Photo by Cindy Blanchard -- Richmond Times Dispatch
Photo by Cindy Blanchard -- Richmond Times Dispatch
Maxime Gingras is a persistent little cuss - with the emphasis on little.
He's 5-6, give or take an inch, and weighs in at about 160 pounds before suiting up in all that armor goaltenders wear to protect themselves from a hard piece of rubber flying in the vicinity of 80-plus mph.
Former teammate Sean Matile saw Gingras for the first time, so the story goes, and thought he was the stick boy.
Too little, too short, too small.
"They've been telling me that all my life," he said. "'You're good, but you'll never get to the next level.'"
Coaches would take one look at him, shake their heads and feel certain someone else had to be better. Only someone else wasn't.
One year, he was among nine goalies competing for one backup spot on a junior team. Guess who won out?
All Gingras does is stop the puck.
"Exactly," he said.
And one day, the Loretteville, Quebec, native is going to fool them all, he says. He's going to get to the NHL, and he won't be just passing through. It won't be one of those brief layovers he can tell the grandchildren about in 25 words or less.
They can doubt his stamina, his ability to stand tall in a game that is being taken over by big bodies, but Gingras won't be deterred. The target was sighted long ago, one he insists he's going to reach however long it takes.
"I'm going to give it until I get there," Gingras said, "and when I get there, I'm going to stay there. My main goal in life is that, and how can I regret it if I give it all I have?"
Richmond has had hockey on and off since the Coliseum opened in late 1971. First, there were the American Hockey League Robins, then Southern Hockey League Wildcats (who lasted little more than three months), the Atlantic Coast Hockey League Rifles and, since 1990-91, the East Coast Hockey League Renegades.
Trying to pick an all-time fan favorite is useless except to suggest that no one has been more popular than Gingras.
He arrived unheralded, unnoticed, the longest of long shots to make the 1998-99 team and proceeded to carry the Renegades on his not-so-broad shoulders to the championship round - one game from securing the Kelly Cup. Gingras set numerous league and team records en route to being named ECHL rookie and goalie of the year.
What wasn't there to like? He was the best at what he did in AA minor-league hockey. Gingras also was and is friendly. He never met a stranger.
It was a great story, how Gingras did it all in his final Quebec Major junior-league season, was rated the best goalie, played in 71 games and had reason to think at least one NHL team would invite him to training camp only to be left on the outside looking in.
"I went to the Kalamazoo Wings [then of the IHL], and they sent me to Dayton [ECHL]. After a couple of days, they put me on waivers," Gingras recalled.
His agent convinced the Renegades to take a look at his client, but after one practice Gingras left thinking he was going to sign a two-way contract with Orlando (IHL) and Mississippi (ECHL). When that didn't work out, he agreed to a two-way deal with Orlando and Richmond. Play in the IHL, make more money, Come to the ECHL, play for less.
In 50 games for the Renegades, Gingras was 30-13-3 with a brilliant 2.26 goals-against average in a league where goalies can count on seeing a lot of rubber. His glove was quick. From his junior goalie coach-turned-personal agent, Yves DuFort, Gingras had learned technique, how to train, how to blot out "things I couldn't control" and the mental game within the game.
"When I was 19, he asked me if I wanted to be a butterfly goalie and change the whole way I play the game." Gingras said. "I trusted him, and I decided I would."
It was not an easy albeit necessary transition. Gingras wasn't flexible enough at first but, in the end, it worked.
"He changed everything I did, from A to Z, and I started to play with consistency," Gingras said. "He told me, 'We're going to work so much on your assets, they won't see your weaknesses.'"
One great season with the Renegades, and surely Gingras would move a step closer to realizing his dream. It didn't work out that way.
If the 1999-2000 season wasn't a lost season, it was, as Renegades coach Mark Kaufman called it, "a disjointed season. A season of disappointment and learning."
Signed by Providence (AHL), Gingras appeared in a total of 23 games for the P-Bruins, Renegades and Houston. He watched more than he played. He spent nine days on loan to Orlando where he didn't get in a game but suffered a broken finger in practice.
"I realize the road [to the NHL] is going to be long and tough, but if I'm able to get through last year, I can get through anything," Gingras said.
His mother, a school teacher, and father, a real estate salesman, sacrificed much as Gingras was making his way in junior hockey. They changed residences, sent him to special school, drove him to and from practice, soothed his wounded pride when he didn't play, helped him through a broken finger and when he came down with mononucleosis. He couldn't let them down, not now.
So Gingras returned to Richmond, where he's appreciated. He's an older, wiser, married 22-year-old determined to keep the dream alive.
The Hockey News already has anointed him as the ECHL's best goalie, and he's No. 3 on its potential player-of-the-year list. Gingras belongs to the Renegades, and he isn't as likely to accept a call-up as he once was. He will require assurance it will be for more than sit-around, backup duty.
"Maybe it will be better to stay here the whole year and improve my game. I don't want to have the kind of year I had last year," Gingras said.
He knows he has to be special again. Teams have investments in goalies they'll want to protect, so he'll have to be better than good to catch someone's eye. "You need somebody who believes in you," Gingras said.
He had an excellent camp with the AHL Kentucky Thoroughblades, coached by former Renegades coach Roy Sommer, but the San Jose Sharks sent a pair of contract goalies to the Blue Grass, and Gingras was let go.
He says he knows he's better than some goalies in leagues above him. He's played against them. The too-little excuse doesn't wash any more, Gingras said.
"The way he [DuFort] taught me to play, they can't say I'm small. I'm a big goaltender now. I just have to be patient. My time will come."
Call him whatever you want. Gingras doesn't mind. "Too small . . . it's made me kind of famous. As my parents used to say: 'Talk about it good; talk about it bad, but talk about it.'"
(c) Ricmond Times Dispatch