We could say that the number 13 will have been a lucky charm for Pierre Turgeon in 2023. Next Monday, November 13, he will finally be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame after a wait that lasted 13 years. A wait that Turgeon seems to have experienced calmly, but which intrigued some of his compatriots who saw him grow up in Rouyn, in Abitibi, become the hockey player he was for 19 seasons in the NHL, and also the person he it has, in fact, always been.
“First of all, it is a great honor for us, the people involved in the organization of the Citadelles de Rouyn. He is the first player (from our organization) who will be elected to the Hall of Fame,” testified Laurent Laflamme, a hockey pioneer in Rouyn and Abitibi, during a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
“Now he is the fifth player from the region (Abitibi-Témiscamingue) to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. It’s something very, very deserved,” said Laflamme. Pierre was a talented player, a team guy, a hard worker. He’s a guy who loved playing hockey so much. It was his life, hockey. »
Laflamme was president of that team in the former Northwest Juvenile Hockey League when Turgeon was granted special permission to play there at age 14, with and against players who were between the ages of 16 and 18, in 1983. In Laflamme’s mind, Turgeon had his place there.
“That was his talent. He was superior to everyone. He was about six feet tall and weighed 170 pounds. He was an excellent skater, with a very good shot. He had hockey sense. A talented center player. He was exceptional. Not for nothing that he was the very first choice in the National Hockey League (in 1987),” he described.
To be able to join this select and restricted group of Abitibians at the Hockey Hall of Fame, which today includes Serge Savard (1986), Dave Keon (1986), Jacques Laperrière (1987) and Rogatien Vachon (2016), Turgeon had been waiting since 2010.
However, Turgeon posted statistics in the NHL that cast no doubt on his legitimacy to become a hockey immortal. In 1,294 games between 1987 and 2007, he scored 515 goals and amassed 1,327 points, which ranks him 34th in league history.
However, not all forwards who are members of the Hockey Hall of Fame have scored at least one point per game in their career.
Turgeon also had five campaigns with at least 94 points, including two over 100 points. The 1992-93 season was his most prolific with 58 goals and 132 points with the New York Islanders. That same season, he received the Lady Byng Trophy given to the most gentlemanly player in the NHL.
However, he never won the Stanley Cup, like other legends like Marcel Dionne, Gilbert Perreault, Jean Ratelle and Brad Park, who have been hockey immortals for many years now.
“There aren’t many players, even in the Hall of Fame, who have stats like Pierre,” Laflamme noted. “I wondered why it took so long. It took a while, but at least now he’ll be admitted. We will look towards the future. »
“With all his stats, we said at some point, someone is going to think of him. It happened and I’m very happy,” added André Racicot, the father of the goalkeeper of the same name who played with the Canadian, and who was the head coach of the Citadelles during the stint of Turgeon, who did not lasted only one season, with his hometown team.
“At 14, Pierre was dominating the league. We knew that one day or another, if he wasn’t injured, he was probably going to play in the National League. That’s what happened. And Pierre is a gentleman,” he added.
Despite this wonderful and long career, Turgeon had to wait all these years before deserving what many hockey players describe as a supreme honor. However, that was not one of his topics of discussion, said one of his great childhood friends.
“Inside himself, maybe he hoped so, probably, but he didn’t talk to me about it. We confide a lot of things to each other, he and I, but he never talked to me about that. It was often me who brought him to the subject,” said Martin Bureau, who formed a trio nicknamed The Three Musketeers in Rouyn with Turgeon and Stéphane Matteau, formerly of the New York Rangers, because they were so inseparable when they were young.
“I went on vacation to his house this year, around the end of February or the beginning of March. I told him: ‘We hope soon because if your name comes out, I’m sure I’m going to be there,'” Bureau recounted, referring to the induction ceremony in Toronto.
“(His name) came out this summer. We were very happy,” added Bureau, who is part of a list of around twenty guests who will be there – members of Turgeon’s family, very close friends, like Matteau, and a few former teammates – to share this special moment Monday evening.
When asked about this long wait, Turgeon places it in a very specific perspective.
“I’ve played hockey all my life. I already feel privileged to have done something I love. Just that, it’s big. After that, you hope it will happen. If it happens, that’s good; If that doesn’t happen, I tell myself that I played hockey, I had fun and I earned my living,” Turgeon confided.
“After that,” he continued, “when it happens, it’s a reward for all the work you’ve done in your life, the time you’ve put in, the discipline to eat well, to train well . It’s a reward that goes on top of everything. »
Turgeon received the call he was hoping for on June 21. This phone call was the fifth that Hall of Fame leaders made during the day to share the big news.
“I had received two calls with the area code 416, identified as Toronto, during the day while I was training. I received another one in the elevator. Then another a little later. By the fifth, I thought maybe it would be time to respond. When I heard “it’s Lanny McDonald on the line”, I was doing pirouettes! “, he illustrated.
“I didn’t think about it. It’s been so many years. It happens when you don’t think about it. It’s a nice surprise. It’s nice to have a call like that, that’s for sure,” Turgeon admitted.
Turgeon of course had to prepare an induction speech. His first draft was about 15 minutes long, he said, even though he was asked to stay within a five- to 10-minute window. He admitted that the exercise has not been easy, because he wants to be sure to thank everyone who has helped him progress in his career and in his life and not forget anyone.
One of them is Pierre Lacroix, who was his bargaining agent, and who will also be inducted Monday evening, but posthumously in the builders category.
“I’ve never seen a person negotiate like he did,” Turgeon said of Lacroix. “He had a talent, he had a great personality, a compelling personality. When he spoke, he believed it. He did it in a beautiful way too. It wasn’t bad. It was impressive to see him go. »
And we can also imagine that all kinds of images will circulate in Turgeon’s head, none more significant, perhaps, than those of two evenings in March 1996.
On March 11, as captain of the Canadian, it was Turgeon who received the symbolic torch from Guy Carbonneau during the moving closing ceremony of the Forum. Then five days later, he inaugurated the Molson Center by gently placing the symbolic flame on the Canadian logo in the center of the team’s new home.
“To have been there as captain of the Canadiens during the closing of the Forum and the opening of the Molson Center, that’s one of the great moments of my career, that’s for sure. I was in the right place, at the right time. What an event ! It’s amazing when you think about that,” he recalled.
The day after his induction, Turgeon will come full circle as the Canadian will add his name to the Ring of Honor at the Bell Centre.
