Simon's quest

When Simon Despres was chosen to play for team Canada at the Memorial of Ivan Hlinka tournament, you just knew that he was going to immediately get a phone call from someone at the Saint John Newspaper the Telegraph Journal, and be forced to talk about it...and you KNOW that the Sea Dogs have already updated their website to brag about it. You also knew that being the crazy Simon lover that I am that I was going to post some of that story here in an attempt to make the whole world fall in love with him before they ever get to meet him. Don't worry, you will get to meet him next year at the NHL draft.


Here is a snippit from the Telegraph Journal article by Nathan White:

"I don't even realize I'm going to Europe tomorrow yet," Despres said by phone after being given the news and a bag of Team Canada apparel Tuesday evening. "I've never been overseas yet, I can't wait."

The six-foot-four, 210-pound rearguard said he started slowly when camp opened Saturday, but he felt he improved as camp went on.

"I didn't get to play with hitting competition in the summer (so) to get back into it was hard. "First practice, my skates were very sharp, I was always falling on the ice and my helmet was too small," said Despres, who prefers a duller skate blade. "I was questioning myself a little bit, but I knew it was going to come. I just played my game, a simple game, and didn't try to do too much."

...Team Canada head coach Bill Peters, who mans the bench for the Memorial Cup champion Spokane Chiefs of the WHL, has Despres penciled in as a top-four defenceman.

"He likes to join the rush and has offensive upside for sure. I consider him one of our defenceman who's going to play on the power play," Peters said. "I thought Simon got better as the week went along. He came in and was a big-body guy who moves really well and caught our attention right away."

Are you in love yet? He is 6'4", he is excited, he is falling down and he has a helmet that doesn't fit...these are the makings of the kind of boy you want to call your own and feed cookies to. There are more details available at the QMJHL website.

*edit - TSN has now begun their coverage of the Ivan Hlinka tournament. They have a video profiling the players. As of this moment I cannot get it to work, but the error may be fixed by TSN later today.