've been quoted a lot last week saying Risking not a specialist like you are but I was saying this looks to me like a very very

Competitive group very close-knit. Yeah, and so far it's been, aside from the empty goal, it's been one goal game in every game and one in overtime. So every one of the games could have been won by either team. And that's the way we like it from a showcase point of view. These players are, they don't even look like they've played close to a hundred games. I mean, they skate, they're not tired, they give it all out. The crowds, as you've seen, the building is full, whether it's a musky or the queue is playing, so even last night there's a full pool thing.

So it's, they appreciate their hockey, they know their hockey, believe me, when you walk to the fans, I get a little piece of their opinion sometimes. It's really, really, really fun to see, fun to watch. This is the ultimate point of the season. We'll have a very interesting weekend because I don't think, to your point, the Tigers made it to the finals, but I'm sure they are sitting there today by no means are they thinking that it's going to be an easy win on Sunday if they win. It's going to be a tough game because it's all been one goal game.

So they need to be on top of your game. Looking forward to tonight. You know, I mentioned off the top that, you know, you like to drive to all these arenas and, you know, hey, listen, Newfoundland's on the horizon next season too, so you get to go to one of the best places in the entire country. Why is that important to you? Like, there's a couple of other Q issues

that I wanna get to, but I'm curious, from a commissioner's point of view, it seems like this is near and dear to your heart. Why does this matter to you? Well, you mean about Newfoundland? No, no, I mean like going to every single rink. Oh, well listen, my upbringing was in radio, in media. And as you know, contrary to TV

where it's all centralized production, it would be Toronto, Montreal, and it's the same everywhere, radio still lead the opposite. So I was brought up going to markets, feeling the place, understanding what people go through and obviously being driven by the local market. Like what actually matters to these people. So when I go to the city, I sit with everybody. You know, usually it's going to be the president, the social person, the marketing person,

the ticketing person. We have meetings all day in most places. And, cause I get to talk a lot to the ownership but I don't get like the daily stories that you will never get if you don't set foot in the arena. Then I get to see the building, sometimes meet the mayors, meet the city, meet the minister even in some cases when there's when we wanna rebuild some arenas or ask for funding.

So you need to do this in my opinion to get the pulse of every city of every city and every situation that might arise. So I'm totally in tuned with the ownership group and the challenges that they face. But nothing beats meeting the people face to face and hearing it from the end firsthand. You know, I'm glad you brought up your background in media because you and I overlapped in a couple of places. I started at telemedia. Back in 1995, I started telemedia

and then from there I transitioned to chorus. Now you were of course based in Quebec and then I was in Ontario, but like you, I grew up, radio was my first love. I can still remember my father taking a little radio. My mom would send me to bed, midweek games. I couldn't stay up to watch all three periods. And my dad, my dad would put a little radio under my pillow.

And so I listened to hockey as much as I watched hockey. I mean, the media environment right now is more competitive and more different than it's ever been I mean you've seen it from the sort of root to the fruit now from the very big the beginnings of you know hockey on radio To now social media and streaming etc What are the challenges that? The Quebec the Quebec Junior League faces not unlike the OHL in the Western hockey but the that the Quebec Junior League faces, not unlike the OHL and the Western Hawkeye, but the Quebec Maritime Junior League face

when it comes to how to handle media and how do we get a big megaphonic voice to our sports? Well, the challenge right now, mostly, I would go back to what you just said, and I so much relate to your story about the radio because I went to bed every night. There was a show on CKC, a flagship telemedia station in Montreal,

that had a little score recaps at 11 p.m. So I would be a flightless, do what happened. But the local aspect of it, I think is our biggest challenge. We are so, with our teams entrenched in the community, 10 years ago, you would do a press conference after a game or a coach or the commissioner would go to the city. You'd have still five, six, seven people in front of you at the local level. Today, we don't. Today, I go and I have CBC in

in Shikutsumi who's asking me to repeat what I just said because she's also covering Abitsibi and she wants me to use a Huawei example but saying what I just said. And of course we help them out. So to me the fact that there were cutbacks unfortunately due to the situation, the economic context of traditional media and locally it suffers outside of the big centers it suffers a lot and then when you get to the big centers even they actually have probably not enough people to go around and actually visit the team they want to do you know different things that are make their life a bit easier so it's

challenging and and and less people makes it that the bigger stories of the professional sports always obviously make it on top and then less room for us to battle around and less people in the station doing sports means less voice at the table also to get some more minutes on air. So it's complicated. It's going to be a challenge moving forward. But unfortunately, we reinvent ourselves and shows like yours, for instance, right now allows us to have a reach that is also that we have to now come to realize that that's the trend and that's the way it's gonna be. And we just need to make sure that some of your shows, some of the podcasts and so on gather more and more. Maybe there's gonna be a consolidation one day

of all of these things. So there's still huge crowds that get to a place because you and I grew up in radio and sometimes we obviously always complain about the CRTC I'm sure but no but it's it's it's it's you realize when you leave a protected environment where nobody can just put up a stick and start the fan 592 you know the duplicate you need to still have time to prepare versus arriving just like this. So it's a different environment. We need to get used to it. And

