Summer signings in Hearst
Determined to improve on his team’s first season in the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League, Hearst Lumberjacks coach-general manager Marc Lafleur has spent the summer signing high-end players new and old ahead of the 2018-2019 campaign.
Among the off-season additions is Hearst native Raphael Lecours. The 6-foot-4, 220-pound power forward will play his final season of junior eligibility in his hometown after starring at the Jr. B level in Ottawa in 2017-2018 where he netted 27 goals in 40 games.
Lecours will join a smattering of key returnees on the Hearst forward lines that includes London, Ont. native Max Griffioen. Griffioen, who has a 1999 birth date and has size at 6-foot-1, 185 pounds, finished third on the Lumberjacks scoring chart in 2017-2018 with 53 points, including 22 goals.
Hearst finished in fourth place in the East Division of the NOJHL in 2017-2018 with 49 points from a record of 23-30-3 and had goal-tending issues for the majority of the season.
Ergo, Lafleur went out and obtained a pair of highly-regarded goalies during the off season, bringing in Tomi Gagnon from the U.S. Premier Hockey League and Nic Tallarico from the British Columbia Hockey League.
Gagnon has a 2000 birth date while Tallarico is a last-year junior with a 1998 birth date.
Lafleur told Hockey News North that he expects goal-tending to be a Lumberjacks strength in 2018-2019.
“We could, arguably, have the best tandem in the NOJHL,” Lafleur relayed.
this team with this record now is exactly like the fff french national soccer squad that made it fourth in 2014 worldcup and the second in the 2016 eurocup and now the worldcup champions! build it and they will come!!!
make your loudest noise so we can hear you from way over here!!!