Posted at 7:00 a.m.
Last July, Elliott Mondou landed his dream job: coordinator of hockey operations and video analytics for Hockey Canada. He packed up and left his native Shawinigan to move to Calgary, home of the Stampede, with his girlfriend.
But beware: who says full-time employee at Hockey Canada does not mean automatic participation in all events. You have to earn your place. And that’s what Mondou, from the height of his 21 years, did. So much so that the Canadian federation has made him its man of confidence on the video for the Junior World Championship and the Olympic Games.
When he heard the news, before the holidays, the NHL had not yet canceled the presence of its players at the Games. This means that the leaders of Hockey Canada could have opted for a video coach from the Bettman circuit. But no. It is on the young Quebecer that they stopped their choice.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect it at all,” says Mondou, reached by telephone by The Press on January 21, the day before the national team left for Europe, where it held a training camp before flying to Beijing.
“They told me: we trust you for that,” he says. I did all the preparation, worked with the coaches, who were exceptional. It was nice. »
Mondou may be young, but he is not inexperienced. Quite the contrary.
This adventure began during the 2015-2016 season of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (LHJMQ), when the video coach of the Shawinigan Cataractes had to be absent for a few weeks. Mondou came in relief.
The following season, the position became available and the young man jumped at the chance. At the same time, he decided to hang up his skates, he who previously played in sport-studies with the Estacades de Trois-Rivières.
His father, Martin Mondou, has been the general manager of the Shawinigan team since 2007.
PHOTO STÉPHANE LESSARD, LE NOUVELLISTE ARCHIVES
Martin Mondou, general manager of the Shawinigan Cataractes
When son decided to quit hockey to work with the Cataractes, the father did not fall out of his chair. He knew that Elliott didn’t really have a chance of reaching the junior ranks as a player, but that he was “extremely smart in his game”.
” For him, [être entraîneur vidéo], it was like a way of saying: ‟I’m going to make my way”, but with his hockey head, his understanding of the game, says Martin Mondou. He was extremely talented off the ice, it was frustrating sometimes! He never needed to study a lot, it was very natural for him. All that put together… He has become an asset to our team. »
The process
Elliott Mondou worked for the Cataracts for five years, while still going to school. So he had the same kind of schedule as the players. “I practiced, I went to the arena every day,” he says.
Concretely, his role as a video coach is to dissect the playing systems of his team and other formations in order to “give all the possible tools” to the coaches and to present sequences to the players.
Mondou is passionate, you can hear it when he talks about his job. It must be said that he was raised in hockey. No sooner had he started elementary school than he was already following his father to the arenas.
Over the years with the Cataracts, his work has been recognized. In 2018, he was signed by the Acadie-Bathurst Titan for the Memorial Cup tournament, which the team won. He also took part in international events.
“What brought me to Hockey Canada wasn’t just the Cataracts,” he says. I did tournaments with Hockey Canada, that’s where I built my reputation, if you will. »
It really is a sport of opportunities, hockey. You have to find opportunities all the time. But I’ve always had good ones and I’ve always worked for them. I climbed the ladder.
Elliott Mondou
Here he is now in his dream job, residing in Calgary. “It’s different from Shawinigan! It’s not badly bigger! “, he says, laughing.
In December, he was in Edmonton for the Junior World Championship which, as soon as it started, was canceled. “It was really fun,” he recalls. They are the best coaches, the best players. To work with these people is exceptional. »
The Shawinigan native has also spent the last few months preparing for the Olympic Games. He notably traveled to Tampa Bay to meet Jon Cooper, who was originally to be the head coach of the Canadian team. It is finally with Jeremy Colliton that he will work, because of the injury that occurred to the one who was to replace Cooper at the start, Claude Julien.
When asked what sets him apart from other video trainers, Mondou talks about his work ethic.
“I think I’m doing my best to develop interesting new things for players and coaches. It’s this combo of hard work and innovation that people appreciate. We’ll see where it takes me. »
For now, that leads him to the Olympics. Not bad, though.
When the tournament begins, somewhere in Shawinigan, there will be a proud dad, well settled in front of his television.
“I can’t wait to watch the games knowing that Elliott will have some role in it,” suggests Martin Mondou.