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Philippe
Ducarroz
Indeed,
when I first met my grandfather… who is Belgian at an
ice hockey match,
I could not guess without the shadow of a doubt that the
puck was going to occupy such a considerable place in my
life.
Professional or private. I must have been six or seven
years old and Fribourg was
campaigning in the bosom of the not so-enthusiastic
first league and in an ice rink already in another time
where water was dripping along the rock which was used
as fences. A first cultural shock, that is of finding
oneself in an antic arena of the Augustinians which was
going to allow me to experience, a couple of years later,
my first emotions … in sports.
It is March 4th 1980. The city would only swear by its
hockey club, the HC Gottéron, and a very tall and blond
moustache Canadian of such sickly shyness who often left
me wondering how a man so withdrawn outside the midst of
ice could become one of the best champion players. An
artist, a guy who would steal the puck behind his own
net, who would skate across the ice rink in the purpose
of misleading the goal keeper of the opponents who
wouldn’t have noticed anything.
So this was
what Canadian hockey was meant, involving class, speed,
determination. from Lussier, I always longed for more.
Lussier, Canada, Lussier, Canada, Lussier two
indissociable words which longtime afterwards led me
very logically – to Cowansville, not so far from
Montreal, in the residence of a former hockey player,
who became a postal worker and in charge of a golf
circuit.
As for…Jean
Lussier, the moustache shaved off, a few years older.
Another cultural shock, a (re)discovery of a character
who eventually turned out to be very banal, what he has
always claimed. Banal considering the Idol of my youth (with
Eddy Merckx) wasn’t anything else but the perfect
summary of a Canadian that I used to think as
traditional: warm, respectful, almost anxious of
imposing his presence.
Not only Montreal, Quebec, but also Toronto, Calgary,
Hull, Troisrivères, Chicoutimi not to mention a few ones
of my journeys during the following years. Well, there
are as many high places about this ice hockey which led
me, one day, to discover such a country and its people
that are so inviting for their own selves. A call for an
invitation to go back there… |
