TVA Sports and LCN: Frédérique Guay, a jack-of-all-trades

Curious and passionate about everything, Frédérique Guay is professionally fulfilled this fall by being assigned to cover, among other things, the Montreal Impact’s activities at TVA Sports and as a weekend news reader at LCN.

Additional source of excitement for the journalist: the Impact will be pushing the ball for the first time since 2016 in the Major League Soccer (MLS) playoffs, starting this Friday.

Frédérique Guay will of course have a front row seat with her colleagues Frédéric Lord, Vincent Destouches and Hassoun Camara to report on the highlights of the upcoming matches at TVA Sports, which broadcasts the MLS series exclusively in French.

“It has been such a complicated and difficult year for the whole team that, under the circumstances, it’s quite impressive,” comments Frédérique Guay in an interview about the Impact. This is Thierry Henri’s first year at the helm of the team; he has been criticized a lot, but remains that he led his team in the playoffs for the first time in four years. ”

Without risking the game of predictions, the observer judges that “anything can happen” for the Montreal gang in the stage which begins on Friday.

« I do not count them for beaten », she analyzes.

Telling the horror

Normally, this year, Frédérique Guay would have traveled across the United States with the Impact. A certain pandemic having forced her to stay at home, the communicator nevertheless had the chance to tackle another great challenge by settling down at LCN’s desk on the weekend.

She who has previously dabbled in everything in the TVA Sports studios since the channel opened in 2011 – from reading headlines to co-hosting with Dave Morissette, including covering a bit of all sports, including tennis, her big hobbyhorse – is also a former law student who is a regular in the mainstream, who is interested in science as well as in American politics.

“It feeds me even more. I really feel like I have the best of both worlds, with the Impact and sport on one side, and the news on the other. I am stimulated from all points of view at the moment ”, specifies the native of Quebec, who had the heavy task of recounting the horror of the drama of Old Quebec on the air the day after Halloween.

“It was my first time doing a type show breaking news. It was an accelerated learning process, information was trickling in. It was particularly disturbing to keep track of events and describe places that I know perfectly well, since I have lived twice rather than once in Old Quebec. ”

Without sexism

Frédérique Guay, who had officiated at RDS before moving to TVA Sports, reports that she has never encountered any difficulty in carving out a place for herself in her workplace because she is a woman. Earlier this week, former journalist and host Danielle Rainville, the first woman in Quebec to host a sports radio show, told TVA Sports that she had come up against a host of prejudices.

Nearly forty years later, Frédérique Guay, one of his worthy heirs, considers that mentalities have evolved.

“From the outset, I always wanted to do my homework as much as possible,” she notes. To be honest, it didn’t affect me that much. I might have been a little blind at times, but I would be lying if I said it really put a damper on my career. I don’t feel like I’ve experienced a lot of sexism. Certainly a little bit, but I mostly remember the good times. I don’t have any trauma (laughs). ”

The host agrees, however: women in the sports world may receive more comments about their appearance and image than their male colleagues.

« It is important for me that my work is recognized more than my look. When I receive messages, people who write to me only that I am beautiful, often, I do not bother to answer them. If they talk to me about my work, then I answer, as much as possible, when I have time to do so, ”informs Frédérique.

TVA Sports will present the meeting between the Montreal Impact and the New England Revolution this Friday at 6:30 p.m. A pre-match program including an interview with coach Thierry Henri will precede at 6 p.m.