Patrice Bernier returns to Saputo Stadium, where he will cheer the Impact and ring the North Star Bell
The last time Patrice Bernier was at Saputo Stadium he was being hoisted in the air by his Impact teammates after scoring a goal in a season-ending 3-2 loss to the New England Revolution.
Bernier scored on a penalty kick in the first half of the final game of his playing career and the Impact captain received a standing ovation from the fans at Saputo Stadium when he was taken off for a substitute in the 81st minute. After the game, Bernier’s teammates lifted him in the air and he then walked around the pitch shaking hands with the fans who had supported him during his six seasons with the Impact in Major League Soccer.
Bernier, who retired after that game six months ago at age 38, will be back at Saputo Stadium when the Impact play Los Angeles FC today (1 p.m., TVA Sports, TSN Radio 690) and this time he will be sitting with some of those fans. The 1642 MTL supporters’ group has invited Bernier to join them in Section 114 and ring their North Star Bell after any Impact goals.
“Yes, I will be ringing the bell on Saturday,” Bernier said. “It’s ironic that in my last game I was in front of it, scored my last goal, and my parents were there. Now, I will be back at Stade Saputo and I will be right behind it. So hopefully the team scores a few goals and has a very good result and it could be a joyful first time as a spectator for me.”
While Bernier no longer plays for the Impact, he is still involved with the club in his new position as an assistant coach with the Academy teams, working with players from the U14 up to the U19 level.
Bernier is someone the Impact Academy players can look up to as a local product who grew up in Brossard on Montreal’s South Shore and went on to play more than a decade in Europe, with stops in Norway, Germany and Denmark, before returning home to join the Impact when they entered MLS for the 2012 season.
Bernier recently travelled to France with the Impact Academy U14 team, which finished 11th out of 25 clubs in the Tournoi San Frontière, which included squads representing big-name European clubs like Paris SaintGermain, Juventus and Zenit Saint Petersburg. The Impact U14 head coach is former Impact player Eduardo Sebrango.
“The kids got to see high-level soccer at their age group and what other teams and other countries do so they can compare themselves at their age and I think we fared quite well,” Bernier said.
“It made me go back to when I was a kid playing in tournaments and you get to compare yourself with other players at your age playing for bigger clubs and realize that you can play against them.”
Bernier’s average work day now starts at 9 a.m. when he arrives at the Centre Nutrilait practice facility for meetings with the Academy head coaches. The players, who attend school in the morning, begin arriving around 1 p.m. with the U14 and U15 teams practising from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., followed by the U17 and U19 from 3:15 p.m. to 5 p.m. Bernier’s work day normally ends around 5:30 p.m.
Bernier said he misses the camaraderie he had as a player in the Impact locker-room and the feeling he would get when walking onto the pitch to play the game he has always loved in front of his hometown fans.
“Those things you can’t replace,” he said. “Even though I go to tournaments now with the kids and watch the games, you can’t replace being on the field and actually doing it. You miss playing those games and being around a fraternity of players and bonding together to represent an image, a club, and to try to get the results to prove that you’re the best. That’s what sports are … everybody wants to be the best athlete and the best team.”
He definitely doesn’t miss the physical training, which became more intensive as he got older.
“Now, I wake up and I don’t have to run around,” Bernier said. “When I looked at the first team during preseason I was very happy I wasn’t there.”
But Bernier will be very happy to be in the Saputo Stadium stands Saturday, waiting and hoping he gets a chance to ring the North Star Bell.
He doesn’t expect it to be a strange feeling being a spectator instead of a player.
“I’m kind of disconnected from the team now because it’s a new team,” he said. “There’s a bunch of new faces, a new coach (Rémi Garde), so that link with this team, I don’t feel the same. I do know a few players, but it’s not the same. So when I watch the games, I don’t feel like it’s a group of guys out there and I’m the missing part.
“I’m good where I’m at.”