Jacques Lafontaine - A Shot at the VHL

[SlapshotWrangler 864]

Canadian Jacques Lafontaine recently joined the Season 70 VHLM Class, waiting for the draft. The 16 year old is a goaltender is excited for his shot at the Victory Hockey League. “I used to watch the VHL a lot when I was a kid. I was a big Toronto Legion fan as they were the closest to my hometown of Rouyn-Noranda. I watched the Huskies too and am happy that they won the Memorial Cup but I always preferred the VHL because of how much more intense and competitive it was.” Despite being a huge Legion fan, even having his own custom Legion jersey with his name in the back, he says he wouldn’t care what team he would go to. “I wouldn’t care what team I’d go to, as long as I was in the VHL. Just being in the league would be a huge honor.” Though, before that he has to play in the Victory Hockey League Minors, the VHL’s minor league. “When it comes to the VHLM, I don’t have a preference to which team I play on, again, it would be a huge honor just to be there.” Lafontaine played for the L'Intrépide de Gatineau in the “Ligue de hockey midget AAA”, where he played 37 of the 45 games in the season. He had a record of 24-10-3, a GAA of 2.13, as well as a Save Percentage of 0.912. While he isn’t exactly a standout prospect, he does show some potential and definitely has a chance to be a solid goaltender in the Victory Hockey League. He says his style is based off of Alexander Pepper, his personal favourite player. “Sure, he’s a Helsinki Titan but he is arguably the best goaltender in the league right now. I remember just watching him. He is really good at all the aspects of goaltending.” An interesting thing about Lafontaine is that he really only started playing goaltender when he was 10. “Back then, I was a defensemen. I sucked. I couldn’t score, I couldn’t do that much. But I could block the puck well and tended to do it a lot. My coach came up to me while we were practicing before the season started and asked if I could try out goaltending. So I got some old pads from Value Village, played a game. I lost that game, 2-1, but it turned out that I was pretty good at it.” He played goaltender ever since. “That season was when I fell in love with goaltending. I remember I’d search up goalie tutorials on youtube and would try to get better. It worked out well.” Apparently, he would practice in the basement with his younger brother, Pierre. Pierre would take shots while Jacques would practice his goaltending skills. “Yeah, that’s true. I remember that after school, we’d head downstairs and do that. It helped me a lot.” He also told us that every winter he would go to the local outdoor rink and play some games with the other kids. Regardless of his unorthodox path to becoming a goaltender, he’s become good and will be a good goaltender. Whether he will start next season, nobody knows.

[Banackock 8,160]

Not a Bears fan, hey? I see how it’s gonna be