When he skated in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for Acadie Bathurst, Mathieu Perreault often played the hero’s role. His reward for his heroics, say on the road in Val d’Or on a winter Saturday night? Little fanfare and an eighteen-hour bus ride home over black ice.
Eighteen hours to get back home. On a bus.
Perreault’s travel itinerary, and recognition, was a little different this past Saturday, as he led the Capitals to a 3-2 triumph over Chicago, scoring the game winner with just seconds left in overtime.
Perreault met his Capitals’ teammates at Reagan National Airport Saturday afternoon at 3:30 for a flight to the Windy City. Once on the ground, the team bused to the United Center, where Perreault took warmups on a sheet of ice in one of the NHL’s largest venues. In fact, 19,734 fans — an all-time hockey exhibition game record in Chicago — packed United Center Saturday night.
On Wednesday night in the Capitals’ locker room, moments after the team’s 6-2 besting of the Hawks four night later, Perreault had no ability to suppress residual elation over his game-winning heroics while wearing the Capitals’ crest in Chicago. He sensed that Saturday night was going to be special early on.
“My legs were great, I felt awesome on the ice all three periods,” he said.
He pounced on a loose puck in front of Cristobal Huet with just 12 seconds remaining in the 5-minute extra frame, and snapped it into the netting behind the former Caps’ netminder, setting off a mobbing of him by his Capitals’ teammates.
“I was just so excited,” he recounted, excitement returning to his voice and facial expression.”I mean it’s not every day you get a chance to score a goal to win in the NHL.”
Back in the visitor’s locker room Caps’ players and coaches continued to congratulate Perreault, “and when I got to Kettler on Sunday morning every player and coach came up to me again and congratulated me,” he added, keen appreciation in his voice.
But before returning to D.C. Perreault boarded a commercial airliner late Saturday night as a hockey hero, his travel time home less than two hours. I asked him if his jubilation, his euphoria as a Saturday NHL hero, settled at all by the time he boarded the plane with his teammates.
“I settled down a little bit on the plane [home], except I kept thinking, ‘What a night! What a night!’
“It felt so good just sitting there thinking about it. So great, so, so great.”
He probably wished it had been an 18-hour flight home.
Once he got home, I wondered, did Perreault log on to his computer and attempt to watch his Windy City heroics on YouTube?
“I went on YouTube,” he admitted, still smiling widely. “And I watched it two or three times for sure.”
“OK, maybe more,” he followed with a laugh.
It was around this time that Perreault began noticing his cell phone and email inbox teeming with messages from his parents, extended family, and close friends. Too many to tabulate.
“All my friends were texting me on my cell phone the next morning,” he noted. “My phone didn’t stop beeping Sunday.”
It seems appropriate that Mathieu Perreault got to enjoy a hockey hero’s celebration at 30,000 feet last Saturday night. His coaches in Washington this September will tell you that his career is clearly in an ascent.
7 Comments
Its stories like these that make me appreciate this blog. On Frozen Blog seems to have that special knack of making players people.
Too often, fans get caught up in numbers etc… Sure, it’s a business. Sure, everybody wants a winner.
But I also think that things need to be kept in perspective and framed in a manner that highlights achievement. All of the Cap’s players have an abundance of God given talent, but they didn’t get there on that alone.
Fans need to be reminded of that. Each one of the hockey cards or players on a video game represent a real life human being. They are not androids.
Nice story.
“My legs were great, I felt awesome on the ice all three periods,” he said.
I LOVED nights like that, the nights where skating felt like the easiest, most natural thing in the world and the puck was glued to your stick as if by magic.
Great interview!
Btw, what’s up with the photo? Auditioning for a remake of “Candid Camera?” He looks more than a little taken aback…
I’m sure he loooooves that you chose that picture!
Hey cut MP some slack — he’d just gotten out of his gear last night and from the volume of perspiration he was submerged in, you could tell he’d skated his French Canadian hind quarters off. Again. I was also working alone last night in the room, trying to carry off the dual roles of reporter and photog. We don’t aim for a polished look to this blog anyway. Wait til you see tomorrow’s video.
BTW, he’s survived another round of cuts.
Appreciate the kind words again, Mudder.
I guess I must be kind of demented cause I liked the picture…
Anyone that’s every been in a locker room and has felt the fatigue/exhilaration thing going on can relate to it.
To me, the picture brought back some feelings. It wasn’t all visual.
I think the picture fit the article. A prom pic or shirt & tie pic just wouldn’t have conveyed the same message.
I sat in on practice on Sunday afternoon at Kettler. Matty was still glowing.
Extremely well-written piece, as always, Pucks. Sounds like another genuine prospect with the right kind of heart and competitive spirit to me. Only time will show how bright his star will shine.
Kudos GMGM, and Crew.
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