Latest news with #Turcotte
New York Times
2 hours ago
- Business
- New York Times
Top 2025 NHL Draft prospect Justin Carbonneau blends power with skill and scoring
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Before Mathieu Turcotte coached Justin Carbonneau for two seasons in the QMJHL with the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, Carbonneau used to attend his hockey camps in Levis. Back then, Carbonneau 'was always high-end skill-wise.' A few years later, though, Carbonneau also has something else, according to Turcotte. Advertisement 'He's a tank,' Turcotte said on a phone call earlier this year. 'He really is. And he plays through s— that a lot of guys wouldn't even practice with. He's really built different. With age and physical maturity, he has the body of a power forward.' These days, he's NHL Central Scouting's No. 16-ranked North American skater and a projected top-20 pick in the 2025 NHL Draft. This season, he registered 49 goals and 92 points in 67 combined regular-season and playoff games with the Armada, leading the team in goals and points, and leading the forwards in penalty minutes with 73. His 89 regular-season points were the second-most in the QMJHL to league scoring champion and overager Jonathan Fauchon, and his 46 regular-season goals tied for second. At year's end, he was named to the QMJHL's First All-Star Team. Though he's on the older side of the draft class because of his late November birthday, he looks it, with a strong, athletic 6-foot-1, 191-pound build. He has also played three years in the QMJHL instead of two. At 16, he registered 20 points in 32 games as a young 16-year-old in the league following a trade from the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, the team that drafted him with the 20th pick in the 2022 QMJHL draft, to the Armada as the Huskies chased a QMJHL title. Last year, a full year out from the draft, he registered 31 goals and 59 points in 68 games, good for second on the Armada in scoring to Fauchon, who was then his teammate. In November, while playing against his peers at the CHL USA Prospects Challenge, Carbonneau was a standout and registered two points in two games. NHL Central Scouting's report reads as follows: '(Carbonneau) has shown that he is a natural goal scorer with an excellent shot release. He is also a threat offensively as a playmaker, showing a ton of poise and deception with the puck. Impacting the game in so many ways. His compete level is high and will finish checks whenever possible. His skating has continued to improve; he can generate good speed and is agile on his edges in tight areas. A confident player who wants the puck on his stick and tries to make a difference every shift he's out on the ice. His size, grit, goal scoring and overall puck skill make him an attractive prospect.' Advertisement His skating has improved because he has put the time in with his skating coach, Barb Underhill. He has also worked at it with his strength and conditioning coach, Jean-Philippe Riopel, whom he will train with three to four days a week for a fourth offseason in a row this summer. Riopel said Carbonneau has always been big for his age, and they've focused on adding speed and agility to the power that he has had since a very early age. When he first started working with him back in 2022, Carbonneau was already in the 'top tier' from a power standpoint, but he was average from a speed and agility standpoint. 'He was always stronger than other players. (And) because naturally big guys are not faster guys, he has to improve his speed. But when we compare him to other guys who played in the NHL when they were the same age, he's in the average of those guys,' Riopel said, suggesting that all of the future NHLers he has trained have been advanced physically. When those who know him best talk about Carbonneau, they all talk about a person who is physically and mentally mature, and a player with the full package of strength, goal scoring, skill and work ethic. 'He's the type of guy that anything that has to do with a rush, or a broken play, or in tight, he's going to create something out of nothing. He's really a high-end player that way,' said Turcotte. Skills and shooting coach Maxim Noreau talks first about his dedication and desire to get better. Noreau worked with him through the Armada this season, but whenever Carbonneau has had a window in his busy schedule, he has reached out to Noreau to set up extra skates, making the three-hour one-way drive from his home in Quebec City to get on the ice with Noreau in Montreal. During those skates, Carbonneau is constantly asking him for things that he can take home to work on, too. Advertisement 'He's a great kid. He's not this arrogant guy who is like 'Hey, I scored 40 goals in junior, I'm sick,'' Noreau said on a recent call. 'I'm known for my shot as a player and get hired a lot in development to work on shooting techniques, but I always tell him, 'Look at my shot, you see my shot? I had six NHL games and I got zero points, so if you think you're going to rely on something like that, it's not enough. You've got to be a package. And I think Justin understands that.' Development coach Yannick Tremblay, who is entering his fifth summer working with Carbonneau and has worked with players such as Thomas Chabot, David Savard, Mavrik Bourque and Tristan Luneau, says he has always been 'the same driven type of player.' At an early age, the first thing Tremblay noticed about Carbonneau was his attention to detail and his proactiveness in trying to learn how to do things right. Whenever he has needed technical or physical work on a specific tool, habit or trait over the years, he would fully commit himself to going after it. He has always been 'very physically capable compared to his age group,' too, according to Tremblay. On the ice, he was also always a natural shooter. 