Rookie Experience: Jean-Pierre Camus

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Rookie Experience: Jean-Pierre Camus

As Season 74 starts to kick into gear, many young players will be looking to take the next step in their career.  Chicago Phoenix goaltender Jean-Pierre Camus will be one such player.  With his first season under his belt, Camus will be hoping to improve as he enters his sophomore season.  VHL.com was able to get an exclusive interview with the netminder as a part of our series of interviews with second-year players about their rookie year.

 

Hey Jean-Pierre, nice to meet you.  How are you feeling about the last season?
Hey.  I’m feeling alright.  Obviously I wouldn’t consider it an overwhelming success or anything, but all in all I was able to get a feel for the league and the level of competition.  Pretty comfortable with my new team.

 

How are things in Chicago?
Fantastic.  Love it here.  I think this is a great place for me.

 

Is it how you expected when you first got drafted?  What were your feelings on the team when they picked you?
When everything got sorted out, with the lottery and all that, I kind of had a feeling they were going to pick me.  I’d been in contact with my agent a lot in the lead up, especially since I wasn’t playing in the VHLM playoffs.  So when the lottery got sorted out I was pretty confident that I’d be going to an expansion team.  Which was an exciting prospect for me.  I was thinking that I wanted to go somewhere I could have a really big impact on the franchise, maybe lead a team to success that it hadn’t had before.  An expansion team was a big opportunity, and once Chicago took that seventh pick in the expansion draft I was ready to join the Phoenix.  It’s a city that has deserved a VHL team for a while.  And from what I can tell the front office shares my ambition.

 

That first season seemed tough, though.  You finished dead last in the standings.  What was that like?
I mean, I can’t lie, it was difficult.  It’d be hard to believe if I said it was easy to deal with.  We weren’t great, and it was really tough to see us not even competing in a lot of games.  And it was also a little tough to see another expansion team like Los Angeles doing better than us in the same conference.  But at the same time I knew this was all just temporary.  The team is building for the future rather than the present, which is the smart thing to do considering what we’ve been given.  We had a lot of young prospects in the VHLM at the time, plus some good draft picks as well.  Trust the process and all that, you know.

 

What about on an individual level?  You came in as the only goalie on Chicago’s roster, and you ended up facing the most shots of any goalie in the entire VHL.  That’s tough for your rookie season.
Sure.  But I think that was also a necessary hurdle to get over.  In order to be a good goalie in the VHL, and in order to be the kind of goalie that I want to be, you’ve got to be able to handle those kinds of situations where all the momentum is against you and all the shots are coming your way.  That’s how you build up the right mentality, that’s how you learn to weather those storms and help your team win.  Some people were saying I was getting thrown in the deep end, but that suggests I didn’t have a choice in the matter.  I could’ve told Chicago I didn’t want to be drafted here.  But I wanted to come here.  I wanted this challenge because I know myself and I know that’s what’s going to help me as a player.  It doesn’t work for everyone, I know.  I’m not looking down on anyone who wouldn’t want to be here - people have different personalities, different desires, different interests.  This is the kind of place I wanted to be, though.  So yes, this first season was difficult.  But I think if I didn’t go through this as a player, I’d be worse for it.  This is going to make me better in the long run.

 

Thanks for the interview.  You certainly seem determined.  To close this off, what kind of future do you see for yourself and Chicago?
In Season 74 we’re going to be much better than the last season.  The same goes for me.  And I think that improvement keeps going as we keep building.  We’ve got a lot of good players here - in a few seasons I think we’ll be serious contenders.  And I want to be one of the best goalies in the league.