French connection: Vegas' Pierre-Edouard Bellemare might just be the most interesting man in hockeyEmily Kaplan
By the time Pierre-Edouard Bellemare arrived as a "rookie" at Philadelphia Flyers training camp in 2014, the French forward had already spent a year in medical school, served an eight-year stint in Sweden, teetered on the brink of bankruptcy and learned his third language. So the fact that most of his prospective Flyers teammates had no idea who he was didn't faze Bellemare. Neither did their incredulity at his relatively advanced age.
As he struck up a conversation with centers Claude Giroux and Vincent Lecavalier about the most recent world championships, Bellemare casually mentioned that he had played in the event for the first time about 10 years earlier.
"Wait, what?" Giroux blurted, after quickly doing the math in his head. After all, in 2004, Giroux was still playing juniors.
"Yeah," Bellemare said. "I'm 29."
Giroux and Lecavalier stared at him, stupefied.
"At that point, I think the guys started realizing that I was maybe a serious player," Bellemare says now. "Because [the Flyers] wouldn't just take up an old player for no reason."
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