ANAHEIM — As a 26-year-old, seventh-round draft pick who doesn’t score much or skate very fast, nobody spared Vincent Desharnais’ feelings much along the way.
“People said, ‘You’re too tall. You’re not quick enough. You’re too slow.’ I’ve heard ‘em all,” the six-foot-seven Laval native recounted.
But there was one thing he’d never heard, until Sunday, when his coaches called him into their office after a Bakersfield loss in Calgary. That’s when he heard the magic phrase that would leave his Mom Josee in tears.
“You’re goin’ up,” his coach said.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life,” Desharnais admitted on Tuesday at The Pond in Anaheim, his parents Jacques and Josee, and his brother Alex en route from Montreal. “For it to actually happen? It’s pretty special.
“I called my parents and I FaceTimed my brother right away. Just giving that to them after the sacrifices that they’ve done for me… It’s just, it’s priceless.”
Let’s take a moment away from grousing about the Edmonton Oilers‘ consistency, or Ken Holland’s inactivity, shall we? And have a peek into the feel-good world of Desharnais, who Wednesday night will make one of the most unlikely NHL debuts we’ve ever chronicled.
He wasn’t just a seventh-round draft pick, 183rd overall in 2016, a mere 28 picks above Mr. Irrelevant, the last pick in the draft. Desharnais was all of that in his … wait for it … third draft-eligible season.
The entire National Hockey League passed over Desharnais not once, not twice, but nearly three times, until the Oilers burned their final pick in the ’16 draft on him.
He was on his brother’s boat a few hours outside Montreal that June day, checking his phone hopefully. A 20-year-old waiting to see if the professional hockey world has passed him over for a third time.
It would have been a little sad, really.
“My brother kept saying, ‘Hey, who cares if you don’t get drafted?’ It was the third year! But, I got a phone call from my agent. He said, ‘Congrats. You got drafted.’
“My mom called me right after and she couldn’t speak on the phone. She was crying. You know, those moments… I was with my two good friends too, and it’s those moments I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Being with the people who supported me throughout my whole career. It’s pretty special.”
He is the son of the library manager at the Ecole Polytechnique who was just leaving the parking lot that fateful day in 1989 when 14 women were murdered. Jacques Desharnais drove home to his family and has not worked a December 6th since, still shaken by what unfolded that day.
These are happier times, and on Tuesday the family had dinner here in Anaheim, a hockey-loving Quebecois family about to watch one of their own make his NHL debut tonight — as unlikely as it may have seemed.
Did he ever think this day would never come?
“Oh, so many times,” the big right-shot rearguard admitted. “That’s why I’m so thankful for the people around me, and the support I had throughout.
“I left home 10 years ago to go to prep school, to learn English and to go on a long path. There were so many times I thought it was just, you know, just playing hockey (for) fun. And next thing you know, 10 years later I’m here and standing in front of you (media) guys.”
It can’t be easy, when even those you love are cheering you on, but as you get on another plane to another minor league season, quietly wondering when life after hockey will begin?
Kids like Evan Bouchard and Philip Broberg zipped right past him in the Oilers organization, and were waiting for him in the dressing room in Anaheim this week. Darnell Nurse, not even a year older than Desharnais, but wearing an ‘A’ as he plays career NHL game No. 520 this evening.
And all along, through the bus rides and the crappy hotels, Desharnais has managed to keep a smile on his face.
“I think that that’s the biggest thing I’ve done over, I would say, the last three years of pro. I’ve learned to just have fun with it,” he said. “You can’t think about it as, ‘It’s a job.’ You just got to show up at the rink, put a smile on your face and have fun. If you don’t have fun, what’s the purpose of it?”
It’s the mental grind that weeds out players as much as things like talent and potential. There are players with all the physical gifts who never play, and guys who don’t do anything at an elite level who make it.
Desharnais, with the gift of size and the right attitude, lands somewhere in the middle.
“I’ve worked a lot mentally,” he said. “Read a lot of books, started journaling, starting going more into mental toughness and again, just trying to have fun. You just got to wake up in the morning, put a smile on your face, and have fun.
“It’s been working for me so far.”