Thank you for the question.
We call it a real turnaround. We arrived with a very ambitious platform. I come from professional sports. I learned a lot there about the business side of it.
We were able to build the best team. We have the number two from the Miami Dolphins and the number two from Nike.
I just told all those Canadians who were away to come with me. We were going to make something great for this country. There were already fantastic people at the COC, such as the chief sport officer, Caroline Assalian, and others. We even got the director of communications for the Prime Minister of Canada. You have to really look for the best.
To build a team that is making a transition and making the whole Canadian Olympic Committee what it should be we first put the athletes at the middle of everything we do.
What influenced me a lot was that there is a parade for the Stanley Cup and a parade for the Grey Cup. But what about a parade for the athletes? They do a lot more.
I had a hidden life when I owned the Nordiques. I was helping the amateur athletes in great secrecy. If you talk to Sylvie Bernier, Caroline Brunet, and Pierre Harvey, they will tell you that Marcel did something for them. There is no secret there. I really felt that those athletes had something special. I'm not saying that mine were not good, but mine were playing as a team and also were making millions of dollars. Those ones were not making any dollars, and they were playing, usually, individually. When I saw a family, a couple, just destroyed by the dreams of the kid, that really influenced me.
After I left professional hockey, it was just natural to make the whole circle and help my country as far as amateur sport was concerned. That's why I did that. I wanted to give back. But I wanted to give back with a very precise plan in mind, which is to absolutely put the athlete in the middle and to do it the way I've done anything before, with the best team of Canadians you can find. They are dedicated to the cause. That's why you see so many changes.
We want visibility for the athletes 365 days a year. We just discovered, and for me it is a discovery, that the best asset of this country is those athletes. That's the best we can offer.