Michel's Jr. Trappers Blog - My Journey To The Bay

Jr. Trappers forward Michel Gamache is going to be giving us an up close and personal look at the North Bay Jr. A Trappers in his new blog. Michel will be sharing his stories with us weekly here on BayToday.ca. Enjoy it!

I come from the nation’s capital, Ottawa.

Starting training camps earlier this summer I would of never thought I’d end up playing Jr. Hockey in North Bay Ontario.

My story starts in Sudbury, of course a city a little east of North Bay. This was my second year attending the Sudbury Wolves main camp. I had the privilege of being selected by the Wolves in the 8th round of the 2008 priority selection draft.

After I had attended both the rookie and main camp in ’08, the staff had told me to work on my overall strength and to “put on a couple pounds”. So I returned to Ottawa and did just that.

For the ’08-’09 season, I played both Jr. “B” and Jr. “A” with the Clarence Beavers and the Gloucester Rangers respectively.

I spent the summer in the gym, working on getting bigger, faster, and stronger.

When the ’09 training camp rolled up, I felt ready, and fitter than ever. I had set high expectations for myself.

The camp went well, I started by scoring 2 great goals in the first game. But on the Sunday I heard news that I didn’t want to hear. They told me, I just had a little bit more to go. Meaning there were still things I needed to work on.

When I got back to Ottawa, I continued with the Gloucester Rangers training camp, that I had left mid-way through to attend the Wolves camp.

The camp went by really well, I thought I was performing really well.

But when the last day arrived, I got some more bad news. The coaching staff had agreed on going with an “older” team for the season and there would be no room for me on the squad.

So there I was, sitting at home with my dad, wondering what I was going to do.

My dad spent the next couple of days literally on the phone. I am not exaggerating when I say that, when he wasn’t sleeping, he was either on the phone, or on his laptop sending e-mails, trying to find me a place to play.

Finally we heard from mouth to ear that the North Bay Trappers were searching for players.

I packed my bags, and next thing I knew I was driving up north once again.

And that’s how I became a North Bay Jr. A Trapper.