Luc Tessier's Junior Review

[KC15 340]

Luc Tessier, Rising to the Challenge

 

Luc Tessier was born and raised in Valbonne, a small village about 30 minutes north of Nice in the southeast of France.  Normal childhood really – three seasons of playing football (soccer) with the other kids and one winter each year hiding from the howling winds of the mistral.  In spite of lying so close to the resort town of Nice on the coast, Valbonne was and is a fairly sleepy little hamlet. 

 

All through his early childhood, Luc was completely obsessed with football and loved flying down the wing either pelting a ball through the net for a goal or making a cross to a striker teammate to make a header toward goal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But when he reached the age of 12, the Sochi Olympics of 2014 changed all that.  That is when Luc discovered ice hockey – all to do with the double gold won by both the men’s and women’s teams from Canada.  Luc had tuned in to a random hockey game early in the competition since he had a cousin, Etienne, living in Trois-Rivières, Québec who always talked hockey whenever he was on a call or the extended family spent time together on holiday.  He liked what he saw immediately and got swept up in the coverage as his cousin’s national team climbed the ladder all the way to gold.

 

From there Luc had to learn to skate, which he took to as if he had been born in the frozen north of Canada.  From there, Luc began playing in the local hockey scene.  Mostly pickup games on a nearby frozen pond with other kids he had basically forced into learning to skate and play.  Sure, it was 2 on 2 or 2 on 3 with no goalie in net, but he learned to love the game.

 

His parents were uncommonly supportive of Luc’s new love and found him a peewee league that played about 1 ½ away from their little village of Valbonne.  The league drew from a very wide radius to get enough to field 4 – sometimes 6 – teams to play against one another.

 

From there, by the age of 16, Luc was playing in some fairly high level junior hockey on a team fielded in Nice.  The national competition brought with it long hours of travel, but also better competition and better coaching.  Luc thrived on both, but also outpaced his peers and pretty badly.  For a year and a half he dominated this level of hockey.  With familial support – both immediate and extended – he moved to Canada to live with his cousin Étienne’s family so that he could pursue hockey at a higher level.  He began playing some junior hockey on a lesser circuit, but his dream is to make an actual VHLM squad with higher hopes still of begin drafted by a VHL team.

 

But here is where Luc’s confidence is beginning to waiver.  This hockey he is found in Québec is at such a higher level than he’s used to.  He is no longer the far-and-away standout star.  In fact, he can clearly see that he is a few steps behind his teammates, but is rising to the challenge by working twice as hard as ever and still holds out hope that he will be drafted by some VHLM team – in some later round.  Luc doesn’t really mind though – just to get a seat at the far end of the bench will be enough to start.  He is happy to climb from there.

 

[thadthrasher 1,692]

Ayyyy great!

[Matt thunder 444]

ohhhhh it is good to have an other french in the vhl lol, good luck mate

[KC15 340]

Merci!