Vincent Lecavalier News Clips Archive

May 31, 1998
Hockey News Draft preview-
If you haven't already snagged up your copy of THN (Issue #36 on display till the beginning of June), what are you waiting for? The annual issue has profiles of the top 54 prospects (rated by Bob McKenzie) which covers the first two rounds as well as a feature article on Vincent including a color and black and white picture. There have been rumors about Sakic going to T-Bay for the rights to Lecavalier, but nothing so far. An important factor in the Legwand vs. Lecavalier issue is size, and Lecavalier will be adding some bulk this summer with the aid of a personal trainer. The draft goes June 27, 12:45 EST in Buffalo and will be covered by TSN, RDS and ESPN2.

May 5, 1998
Final Central Scouting Bureau Rankings-
Despite David Legwand's challenge to Vincent, he still managed to maintain the #1 spot for North American skaters. He admits that he had a mediocre regular season, but was hot during the play-offs for Rimouski. The Tampa Bay Lightning, who will likely get the #1 pick, have hinted they will choose Lecavalier at the draft. Check out the articles below.

May 1, 1998
Rimouski swept in QMJHL finals-
In a not very close series, the Océanic were trampled in game 4 tonight losing 9-2 to the foreurs. Val d'Or will be headed to Spokane to play for the memorial cup, one of the more elusive trophies because most players only have 3 years to win it. Rimouski now has a long vacation ahead to contemplate what went wrong and Vincent can continue preparing himself for the draft and healing his stress fracture. Many now think Legwand has the upperhand on Lecavalier, but we'll see! Stats-wise, Vincent managed a pretty good showing, despite his foot injury, which he has had to tape up for every game. He finished the play-offs as the 2nd leading scorer behind Dumont with 41 points, including 15 goals.

April 21, 1998
Birthday boy celebrates series win-
The océanic now have the memorial cup firmly within sight. Last night they wrapped up their series with Québec at home, a 5-2 win... things weren't looking all that rosy after they dropped 2 in a row after going up 3-0, but now they will face Val d'Or, the champs of the Lebel division. Vince has jumped into the leading scorer spot of the Q, with 39 points... right behind him is Jean-Pierre Dumont of the Remparts.

April 18, 1998
Lecavalier plays despite injury-
No kidding. Vincent has been on a tear despite his foot injury, scoring multiple point games in the series against Québec. Rimouski is now up on the series 3-1 after dropping a game last night to keep the series alive. Stats-wise, Vincent now has has 34 points, 13 of them being goals. Unfortunately, it does not look like he will be winning any major CHL hardware this year personally.

April 10, 1998
The Océanic to play in Dilio division finals-
Could this be the year to win it all? The past two years, the Mem cup champions have hailed from Québec, and this edition of the Rimouski team has a very good chance at it... but they may have to do it without their star player, Vincent Lecavalier. He has a stress fracture in his right foot which caused him to miss Rimouski's last play-off game and possibly the rest of the series. They will face the Remparts tomorrow night, so hopefully Vince will be able to go... he's had 23 points in his last 8 play-off games, including 9 goals.

March 28, 1998
Rimouski wins series 4-1-
To no one's surprise, the Océanic cleaned up their 1st round series against Halifax yesterday with a 5-4 win at home. Vincent set up 3 goals last night, which ties him for 2nd in play-off scoring with 13 points. Rimouski will now play a round robin with the winners of the other series to decide the Q representative in Spokane.

March 21, 1998
QMJHL play-offs start for Rimouski-
The Rimouski Océanic faced off against the Halifax mooseheads yesterday at home for their 1st round match-up. Rimouski dominated, exclamating their superiority by shutting out Halifax with a score of 6-0! It was an eventful game for Vince, who picked up a goal and an assist, as well as 3 minor penalties. The Océanic finished as the 2nd seed in the Dilio division and Vincent ended up with 114 points in 58 games.

March 5, 1998
Vincent chatting on ESPN sportszone-
ESPNet held a chat this morning with the consensus #1 pick, Vincent Lecavalier. If you missed it, you can still read the transcript. Who knew he plays so much golf (he said he plays golf every day in the summer!)? Oh and for those interested, Vince does have an RC in this year's Upper Deck set (series 2). I saw it today at a card shop, but the owner only had 2 of them, and wouldn't sell them to me (he was building sets), so the search continues...

