To be honest, the story surrounding the naming of a new men's national team coach could have been written on Thursday when the Canadian Soccer Association sent out a press release alluding to Friday's teleconference.

I am not saying I am Kreskin, I am saying the CSA is predictable.

I also cannot speak for everyone who dialed in to hear the details of the announcement, but I am going to make an educated guess that nobody was surprised when the attendee list was announced and Stephen Hart's name was called alongside Dr. Dominique Maestracci, Peter Montopoli and the moderators.

Nor were we further surprised when Hart was later introduced as an interim.

I hate temporary solutions to permanent problems. Coach in the interim, not as one. I never understood the adjective or its need. Semantics maybe; but in the psychological sense of things, I think not.

If the CSA has a plan and will stick to it once the Gold Cup is seen out, then so be it -- but precedent is not on its side. In naming Hart an interim it automatically places an unnecessary emphasis on the next move, even before Hart has made his first. The long-time servant of Canadian soccer seems like a genuine individual, one that may have no problem stepping aside as coach when a replacement is named.

So now, what it all means is that a man with a clear vision on the field is once again saddled with the responsibility of covering up an association that is unable to match it off the field.

What was it that Barrack Obama said about lipstick and pigs?

Hart is a worthy candidate and his resume begins and ends with the semi-final run he orchestrated at the 2007 Gold Cup. In that tournament the long-suffering supporters of the Canadian game reveled in soccer played at its best; it was a free-flowing, talent-first-formation-last game that had every country in CONCACAF watching in disbelief. But while we watched we also knew the interim tag was the elephant in the room.

In the days to follow the Dale Mitchell regime took the reins and the boring blanket smothered what Hart worked so hard to showcase. In 2007 the Gold Cup team scored nine goals in five games in what was a great three weeks of soccer.

Hart's ambiguity at the teleconference over the future of veterans like Dwayne De Rosario and Jim Brennan may actually be insight in to what we can expect at the upcoming friendly with Cyprus and the subsequent Gold Cup: young players playing in a young man's game, just like in '07.

But along with the ambiguity of Hart's selection process comes the ambiguity of his job as for the second-straight Gold Cup he will operate as an interim, and win or lose, when the Gold Cup is over the men's program will be right back to where it was on Thursday when the press release arrived in my inbox.