French Connection

From the NHL’s debut in 1917, when Georges Vezina came out of the northern Quebec town of Chicoutimi and earned the nickname “the Chicoutimi Cucumber” for his coolness under siege, goaltenders from the Canadian province of Quebec have been well represented among the top players in the league.

Jacques Plante of Shawinigan Falls, a town between Montreal and Quebec City, became synonymous with goaltending in the 1950s and became the first goalie to regularly wear a mask. Plante, a six-time Stanley Cup champion, wrote a book about goaltending that many goalies still consider their bible.

Memorable for his name and his steady play, Montreal native Lorne “Gump” Worsley played 22 NHL seasons from the 1950s through the early 1970s and won the Cup four times with the Montreal Canadiens.

There’s also Montreal-born Bernie Parent, who led the Philadelphia Flyers to the Cup in 1974 and 1975 and became the first player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs two years in a row.

But never has there been such an influx of Quebec-born and/or Quebec-trained goalies as the NHL has seen in the last 15 years or so. It’s no coincidence that’s when Quebec City native Patrick Roy, then with Montreal and now with Colorado, became a star and elevated the status of goalies from the last guy chosen in pickup games to the position every kid in Quebec wants to play.

If not for Roy, Mighty Duck goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere, the talk of the playoffs with his 1.22 goals-against average and .960 save percentage, and his New Jersey counterpart, Martin Brodeur, might not be standing at opposite ends of the ice when the Stanley Cup finals start tonight at Continental Airlines Arena.

“It’s probably attributable to Roy, because when you were a kid, you tended to play the position of the player you idolized. Most people do,” David McNab, the Mighty Ducks’ assistant general manager and a former goalie, said of the increasing number of Quebec goalies.

“Western Canadians idolized [Wayne] Gretzky and they’re all forwards. I was a goalie. I idolized Glenn Hall. These kids idolize Roy and become goalies because of Roy, and then other kids look up to them, so it just keeps going.”

No longer is the net reserved for kids who can’t skate -- as it was for Plante, who had asthma and couldn’t keep up as a forward or defenseman. Nor is it the place of last resort for someone’s kid brother or sister.

Roy, who also excelled at tennis, glamorized playing goal at a time when cable TV made hockey more widely available and when pride in their French heritage was an important issue for French-speaking residents of Quebec, known as Quebecois. He enjoyed his greatest results after working with Francois Allaire, a former minor league goalie who has made a science of playing goal by breaking it down to its physical and mental components and advocating the butterfly style as the most efficient method to achieve consistency and success.

When Roy joined the Montreal Canadiens, he was put under the tutelage of Allaire, then the goaltending coach for the Canadiens and now the goaltending coach for the Ducks. Within two years, Roy zoomed to prominence by leading the Canadiens to the Cup, a feat he repeated in 1993.

“It used to be that people wanted to score goals and go one or two in the draft and make a lot more money than everyone else,” said Rogie Vachon, who grew up listening to hockey on the radio on a farm near Palmarole, Quebec, and had a distinguished career with the Canadiens, Kings, Boston Bruins and Detroit Red Wings. “When Patrick Roy was successful, all of a sudden kids wanted to be like him.

“And the money for goalies pretty much was equal to other players, so kids liked that. So you have the top athletes wanting to be goalies instead of wanting to score. The talent pool has been phenomenal the last 15 years.”

While Roy was establishing himself as a clutch goalie with above-average puckhandling ability, Allaire and his brother, Benoit, were establishing their hockey school as a goalie factory. According to Francois, the school he and his brother run each summer in Sainte-Therese, north of Montreal, has produced 60 goalies who have been drafted by NHL teams over the last 15 years. Giguere attended every summer as a kid and later worked at the camp, teaching other aspiring goalies.

The camp lasts merely three weeks, but it’s so rigorous that Francois Allaire said campers are encouraged to enroll for no longer than a week at a time. Ages range from 7 up.

“Some guys are coming from Europe, so they come for two weeks,” said Allaire, who has also written an instructional guide for young goalies. “We tell them to take a week in between. It’s pretty intense.”

Benoit, goaltending coach for the Phoenix Coyotes, and Francois also instruct female goalies at their camp. Among their students are Kim St.-Pierre, a member of the Canadian national women’s team, and Charline Labonte, who became the second woman to play in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League when she joined the Acadie-Bathurst Titan several years ago.

Quebec goalies accounted for nearly one-quarter of all NHL goalies this season. Last season, Jose Theodore of Laval, a northern suburb of Montreal, won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goalie and the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player while playing for the Canadiens.

“In my days, we didn’t have any goalie schools,” Vachon said. “We learned from our own mistakes. Now, these kids are so well prepared. They grow up doing the right things.”

Other prominent members of the Quebec goalie fraternity active in the NHL are Minnesota’s Manny Fernandez, Ottawa’s Patrick Lalime, Vancouver’s Dan Cloutier, Buffalo’s Martin Biron, the Kings’ Felix Potvin, Chicago’s Jocelyn Thibault, Florida’s Roberto Luongo, Pittsburgh’s Jean-Sebastien Aubin and Sebastien Caron and Columbus’ Marc Denis and Jean-Francois L’Abbe.