I always say I'm not sure I don't want to use the word it's unfortunate. But I, I think, I think there's something missing where there's, there's a place where you can have a huge gathering and a huge crowd, either TV or radio. So it's a new world, obviously, being a new world all the time. It's a new world. I do understand, though, at the same time as well, despite all the challenges of marketing and media that attendance in the Quebec league is up,

I believe, and that's wonderful. That's great news. Listen, there's a lot of challenges and the big story around junior hockey is, I don't wanna call it the threat, but the reality now is that junior players can go and play in NCAA hockey. Um, and that is, that's, that's seismic change. Like that is complete sea change and has changed,

you know, every conversation and has changed the realities about, about being a junior hockey player. You know, one of the things that we all wonder about here is what can junior leagues do to encourage players to stay? And the one thing that I've wondered about is have you ever considered, like just bluntly, Mario, have you ever considered, and we're talking about, you know, the first round picks, superstar players, paying them, paying them to stay.

Well, right now we have a student athlete status, so we have to be very, very, very careful about that. But there is sponsoring possibilities. So the teams right now as we speak cannot pay them directly, but can a local automotive dealer sponsor a player directly, have a sponsorship deal, that's doable and that's possible. And that's within the frame of the regulator that we live in. So that's where we may want to turn our hats to, to your point, I don't think it's probably one player per team at most, you know, call him a franchise player,

for example, you know, for a term that we know well in sports. Those are our thought process right now. We have a board next week and certainly I'm sure we're going to spend a lot of time discussing as a group because as a group and as three leagues actually, we faced a wall along those lines, you know, respecting regulation, but wanting to keep our players. Obviously, I could go on, Jeff, about everything we do and what I think when you're your junior year when you're 19 and you become a leader and typically you may wear a

leather, you know, a C or an A on your jersey and you play 19, 20 minutes and maybe your PP and your PK and that's when you shine a lot and you learn to be a leader, which is important in the development of any player slash person versus going back to if you're not top six in the NCAA, which is a league's man, you know, average age 20 can be very different, you might, it's as if you start over your 16 year old year in junior while not completing all the loop. I know money can be attractive, I know all that, but hopefully some agents, you know, and everybody, parents and us discuss this situation because I think they have it very, very good overall from a human standpoint, how they develop with us to go the whole course.

But to your point, we're not naive enough to know that we can just stay there and just say that. So we are looking at options, but we need to respect the scope of the regulation right now. Of course. Can I throw one more idea your way? Of course. One of the things I was thinking about earlier

when all this happened, like, okay, so how can CHL teams make this attractive to keep players? And the education package is very sacred in all three leagues. Has there ever been conversation about making the education packages transferable to a family member, someone else as a way like, hey, you know what, stay here. We know you're probably not gonna use your education package.

You're gonna go on to the NHL, et cetera. You can transfer that education package. Interestingly enough, since November, it's, I had not heard it before. I was told by Gilles Corteau, the former mathematician, that it was like when it was in the beginning of when school scholarships and the old idea started, which is back in the 80s, I believe, or early 90s. It was sort of you know broached as an idea but dispersed very very quickly. It came back up since November 7, the famous date when the NCP officially voted in that new rule. It's something that I would not say Jeff it's on the table right now like it's not right now

contemplated but it's been mentioned so I would not be surprised that a team or two brings it up actually, as I said, next week and part of the conversation. And yes, maybe it's a very good way to me. I can definitely see a family member or a mother or a dad just saying, listen, part of the decision-making process here is your brother or your sister being involved in the process, so it becomes a family issue. It could be interesting. It could be interesting.

Okay. I might have ideas now. Now I'm just back to just a question. That's it. I've got two ideas and after that I'm tapped in. Great ideas. Great ideas. Listen, in Ontario League, we almost saw Muskegon come into the OHL, Youngstown as well.