'His shooting was always something that was visible,' Tremblay said. 'His way to create power on the ice for his shot was really noticeable.' Over time, he has gotten quicker, in more ways than one. 'From the start, he wanted to be quicker and faster. He was more of a power type of player. Now I think he's more capable of being quick,' Tremblay said. 'He has always had really good stickhandling skills. But his execution capacity was dropping a bit in different contexts and that's what we worked on. If you look at top players, they can really generate speed when they need to, but in close areas they also have the same stickhandling, or shooting, or passing ability. And that's what we've worked on, to be as efficient as possible and to go from generating speed out of the zone to maybe quickly stopping on a dime and then going back again to creating speed with power. Getting as automatic as possible to have his body in the right position and right posture at all times without him thinking about it.' After putting in that work, Tremblay wasn't surprised by the season Carbonneau had, or by the long list of highlight reel plays he made in his draft year. 36 and counting for Justin Carbonneau! 🚨 #QMJHL | @ArmadaBLB — QMJHL (@QMJHL) February 14, 2025 'It was only a matter of time for him to find a way to use his skills,' Tremblay said. 'There was never such and such flaw that was pulling him away from getting results. It wasn't that. But the years prior, I thought he could have done better, without telling him that. Because I can see his capacity to execute whatever he needs to execute. Really, I'm creating drills and things for him that are really hard to execute well, and when I see that he can execute that, I'm pretty confident that he can do it in a game. So I'm not so surprised to see him do it.' Ahead of the draft, when NHL scouts have called Riopel to ask him about Carbonneau, they've had two common questions. The first is 'Is he maxed out physically or can he still get bigger and stronger?' The answer to that one is no, he's not maxed out, and yes, he does still have room to get bigger and stronger. Advertisement 'At this time of his development, he's at a good point and in a good situation,' Riopel said. 'He has a good balance between agility and power, so that's why he's so interesting for NHL teams.' The second is usually about the person, with some feeling as though he comes across a little cocky. Riopel has pushed back on that, telling them they said the same thing about his client Thomas Chabot when he was a teenager. 'When you know him he's a shy guy, he's a smart guy, he's a guy who has a lot of questions about what we're doing and why we're doing it, and one thing I love is he has questions of 'How can I improve that thing to be better?' So, for me, that's a big difference between him and other hockey players. I had this discussion with another scout last week, and he has a really good mindset about how to be better. He knows he can be better, and he questions a lot about how he can improve,' Riopel said. 'People have said 'Oh, he's cocky' but I think he's really confident. He knows what he can do and he knows what he has to do. Some of those athletes are shy and confident in their abilities and possibilities. And to some people that looks like cockiness but no, it's not that. Justin is a special guy for that.' Ask Carbonneau to describe himself, and he starts first with the word 'competitive' and credits his father, Pascal (a portfolio manager), his mother, Audrey (an HR manager), and his brother Jeremie (who played hockey at Cégep de Lévis) as influences. Nicknamed 'Carbo,' he's interested in studying finance and administration outside of hockey. He recently also switched agents, joining Wasserman vice president Olivier Fortier (formerly Momentum Hockey). Rumors of potential college interest followed, but neither he nor Fortier wanted to talk about them right now, preferring to focus on a big week at the combine. Ask Carbonneau about his game, and he calls himself 'an offensive power forward' who has 'speed, a good shot, can score goals, can make plays and can make some hits and take some hits.' Advertisement Ask him if he expected to have the season he had — to flirt with scoring 50 goals — and he says, 'You can't expect things.' Ask him about the combine this week, and that quiet confidence Riopel talks about comes out. He's interviewing with 26 teams, and by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, he'd already finished about half of them and was nonchalant about the process. 'To be honest, I know there's a lot of people that talk a lot about the combine and all this stress and all that but it's normal because it's a big opportunity, and to be honest, it's an opportunity I've been waiting for my whole life,' Carbonneau said. 'Everything you do here, you can work on so good or bad, I'll keep working on it, and I'll get better. This is where you really get better. The gym and the ice come together.' He feels like he's prepared for the testing, too. 'I've always been a strong kid, but JP helped me get more explosive, get more speed. He pushed me to the next level,' he said. After the combine's over, his focus will return to continuing to improve his skating. 'I'll keep improving my skating the next few days, next few weeks, next few months. My short-term goal is to keep improving my skating. I think I've taken a step, but the next level is faster, so I just have to keep improving that part of my game,' he said. 'For me, last summer with Yannick and JP, it was just work as hard as I could every single day to try to be better, and better, and better. It was really one day at a time, and it worked, so I'll keep doing it with those good people.'
