Randy Phillips, Paul Cherry

Allegations that three of his players are friends with a suspected drug dealer serve as a cautionary tale, Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey said Friday.

Gainey was responding to questions about a series of stories, published in Friday's La Presse, a Montreal French-language daily newspaper, linking brothers Sergei and Andrei Kostitsyn and defenceman Roman Hamrlik to Pasquale Mangiola, a 38-year-old man arrested last week in Project Axe, a major crackdown on Montreal street gangs linked to the Hells Angels.

"We're very concerned. Very concerned because we know that this person who became involved with these players, he's not the only person who wants to find a place to enter the inner area of the hockey team," Gainey said. "We turn people away every day. And it could be a sports psychologist, masseuses, somebody with any kind of program that wants to find a way into the inside of the team and have access to our players, and the Montreal Canadiens as an organization."

Gainey said many of the people who approach his players are well intentioned.

"But there are also not good people who are looking for trophy friends or the possibility of being close to somebody who earns a million dollars-plus. Young people who are still developing their ability to reason, take in information. They're still young kids. Some of them could still be in high school."

According to La Presse, during Project Axe, Mangiola was revealed to be close friends with the Kostitsyn brothers and knew Hamrlik to a lesser extent.

One story, quoting unnamed sources, alleges the Kostitsyn brothers called Mangiola often "when then wanted something. Like bottles of vodka, luxury cars, women, etc."

Mangiola and the Kostitsyns were also observed partying together at restaurants and bars in downtown Montreal.

A court document, related to Project Axe and obtained by the Montreal Gazette, indicates Magnolia was a resourceful person to call for a good time.

The document, a request to execute a special search warrant last week, mentions that Mangiola was arrested and released on July 23 while being investigated in Project Axe.

After his release, he was overheard on a wiretap allegedly worrying over a stash of nearly 600 Cialis pills and two ounces of hashish the police had yet to discover.

The pills, intended to help treat erectile dysfunction, are a hot commodity as a party drug.

Mangiola was unavailable for comment Friday.

Two people who know him well said neither they nor Mangiola was interested in being interviewed.

The special warrant was requested because although Mangiola often lists his address as being in a different part of the city from where he actually resided while under investigation.

According to La Presse, Mangiola, whose criminal record includes convictions for assaulting a police officer and using a fake or forged credit card, has close ties to Dany Cadet-Sprinces, an influential member of the Syndicate, a street gang formed by the Hells Angels in the late 1990s.

Cadet-Sprinces was behind bars in a federal penitentiary during the entire Project Axe investigation.