I know US expansion is important to the Quebec League as well. Is that still a front burner issue for the Q, getting the tentacles into the United States? Yeah, well, and actually, the first answer is always we want to get to 20 teams as fast as we can from from eight from 18 for your listeners. We have 18 in the cube. And yes, the states have been in contact with one or two cities down there. It is it is right now a discussion that we need to have with USA Hockey and Hockey Canada for that matter

on the rebound of the conversation of USA hockey about sanctioning and making sure that everything is in order again based on the regulation. So we will have those, we had, I mean, I met USA hockey at the Four Nations Cup in Boston in February. We met again at the NHL meetings in March. We said we'll touch base in July, But at one point, we'll need action, and we'll need to have a decision to move forward

in order for us to decide a course of action that I would prefer be within the scope of regulations right now, obviously. And then we'll advise on where we go. So we either, we are looking at the states, we're looking at the States. We're looking at the some of Quebec territories also. So hopefully by, you know, a couple of seasons, three at most, we have 20. And if we're lucky enough, maybe 22 teams.

So that's definitely in the front burner. One final question. I know it's something, like it's something that I've changed my mind on. And I think it, I'll be blunt. I think it's a by-product of having kids myself. And I think a lot of people have gone through this and that's fighting in junior hockey.

I know that's something that you've been at the forefront of trying to eradicate. Once upon a time, it wasn't an issue for me. And then I had kids and now I get that I'm a hypocrite. All of a sudden that now I have a skin in the game. All of a sudden now I'm turned around on it, but I just find teenagers fighting and hockey distasteful. I'll just be blunt. I know that you've tried to do what you can do at your level to rid the queue of fighting. where is that challenge now for you? Are you happy with where it's at?

Would you like your league to do more? Where are you at on that, Mario? Well, first of all, to give perspective to your listener, because I know you know your numbers well, the, we went from, you know, close to 200 fights. Then it was down the last year to above like between 125 and 150, if I remember correctly. Don't quote me on this, verify me, but I'm above 100. We now, the past two years where we basically, you're thrown out of the game and at the second fight, so you're sort

of, you're allowed to lose your temper once over the season, but you're still out of the game. Then the second fight, you get a game suspension on top of it and then in multiple plots. We were aiming, we were guessing, I would say more guessing, we're not aiming to have fights, but we were guessing that still the emotion of the game, the ambits maybe, we will have between, some were saying 50, some other were saying 25.

We actually landed at 34 and 39 for the past three years. Out of 600 and, you know, around 600 games, because we also cut the number of games from 68 to 64. So 612 games the first year, 576 this year. So by our key terms, people call it reasonable. I still think it's, you know think it's 39 too much. I agree, kids and players need to understand to control their emotions.

I come from the Alouettes, as probably I know, the Alouettes. Very tough football, you know, it's very tough. You get contact every, every play. Players go on there to contact every play. Unlike hockey, you can be on a shift and not be hit at all. And everybody controls their emotions mostly. So I think we're on the right track.

I think what I like the most is when the parents tell me, you know, my kid won't tell you but he's very happy. That's when I know that we're doing a good job because I totally understand the team effort and I don't. And believe me, I like a good body check. I want to be clear on this. Like we never tell anyone, don't use the rules.

You can be pretty much intimidating. When I say that, I mean sports-wise, competitive-wise with a good body check in front of the net or cross-ice using your elbow, getting the guy right here. He's going to remember you next time and he may lose a second or two. To me, it's probably a bigger impact than a fight mostly. So I do agree and to what you said at the beginning, I do tell a lot of people sometimes, I still have the occasional person that comes to me and say, why did you do this, blah, blah, blah.

My first question is always, do you have kids? Happen to me. Happen to me. Like, would you like to see your kids fighting the ice? It leads to, it's not, I'm very happy with our rule. And right now we're always evaluating stuff, but right now it seems to do, It did a lot of good so far. Excellent.

Listen, um, bon chance, uh, so swah Ramouski a Moncton, uh, and we'll see what happens. It's been a great, it's been a great tournament so far. You must be thrilled with this. I'm absolutely thrilled. As we said in the beginning, it's great. The city is, is alive with hockey. It's beautiful. So I don't know if you've ever been, but we've got the river is majestic. Oh, it's beautiful. The city is is alive with hockey. It's beautiful. I don't know if you've ever been, but got the river is majestic.

Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah. Next to the hotel is super beautiful. And and tonight we'll have unfortunately one cute team that will be eliminated. And then then I'll be able to cheer again on Friday night. If you look with it, we don't get to cheer often, but as of Friday, for sure, I'll be able to cheer for the next two games for our guys. So very. Yeah, I get that. It's tough to choose between your kids I get it but free and clear after tonight thank you for doing this much appreciate I probably kept it too long but thank you so much for this much appreciate it

Murray thank you very much and Viva Telemedia Every day this week, every day this month I can't get out my head Lost all ambitions day to day Guess I can call it a ride I went to the dark man He tried to give me a little medicine I'm like, nah man, that's fine I'm not against those methods but I knew

It's me, myself and Alice gonna be fixing my mind Do you wanna break it? I turned on the music I do wanna break it I turned on the music Fixing up, up, out, can't you sometimes lose it? Helping on the days that went wrong