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The State of Illinois has a new Poet Laureate and fellow poets rejoice
As of Tuesday, the new Illinois Poet Laureate is named Mark Turcotte and this is a portion of one of his poems, the beginning stanza of 'Flies Buzzing.' As a child I danced to the heartful, savage rhythm of the Native, the American Indian, in the Turtle Mountains, in the Round Hall, in the greasy light of kerosene lamps. 'Mark Turcotte's work reflects the complex and beautiful landscape of both our state and the country as a whole through his unique perspective as a Native writer who has lived across the U.S. but has found a home here in Illinois,' said Governor JB Pritzker at a celebration. Turcotte was born in 1958 and raised on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation. After school in Michigan, he traveled the country, often living in migrant camps, until landing in Chicago in 1993. He almost immediately came to the attention of Gwendolyn Brooks, the esteemed, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and also an Illinois Poet Laureate. It was she who awarded Turcotte the first Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award and recognized him as a Significant Illinois Poet. Other awards came his way, including from the Lannan Foundation, the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, and the Wisconsin Arts Board. He is the author of many collections, including 'Exploding Chippewas,' 'Le Chant de la Route' and 'The Feathered Heart.' He is a senior lecturer at DePaul University in Chicago. He follows the term of Angela Jackson (2020-2025) and joins a small club that also includes Brooks (1968-2000), Howard B. Austin (1936-1962), Carl Sandburg (1962-1967) and Kevin Stein (2003-2017). This is an honorary position, 'tasked with promoting access to literary arts and raising awareness through statewide community engagement.' It comes with a yearly salary of $35,000 and $10,000 for expenses. Many in the poetry community applauded the choice. Turcotte sent his friend poet/artist Tony Fitzpatrick a text earlier on Tuesday telling him the news. 'I cannot think of a better choice for this honor,' Fitzpatrick told me. 'I met Mark in the early 90's when we both got to read poems in honor of Gwendolyn Brooks. We were thrilled. I read a poem about Satchel Paige and Mark read one from his then upcoming book, 'Exploding Chippewas.' 'The poem was nothing short of riveting. The hair on the back of my neck and my arms stood up. It was about his birth, his beginning, about being born into the culture of First Nation peoples. 'After Mark read his poem that day, Gwendolyn Brooks turned to me and said, 'And that is how you do this.'' rkogan@
Chicago Tribune
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
The State of Illinois has a new Poet Laureate and fellow poets rejoice
As of Tuesday, the new Illinois Poet Laureate is named Mark Turcotte and this is a portion of one of his poems, the beginning stanza of 'Flies Buzzing.' As a child I danced to the heartful, savage rhythm of the Native, the American Indian, in the Turtle Mountains, in the Round Hall, in the greasy light of kerosene lamps. 'Mark Turcotte's work reflects the complex and beautiful landscape of both our state and the country as a whole through his unique perspective as a Native writer who has lived across the U.S. but has found a home here in Illinois,' said Governor JB Pritzker at a celebration. Turcotte was born in 1958 and raised on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation. After school in Michigan, he traveled the country, often living in migrant camps, until landing in Chicago in 1993. He almost immediately came to the attention of Gwendolyn Brooks, the esteemed, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and also an Illinois Poet Laureate. It was she who awarded Turcotte the first Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award and recognized him as a Significant Illinois Poet. Other awards came his way, including from the Lannan Foundation, the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, and the Wisconsin Arts Board. He is the author of many collections, including 'Exploding Chippewas,' 'Le Chant de la Route' and 'The Feathered Heart.' He is a senior lecturer at DePaul University in Chicago. He follows the term of Angela Jackson (2020-2025) and joins a small club that also includes Brooks (1968-2000), Howard B. Austin (1936-1962), Carl Sandburg (1962-1967) and Kevin Stein (2003-2017). This is an honorary position, 'tasked with promoting access to literary arts and raising awareness through statewide community engagement.' It comes with a yearly salary of $35,000 and $10,000 for expenses. Many in the poetry community applauded the choice. Turcotte sent his friend poet/artist Tony Fitzpatrick a text earlier on Tuesday telling him the news. 'I cannot think of a better choice for this honor,' Fitzpatrick told me. 'I met Mark in the early 90's when we both got to read poems in honor of Gwendolyn Brooks. We were thrilled. I read a poem about Satchel Paige and Mark read one from his then upcoming book, 'Exploding Chippewas.' 'The poem was nothing short of riveting. The hair on the back of my neck and my arms stood up. It was about his birth, his beginning, about being born into the culture of First Nation peoples. 'After Mark read his poem that day, Gwendolyn Brooks turned to me and said, 'And that is how you do this.''