February 11, 1998
CHL Prospects game-
Excellent game! I haven't seen hockey that good in a long time... personally want to thank the teams for putting on such a great show. Of course, would've been nice if I had been able to go too!=) But that will come. Team Cherry won the game 4-2, which meant Vince was on the losing side playing on Bobby Orr's team. His best chance was stopped by Phillipe Sauvé, his team mate, as he got too close to the goal. During a pre-game interview, Vince shared some thoughts about the draft and the wjhc on That's Hockey. "Hopefully, we'll have another chance to bring back the gold. It's good experience for everyone... I think it's important to play for your country." Of course full approval from me, Canada needs to win back the gold next year in Winnipeg! On the draft, Vince said that he's not really thinking of it and although he likes Detroit and Colorado, doesn't mind what team picks him. David Legwand had much the same view, only more emphatically saying that he doesn't even care what position he's drafted! I can only imagine that he is trying to take some pressure off.

January 30, 1998
Vince doesn't disappoint at Q all-star game-
Too bad I was at work (yech) for the 1st period, but I managed to make it home in time to catch the 1st intermission interview with Vincent, and the rest of the game, including this bizarre shoot out contest with Mike Ribeiro during the 2nd intermission (leave it to the Q to think of of weird things like that, eh!)... which Ribeiro won by one goal btw. Of course I taped the game! What do you take me for? Anyway, during the interview, Vince talked about the tremendous pressure on him this year, "I take it more as motivation, I think that's what I have to do, concentrate on hockey and not the media and all that surrounds me. I still have 20 games this year and play-offs, and hopefully have a good season." Vince scored 1 goal and one assist but the Lebel division came up on top by 2 goals. He didn't looked all that thrilled to be there, I guess 'cuz when you're number 1, there's only one way to go, and that's down! BTW, I also added more "Vince Bits" today...

January 10, 1998
Vincent still tops with the CSB-
The mid-season central scouting rankings just came out, and Lecavalier still tops the list of north american prospects at #1. David Legwand is a close 2nd, and it's expected they will duke it out to be the #1 pick at this June's draft in Buffalo. See the article below for more details...

January 3, 1998
Canada finishes WJHC a miserable, and I do mean MISERABLE 8th-
What a bad, horrible, frustrating, and upsetting...well, you get the idea, tournament for our guys! I've only been watching this thing for three years, but I know how Canada is expected to win every year. The Canadians were bounced from the medal round by Russia on an instantaneous 2-on-one in OT with less than a minute to go. After the disappointment against the Russians, Lecavalier said, "I think we worked very well, we worked hard during the whole game, and losing in overtime-it's kind of hard, but we got to keep our heads up and win the two other games we're going to play the next few days." Unfortunately, as we all know by now, they went on to lose against the US (grrr), and the Kazakhstanians. The Canadians finished 8th over-all. The guys played with heart, but it just wasn't enough (yeah, enough offense). If losing this year means winning next year in Winnipeg, I guess I'll take it. Oh, and Vince didn't collect any more points since the last update below.

December 30, 1997
Vincent picks up 1st points in 2-0 win against Germany to put Canada into the medal round-
With reports of scouts being a little disappointed over the play of Lecavalier at the tournament, he responded today with a goal and an assist. His assist came with some hard work cycling along the boards with Matt Bradley finally jamming it in. On Canada's 2nd goal, Lecavalier moved towards the net to get a "garbage goal". "We got to play with our heart, battle, and I think that's the most important thing to win this tournament," Lecavalier said after the game. The win was far from impressive, but Canada will have another chance tomorrow when they meet the winners of the B pool-Russia.

December 28, 1997
Canada gets on board with win against Czechs-
Canada rediscovered its scoring punch today with a 5-0 shut-out of the Czech junior team.
"I'm just going to go out and try and shoot more and go for the rebound and play the Canadian way," Lecavalier said, "We're playing for our country and everything but just play like you do
back home, shoot and score. We should all do that. We can still win it all." The Canadians will
next meet the Germans who currently hold last place in the pool with no wins.

December 17, 1997
Vincent Lecavalier named to represent Canada at the World Junior championships-
To no one's surprise, Lecavalier was named to the national junior team. "It's really exciting, especially playing with all the best Canadian hockey players, they're all 19 year olds. It's going
to be exciting. We have a practice tonight...I really look forward to working hard and doing my best," Lecavalier said.

Last modified Oct.25, 1998.

Back to main Lecavalier page