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No one has been under contract with the Vancouver Canucks longer than Guillaume Brisebois.
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Published Sep 06, 2024 • Last updated 46 minutes ago • 4 minute read
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Acadie-Bathurst Titan captain Guillaume Brisebois in 2016. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG
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When you cover a team, you don’t cheer for the results. Win or lose, you have to work. And win or lose, you have to tell the story.
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But you do find yourself rooting for players from time to time, because of personal challenges they’ve had to overcome. Guys like Brock Boeser and Troy Stecher, who lost their fathers and have managed to press on.
Guys like Alex Biega, because they’ve just persevered, or Luke Schenn, because he rebuilt his game and saved his career.
Or guys like Guillaume Brisebois, who are just kind and friendly and who have been through the ringer with injury after injury.
Goalie Thatcher Demko has been in the organization the longest — he was drafted in 2014 but didn’t sign until 2016 — but Brisebois is the longest-contracted Canuck. He signed an entry-level deal in December 2015, just a few months after being drafted.
He’s been a pro since 2017.
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For his first three seasons, he was a pretty healthy guy. There were bumps and bruises here and there, but nothing to suggest the health battles he would face beginning in the 2020-21 season.
That COVID-19-shortened season saw him play just one NHL game, spend a long time on the team’s taxi squad, play nine games on loan with the Laval Rocket, then get moved down to the Utica Comets to close the season. In Utica he suffered an ugly leg injury, which required months of rehabilitation, only returning to action in the second half of the following season.
He split the chaotic 2022-23 season between Abbotsford and Vancouver, playing in 17 games in the second half and impressing head coach Rick Tocchet with steady play. But even that season was ended early by an injury.
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Last fall, he came with high hopes. He had done enough in that stretch under Tocchet to tell Canucks management he was worth a two-year contract, setting the stage for him to win a job as a depth defenceman.
But late in training camp, he took a head knock that kept him on the sidelines for months. Rarely was he spotted around Rogers Arena.
He didn’t skate again until after Christmas and even then it was only intermittently. But after awhile, his face would appear in the hallways and he would smile and nod that, yes, he was feeling better. The team never confirmed officially, but it was clear that he was dealing with post-concussion issues. At one point Tocchet acknowledged Brisebois was going through “the protocol.”
Eventually he recovered and was able to suit up in eight games for Abbotsford, as the AHL Canucks got ready for a playoff push of their own.
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Recovered, or so he thought.
The symptoms came back. He didn’t feel comfortable.
But after a long summer of recovery and patience, coupled with all the usual hard work a player puts into getting ready for the season, he’s feeling good again.
“Really good, thanks,” he said Friday at the University of B.C. after another reasonably spirited player-run skate with his teammates, two weeks before training camp begins in Penticton. “A good summer. It took a little bit to get back to normal, but then it ramped up a bit.”
And the contact in the scrimmages so far has presented no problems.
More than anything, he’s focused in on how blessed he is to be playing a game he loves and to be paid well to do it.
“That’s the mentality, yeah,” he said. “This is so good. I’m so lucky.”
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Handsomest man in hockey
“Hey Nils, have you heard about this AI study that said Nils Aman is the handsomest man in hockey?”
Nils Hoglander, about to walk out the door from the ProTrans Arena at UBC’s Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre, headed for the dressing room he and his Canucks teammates are using for their pre-training camp skates, pauses.
He turns and smiles at the two reporters standing there, one of whom who asked the question above, grinning just as much as Hoglander now is.
Hoglander points back toward the ice, to Aman.
Hoglander: “Here comes the man himself!”
Aman doesn’t even hesitate. He knows what the conversation is.
He smiles. And starts waving his arms back and forth. Then laughs.
“No comment! No comment!”
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It’s very, very clear, the AI-driven study released by betting site Tonybet last week — which rated the Canucks on the whole as the NHL’s best-looking and Aman the NHL’s “most-desirable” individual player — has been a topic of conversation in the players’ group chat.
“They’ve been saying they’ve still got work do on AI,” Christian Wolanin quipped.
“Well that’s really good for him,” Brisebois said, laughing about the whole premise.
Safe to say, this story isn’t going anywhere.
pjohnston@postmedia.com
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Courtesy : https://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks/canucks-guillaume-brisebois-injury-recovery