Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die
Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote those oft-quoted lines in the epic poem Charge of the Light Brigade in describing the military's need for blind obedience to orders in war. Ever since, they've been quoted to enforce organizational directives: Every member must perform his assigned task, without questioning authority, to achieve the organization's goal.
Imagine the frustration of defenseman Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre two years ago during the Buffalo Sabres' march to the Stanley Cup Finals against the Dallas Stars: Grand-Pierre was in his second season with the Rochester Americans, Buffalo's AHL affiliate, which had rebounded under second-year coach Brian McCutcheon and also advanced to its league's championship series.
Grand-Pierre had an outstanding season with the Amerks and was named to the All-Star team. A month after playing in the All-Star game, he was called up to the Sabres and played in 16 regular-season games. Buffalo decided to keep Grand-Pierre with the parent club during the playoffs as insurance against one of their veteran defenseman getting hurt.
But the opportunity never arose and Grand-Pierre simply had good seats for 21 games as Buffalo swept Ottawa, knocked out Boston in six games and won the Eastern Conference championship in five games over Toronto.
"It was kind of long," he said. "We lost in the Finals and I wished I could have helped them out or helped the Americans."
It wasn't the first time Grand-Pierre sat and watched the Sabres in the playoffs, but the previous year it was by design. With the Amerks out of the 1998-99 playoffs, the Sabres brought up several players to practice with the parent club and get exposure to life in the big leagues.
After another season of split-duty between Rochester and Buffalo, Grand-Pierre was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets prior to the expansion draft. He wasn't disappointed about going from a team that competed for the championship to what figured to be one of the League's weaker teams.
"Buffalo had so many defense prospects that they traded Cory Sarich and Alexei Tezikov," Grand-Pierre said. "I thought I might be expendable so I was happy to have a fresh start with a new team. It was good. The fans are great and very loud. Coach Dave King is a great teacher as are the assistants, Newell Brown and Gerard Gallant. We might have the best facilities in the NHL and our practice rink is right next to Nationwide Arena."
Grand-Pierre played in 32 of Columbus's first 44 games, missing a few games to injury and sitting out a few as a healthy scratch. But at midseason, he is taking a regular turn and beginning to fulfill his promise.
"Jean-Luc has been improving as a player all season and as a result is getting a lot more ice time," King said. "He's a young player with very good work ethic. We think he is going to continue to make progress and be a quality hockey player for a long time. He gives a us a strong physical presence on the ice and is very aggressive when he goes after the puck."
Grand-Pierre is the son of Allaix and Michelene Grand-Pierre who separately immigrated from Haiti to pursue their education and met at Montreal University. Allaix is a radiologist and Michelene is a nurse who hoped her only child would be a doctor.
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Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre has trained with Olympic medalist Gaetan Boucher.
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"My Dad figured it out that I had no interest in that," Grand-Pierre laughed. "But he was just as adamant that I get an education, even while I was playing juniors at Val D'Or. I took an intensive schedule of classes at Ceget College and I'm four credits from my degree, which I will get."
He'd have that degree now but he changed his curriculum to focus on spoken English. Listening to him, you would never guess he couldn't speak English three years ago.
"I knew I would need to speak English if I was going to turn pro," Grand-Pierre said.
Turning professional became a goal after Val D'Or assistant coach Raymond Chevalier told him his speed and size could get him to the NHL if he was disciplined and receptive to coaching.
Grand-Pierre, the second-fastest Blue Jackets' skater in the team's skills competition, started as a figure skater at age 8 and switched to hockey a year later. When he was 15, he took power-skating lessons from Olympic gold medal-winning speed skater Gaetan Boucher, Canada's most decorated Winter Olympian.
"It helped me a lot," Grand-Pierre said. "Eric Daze was in my class. A lot of the Canadiens' players use his program."
Grand-Pierre was disappointed in his 91-mph slapshot clocking at the skills competition.
"I shot 95 at the AHL All-Star Game two years ago but this year my shoulder was hurting me when we had the competition," he said.
A still-growing 6-foot-3, 207 pounds, Grand-Pierre received 211 penalty minutes in 75 games with Rochester his first year, an average of 2.81 minutes per game. That dropped to 1.63 minutes per game the next season. His NHL average is even lower, 1.19, and this year it is 1.03.
Grand-Pierre said his first AHL season was frustrating for him and his teammates but he had to be more careful the next year not to be penalized because his team was in playoff contention. He's very focused on not taking dumb penalties.
Grand-Pierre said he has benefited from the strengths of a variety of coaches.
"Jon Christiano, the assistant at Rochester, was a great video technician who helped me learn a lot from watching myself play," Grand-Pierre said. "Joe Canale, my junior coach at Beauport, was so different from any other coach I ever had. I learned a lot from him."
Now that he appears to have established himself with an NHL team, Grand-Pierre is looking to do more to help others. He joined with Dominik Hasek and other Sabres in the inner-city hockey program and helped the Blue Jackets raise money for a children's hospital this year.
Grand-Pierre has realized his goal of playing in the NHL, but he can recite the names of talented competitors whose hockey careers were ended by injury or other reasons. That's why he recommends to youngsters that they get an education.
"Pursue your dream but stay in school because there are no guarantees," he said. "I've seen so many guys that were good players who quit school. When they didn't make it, they had nothing."