And there are more coming. Maxime Ouellet, a Washington prospect, is expected to battle for the Capitals’ starting job next season, and Marc-Andre Fleury, a member of Canada’s silver medal-winning team at the world junior championships, is expected to be chosen early in the June entry draft.

Duck General Manager Bryan Murray credits the Allaires for starting the boom in Quebec netminders.

“It’s because of the goaltending schools that are going on there,” Murray said. “The success of Patrick Roy was a big influence, but Francois Allaire and his brother Benoit started their school and these kids are getting great training and a great education. More of the kids who are good athletes want to become goalies. Youngsters get their heroes and want to be like them, so it keeps going....

“Another good thing about hockey in Quebec is that there’s no hitting allowed until the kids are 14. There’s more skill development so goaltenders have to develop quicker, because they’re facing better shots. Junior games in Quebec are higher scoring than in other leagues. I think the contact game is important, but for young people to be able to play without fear of being run into the boards, that’s great. And it makes it tougher on the goalies.”

Giguere and Brodeur are prime examples of the Quebec goalie trend, although they’re not identical in style. They’re physically imposing in full armor -- Giguere is 6 feet 1 and 199 pounds, while Brodeur is 6-2 and 210 pounds -- and both fill a lot of the net. Giguere’s style emphasizes calculating angles, staying square to shooters, and recovering quickly when he drops down to repel a low shot.

“I think technically, he’s as good as anybody out there, and he’s playing with a lot of confidence,” Brodeur said.

Brodeur plays the puck more than Giguere does and probably flops more too.

Giguere is particularly good at keeping his arms tight to his body and not letting shots get through him, a problem that plagues many goalies and was one of Curtis Joseph’s downfalls in the Red Wings’ first-round loss to the Ducks.

Giguere has been taught by Allaire to focus on shots to the point of tunnel vision, make shooters commit first on odd-man breaks, and deal with the first shot without worrying about possible rebounds.

Giguere handles the puck less than Roy and some other goalies, but he said that wasn’t always the case; early in his career he handled the puck quite a bit but cut back because of the unpredictability of caroms off the boards and glass at the Pond.

“I’ve been watching almost every game and I’m totally impressed with Giguere and what he’s doing,” said Vachon, a longtime King employee who no longer works for the club but remains active in its alumni association.

“His fundamental game is almost perfect right now.... He makes it look easy. He’s always in good position. I’m pulling for him.”

Brodeur praised Giguere’s accomplishments but said the Devils must avoid over-thinking and waiting for a perfect shot when they shoot at him.

“You come in on him and you try to get too fancy, and the next thing you know you’re shooting at the duck,” Brodeur said, referring to the logo in the middle of Giguere’s chest.

“It’s important to just keep going and not think you have to make a perfect shot.”

As with any style or tactic that works, the butterfly style espoused by Roy and Giguere is likely to spawn dozens of imitators.

“Giguere just turned 26 -- he’ll be around another 10 years at least,” Murray said. “He’s going to inspire the next generation.”

Among the legion of goalies the Allaires have worked with are Lalime, Thibault, Biron and Luongo, as well as a number of minor leaguers and other kids eligible to be drafted in June.

In addition, Francois Allaire’s son and daughter play goal.

“That’s why I have to keep working. It’s expensive to buy the equipment,” he said, laughing.

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Prominent goalies from Quebec:

Name / Years Played / Comment

Georges Vezina / 1917-18 through 1925-26 / Top goalie trophy is named for him

Lorne Chabot / 1926-27 through 1936-37 / Played on two Cup winners

Gump Worsley / 1952-53 through 1973-74 / Played for four Cup winners in Montreal. Also played for the New York Rangers and Minnesota North Stars

Jacques Plante / 1952-53 through 1972-73 / Played one season in the World Hockey Assn., 1974-75. The gold standard for years

Denis DeJordy / 1960-61 through 1973-74 / Played for Chicago, the Kings, Montreal and Detroit and won one Cup

Bernie Parent / 1965-66 through 1978-79 / Won two Cups with the Flyers

Rogie Vachon / 1966-67 through 1981-82 / Played for Montreal, the Kings, Detroit and Boston. Played on three Cup winners in Montreal

Phil Myre / 1969-70 through 1982-83 / Played for six teams and one Cup winner

Gilles Meloche / 1970-71 through 1987-88 / You have to love anyone who played for the California Golden Seals and the Cleveland Barons

Daniel Bouchard / 1972-73 through 1985-86 / Played for Atlanta/Calgary Flames, Quebec and Winnipeg

Denis Herron / 1972-73 through 1985-86 / Played for some awful teams in Pittsburgh and Kansas City

Michel Larocque / 1973-74 through 1983-84 / Nicknamed “Bunny.” Got his name -- but not his nickname -- on the Cup four times with Montreal

Rejean Lemelin / 1978-79 through 1992-93 / Durable with Atlanta/Calgary and Boston

Richard Brodeur / 1979-80 through 1987-88 / Earned nickname “King Richard” during Vancouver’s 1982 run to the Cup finals

Stephane Fiset / 1989-90 through 2001-02 / Played on Cup winner with Colorado in 1996

-- Helene Elliott