Misconduct | Who’s the friendliest athlete you’ve met?

The section where journalists from the Sports de The Press answer a question with pleasure.

Richard Labbe

The first name to top my list is Martin Brodeur. It is sometimes said that star players are haughty, inaccessible, unpleasant? This was not at all the case for the Quebec goalkeeper. First, this unwritten rule that a goalie never talks the morning of a game, Martin Brodeur didn’t care. “If I’m not able to answer your questions, do you think I’m going to be able to deal with a shot coming at 100 miles an hour tonight?” “, he had already said to me, laughing, the morning of a match precisely. Good point.

Then, Brodeur never refused anyone anything, including my tiring questions for the writing of the book. Masks, published in 2011; this interview had been conducted in a corridor of the Bell Center two hours before the start of Brodeur’s game with the Devils against the Canadiens. This conversation had hardly distracted him, obviously, since Brodeur had then gone on the ice to whitewash the Canadian!

Katherine Harvey Pinard

The choice is difficult, because most of the time I have had to deal with very sympathetic athletes. A few names therefore come to mind, but my choice fell on Kim Clavel. I had the opportunity to do several interviews with the boxer, especially because I wrote a children’s novel about her which will appear in the coming months. Authentic, Kim has always been kind, warm and respectful. And I’m not saying that because she could break my nose with just one punch!

Guillaume Lefrancois

There are a lot of good people in our community. Luc Brodeur-Jourdain was a silk for the Alouettes, just like Matthieu Proulx and Étienne Boulay before him. At the Canadian, Daniel Brière and Mathieu Darche were always pleasant, and there have been these surprises over the years, support players about whom we knew very little, like Brett Kulak, Petteri Nokelainen or Raphael Diaz, who turned out to be a very pleasant trade. In the current locker room too, we are quite spoiled. Not easy to make a choice.

I therefore propose rather to go for the one whose kindness surprised me the most, and I named Shane Doan. No need to tell you that the famous clash with Denis Coderre about an anti-Francophone insult thrown on the ice – an event for which he was cleared – did not give Doan good press around here. In March 2015, I arrived in the Coyotes locker room for the first time, and Doan was one of the players who came to talk to us, obviously not stressed by life. “Hi, dear, how are you? he said when I introduced myself to him. He even took the time to inquire about my itinerary to get to Arizona. In short, he engaged in a real two-way conversation, which we rarely have time to do in an NHL locker room where everything always happens quickly. Doan was just as cordial every time I ran into him afterwards.

Justin Vezina

Charismatic, honest and quick to throw a joke, Samuel Piette is still one of my favorite players to be around. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he is not content to answer in twenty seconds. He always tries to enlighten us as much as possible by giving complete and thorough answers. Sometimes it’s a bit complex to include in a text, but I appreciate the attention to detail. Not only that, but he does it in the most remarkable French. Right in the middle of a scrum this season, he’s already just come out with “but, in the first place”, and for that reason, I have tremendous respect for him. I never need to rephrase his words to make them understandable. He may be known as Repentigny’s bulldog on the field, but he’s also gaining recognition as an excellent speaker in the Cowboys Fringants language.

Nicholas Richard

This exercise was more complex than expected. Simply because if I go by my personal experience, the majority of professional and amateur athletes are of a rather sympathetic nature. However, after careful consideration, one name stands out: Andy Murray. I only spoke to him twice, but these meetings marked me, mainly because I did not expect such kindness from him. A seemingly cold, withdrawn and almost unpleasant character on the field and at press conferences, he is the opposite of the image he projects behind closed doors. In reality, alone, he is jovial, talkative, funny, generous and accessible. During one of these meetings, while his public relations officer had promised me only 5 minutes to chat with him, Murray told me to take all the time I needed and we talked for more than 10 minutes. Great champions are often great human beings, and even though my sample is rather small, I got it with Andy Murray.

Alexander Pratt

Samuel Piette. What, Justin already took it? So I’m going with his former CF Montreal and national teammate Alistair Johnston. He is always there, generous, interesting and relevant, after victory as well as defeat. A real pro. Special mention to Joëlle Békhazi, of the Canadian water polo team. It’s a sport that I had never covered before the Tokyo Games. Canada ate a few volleys there. Joëlle could have ignored me in the mixed zone. But no. After each game, she stopped and took the time to explain to me everything that had just happened, so that I could write a column that stood up. An outstanding ambassador for her sport.

Simon Olivier Lorange

A group nomination here: the current defense of the Canadiens. In general, the current version of the Habs is quite cordial, but it seems to me that it is even more concentrated among the defenders. Mike Matheson and David Savard, French-speaking spokespersons for the squad, patiently answer the questions they are asked daily, cameras trained on them. Chris Wideman, if not the most talented, is one of the friendliest athletes in the locker room. Jordan Harris and Johnathan Kovacevic, the most articulate players in the squad, are the ones we will see for technical precision. More reserved, Kaiden Guhle and Justin Barron never hesitate to take a moment when approached. Arber Xhekaj is unquestionably the most vocal among the backs. And Joel Edmundson gave us, on the eve of the trade deadline, the most poignant testimony of the past year. A high note for everyone here.

Jean-Francois Tremblay

I’ve met tons of nice athletes in Quebec, with a special hat-trick to Luc Brodeur-Jourdain, Marianne St-Gelais, Benoit Huot, Alex Tagliani and Samuel Piette, who have all been very generous to me at times. milestones in my career. But I’m going to try to think outside the box a bit by voting for Charlie McAvoy. I don’t know if the money has corrupted him since, I hope not, but my first meeting with McAvoy was when he was just a hopeful fresh out of college. In the Bruins locker room, what was supposed to last just a few minutes turned into a long and passionate 25-minute conversation (the equivalent of a lifetime in the world of NHL locker room interviews). I kept a strong impression of it that was never deconstructed afterwards. Same thing for Gabriel Landeskog, met when the Avalanche was at its lowest and who opened up about his distress as if I were Claire Lamarche. I came out speechless.