CBC
26-04-2025
- General
- CBC
Artist behind Kelowna's iconic sails sculpture dead at 91
The artist behind the iconic sculpture that dazzles residents and tourists along Kelowna, B.C.'s waterfront has died at the age of 91. Robert Dow Reid, known for creating Spirit of Sail — more commonly known as The Sails — died peacefully on Wednesday, April 23. In 1977, Stewart Turcotte watched as the fibreglass sculpture was lowered to the ground by helicopter. A longtime friend of Reid's, he said the piece was an homage to the artist's sailing roots. Born in Scotland in 1933, Reid had sailing in his blood: his grandfather was a sea captain. In his teenage years, he worked on whaling ships, Turcotte said. "He saw all the whales being killed," Turcotte told CBC's Daybreak South guest host Sarah Penton. "They threw all the teeth and bones and skin overboard after they'd taken all the blubber off, and for some reason Bob saw the ivory teeth and thought, 'you know, I can do something with this.'" B.C. log rolling world champion Jube Wickheim dies at 91 Spending time in Antarctica, Turcotte said his friend was inspired to carve seals, whales and porpoises into those teeth and bones. Reid met his wife, Isobel, in 1956, and they came to Canada two years later. They first landed in Regina, but settled in Kelowna in 1964. Turcotte recalled Reid's passion for using whale teeth for his art — and his commitment to his craft. "He had one mandible from a sperm whale with teeth in it, and to get the teeth out was fairly difficult. He knew that if he buried it in the ground, all the little bugs and gremlins would get in there and chew up all the soft tissue, making the teeth easier to get out," Turcotte explained. "But he never retrieved it, so it's still in his backyard somewhere in Saskatchewan. About 50 years or so down the road, somebody's going to be digging up this mandible and some zoologist is going to claim that sperm whales lived in Saskatchewan." Not only was Reid an artist, but he was also a shipbuilder, Turcotte said. While living in Kelowna, he spent 27 years building a 20-metre-long sailboat, made of ferroconcrete, with an art studio onboard. "This thing was a luxurious craft," Turcotte said. Reid moved the ship to Vancouver in two pieces and sailed it around the ocean for a couple of years, Turcotte said. "Ships were in his life forever." While most of his sculptures are small, made of antique ivory, teak, and honey onyx, he has two large pieces along Kelowna's waterfront, which have been photographed thousands and thousands of times by those who wander by. Spirit of Sail is an abstract piece but looks like a pair of sails. "It stands there on the waterfront proud," Turcotte said. Kelowna's waterfront is home to another of Reid's larger pieces, Rhapsody, another fibreglass sculpture that features three dolphins. Turcotte, who was friends with Reid for several decades, said he'll remember Reid's great sense of humour, his kindness and generosity. Predeceased by his wife Isobel, Reid is survived by his three children, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Fox Sports
21-03-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Moore, Turcotte and Edmundson power Kings past Blackhawks 3-1 for their 6th win in 7 games
Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — Trevor Moore and Alex Turcotte scored in the first period, and the Los Angeles Kings held on to beat the Chicago Blackhawks 3-1 on Thursday night for their sixth win in seven games. Joel Edmundson fired from deep in the Kings' zone and scored into an empty net with 19 seconds left to seal the win. Darcy Kuemper made 17 saves in his fifth straight start to help Los Angeles tighten its grip on a playoff spot. Kuemper has allowed just four goals and has two shutouts in his five-game run. Connor Bedard scored for the second straight game, netting his 19th goal, as the Blackhawks lost their season-high sixth straight (0-5-1). Chicago has been outscored 25-9 during its slide. Spencer Knight stopped 30 shots. Los Angeles outshot Chicago 19-7 in a dominant first period and took a 2-0 lead on goals by Moore and Turcotte 59 seconds apart. Moore fired a screened shot from the slot that clanked in off the left post 8:45 in. Turcotte made it 2-0 at 9:44, with a deflection of Vladislav Gavrikov's shot. Bedard cut it to 2-1 with a power-play goal on a shot from the left circle at 10:50 of the second. Takeaways Kings: Continued their pursuit of second place Edmonton in the Pacific Division and home ice advantage in a possible first-round playoff matchup with the Oilers. Los Angeles and Edmonton have met three straight seasons in the postseason Blackhawks: Following a pair of 6-2 losses, Chicago started skating in this one after a shaky start. Key moment Kuemper made a point-blank pad save on Lukas Reichel's one-timer 2:45 into the third to keep the Kings ahead. Key stat Turcotte snapped a 24-game drought with his eighth goal. He hadn't had a goal since scoring twice on Jan. 16 at Vancouver. Up next Both teams play Saturday. The Kings host Carolina and the Blackhawks are at St. Louis.
