Dominique Ducharme Golf Classic | Fifteen years later, the Junior subsidiary strikes again

(Joliette) They were in their mid-thirties and learning the coaching profession with the means at hand. Or, in the words of Joël Bouchard: “There were three of us in an office in Verdun, eating chicken and laughing.”

The three were Pascal Vincent, head coach and GM of the now-defunct Montreal Juniors, and his assistants Dominique Ducharme and Joël Bouchard. They shared the work behind the bench during the QMJHL’s last adventure on the island of Montreal, from 2008 to 2011.

Fifteen years later, the three amigos are still rolling along. Vincent as the new head coach of the Laval Rocket. Bouchard behind the bench of the Syracuse Crunch, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s farm club. And Ducharme as an assistant coach with the Vegas Golden Knights.

Two-thirds of the trio were reunited Thursday at noon, on the occasion of the Dominique Ducharme Golf Classic. Only Vincent was missing, who was still in Columbus on Tuesday.

Even though the event was named after Ducharme, the focus was a little more on Vincent, who had been officially hired by Laval 48 hours earlier. Bouchard delved into his memories, even going back to the early 1990s, when he and Vincent were briefly teammates in Verdun.

“He was a defender and a forward. When he was on defense, we were partners, he was right-handed, I was left-handed,” Bouchard said during an intimate press scrum Thursday. “Then I played pro and he became a coach, but we always stayed in touch.”

Bouchard and Ducharme essentially learned their trade thanks to Vincent, since the latter had just arrived on Wellington Street after nine years of coaching in Cape Breton.

“The three of us together never had a bad day at the office,” Bouchard said. “I had just retired, I was working as an analyst at RDS and I wanted to learn the ropes of junior hockey. Pascal helped me understand the exchanges. He was very open, he shared everything.” […] When we moved to Boisbriand, I inherited all the positions, because Pascal had just been hired in Winnipeg. But he had already shown me a lot of them.”

“Pascal hired me, but most importantly, he trusted me a lot,” added Ducharme. “He was slowly giving me more responsibilities, and the day I arrived in Halifax, I was really ready to be a head coach in the QMJHL.”

The long way back

Of the three, Ducharme and Vincent are the two who have reached the highest level of their profession, namely the position of head coach in the NHL.

But they have in common that they had an incredibly short first adventure, both in incredible circumstances.

Ducharme took over from Claude Julien in the midst of a pandemic, in a context where the team members were isolated. It was also, as we would later learn, the last miles of Shea Weber and Carey Price. Carried by the two veterans, the CH reached the Stanley Cup final, before imploding the following fall like a zeppelin in 1937. Ducharme’s 350 days at the helm of the CH fueled discussions in telephone galleries, on social networks and even in bookstores.

Vincent, meanwhile, was appointed in a rush the week the Blue Jackets opened camp last September, after the dramatic firing of head coach Mike Babcock. At the end of the season, a new GM, Don Waddell, was hired, and he, after consulting his players, removed Vincent from his position.

Neither Ducharme nor Vincent hide their desire to return to being head coaches in the NHL.

“You can’t be afraid to aim high,” Ducharme said. “It’s like Bruce [Cassidy, entraîneur-chef à Vegas]who coached young in Washington. It took him a while to get back to being a head coach, but you can see where he’s at. Mike Sullivan, too.”

Ducharme cites two good examples. Cassidy’s experience in Washington, from 2002 to 2003, lasted only 107 games, and his methods were quickly criticized. It was nearly 14 years later, in the winter of 2017, that he became head coach again, when the Bruins promoted him to replace Claude Julien. Sullivan, for his part, waited 10 long years between his firing by the Bruins and his hiring by the Penguins.

Both men came back strong and their names are engraved on the Stanley Cup.

“I’m in no hurry, I don’t have a specific deadline, but by doing things the right way, good things happen,” says Ducharme.

The Anonymity of Vegas

Ducharme has just completed his first season as an assistant in Vegas. As was the case with the Canadiens in the fall of 2021, he was able to gauge the challenges that await a team that reached the final a few months earlier. The Knights had a decent season (98 points), but their playoff adventure lasted only six games.

“An athlete, no matter the sport, when you take him out of his cycle, he has challenges. We have been tested by injuries. And mentally, you think back to where you were in the last game you played, and there you start again, you have to play 82. It’s a long marathon and there are ups and downs to manage.”

The Joliettain also says “lever [son] “Hats off” to the Panthers, who just lifted the big trophy a year after losing in the final.

Our man enjoyed his first season in Nevada. “It’s a completely different lifestyle in the American West. The team is very popular, but the attention is really different than in Montreal. After games, I see players walking around the casino and they almost go unnoticed!”

“It’s a great organization that does everything it can to help us get to the end. It’s a new adventure and it helps me progress.”

Ducharme may be traveling incognito in Vegas, but not in the Joliette community. He spent his morning shaking hands and greeting guests. All the local stalwarts were there, including a certain Mr. Harnois, from the famous chain of gas stations that crisscross Lanaudière and beyond. Not to mention Chez Henri, the famous local pataterie, which had its poutine kiosk at the hole n^o 2. “They do it just for us, too. There are no other tournaments where they serve the best poutine in Quebec!”