“Nothing happens for nothing in life. » Julien Tremblay will repeat this sentence a few times during our telephone interview.
He says it with a certain joy, as if to remind himself that the trials of the past take on their full meaning today. Here he is, at age 31, freshly hired by an NHL team for the first time in his life. He landed the job of assistant director of development with the Anaheim Ducks. Next week, he will fly to California to begin his term.
Concretely, he will occupy the role of skills coach. His job will be to jump on the ice with the organization’s prospects to help them improve individually.
“It’s always been my dream to work in the NHL,” he agrees. It is now done, but the road has been strewn with pitfalls.
Like the overwhelming majority of hockey coaches, Tremblay began his journey as a player. An overall interesting career, which led to him being drafted by the Moncton Wildcats and playing three years in the QMJHL.
He then went to France to start his professional career there. It was there, in January 2015, that he came close to disaster. While attempting a trivial check, he stumbles and hits his head against the knee of a teammate from the Chamonix club, in the Magnus League. Tremblay ignores it at the time, but he fractures the second cervical vertebra.
“I got up, I went back to the bench,” he recalls. But the body is well made. My neck muscles stiffened and I couldn’t move my head. The ambulance arrived, they benched me and took me to the hospital for tests. They saw that it was too serious for that hospital, so the next day, I was transported to Switzerland, to a hospital where they do neurosurgery. »
The accident finally left him without long-term sequelae, so that seven months later, in August, he tried his luck at the Isothermic training camp in Thetford Mines, in the North American Hockey League. But after a preparatory match, it is already the end of the experience, even if physically, he is fully recovered.
“It was really the fear,” he admits. Every time I came back to the bench after a shift, it was a relief. “OK, nothing happened, I’m correct.” I had the maturity to understand that I could not play with that mentality. »
So it was the end of one career, but the beginning of another. He quickly launched into coaching, first with the Seigneurs des Mille-Îles, where he played his minor hockey. He also spent time at the Joël Bouchard Academy, then in the hockey program at Lucille-Teasdale high school.
It was at Lucille-Teasdale that he met Pascal Dupuis, a veteran of 871 games in the NHL, who also remained involved in hockey. In parallel with his work with the Diabolos, Dupuis is involved with the Shawinigan Cataractes. The former Pittsburgh Penguins therefore spreads the word for Tremblay to be hired by the “Cats”.
Tremblay also began training professional players on an individual basis. Among his clients: Kristopher Letang, Alexis Lafrenière, Anthony Mantha and Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, to name a few.
“He is always well prepared, confirms forward Nathan Légaré, a newcomer to the Canadiens organization. He was good at showing me how to get more time and space in the offensive zone. He showed me how to place the puck depending on where I’m going. I tended to keep it in front of me, so it was easier for the opponent to take it away from me. You don’t think about it, but these are important details. »
Now after two years in Shawinigan, the doors of the NHL opened to Tremblay. “I always told the players: ‘We’re going to enjoy every moment with him, because we’re going to lose him soon!’ », says Dupuis.
Jason Clarke, who quickly became an assistant with the Cataractes, ended up as an assistant coach with the Ducks’ farm club in San Diego last year. “Jason told me to submit my name because the Ducks were looking to rebuild their development team. I did two or three telephone interviews, then one by Zoom. And Pat Verbeek [Ducks GM] called me to offer me the job two weeks ago. »
Tremblay got this job on his first attempt with an NHL team. Previously, he had made contact with the Laval Rocket, during the 2021-2022 season, the last which was upset by COVID-19.
“I met Jean-François Houle at Place Bell, when the new organization returned with Adam Nicholas. I had to go to work once a week with the Rocket. But it was after Christmas, and they had had several games canceled over the holidays that needed to be resumed, so they hardly practiced anymore.
“It was close, but nothing happens for nothing in life. I’m happy with Anaheim. I was not destined to go to the NHL as a player. It’s as if my destiny was to go there as a coach. »
