Sweet redemption for Leger
Former Crusher wins MHL title with Bearcats
Nate Leger had been a Pictou County Weeks Crusher for a season and a half when he asked to be traded in January 2016.
He had been a frequent healthy scratch on a deep Crushers team, and the New Glasgow native wanted to play. Anywhere.
“I just wasn’t playing that much,” said the 20-year-old, whose request was granted when he was shipped to the Yarmouth Mariners. “I was getting a lot more ice time,” in Yarmouth.
The Mariners missed the playoffs a year ago, and Leger watched as his former teammates in Pictou County won a Maritime Junior Hockey League title.
“I was happy for the guys that were there, all my buddies,” he said, although he admits that being on the outside looking in “didn’t sit that well with me. But
I knew that I’d be better off in the long run,” on a team where he would play.
Traded to the Truro Bearcats last August, Leger forged himself a role on the team and would ultimately enjoy sweet redemption: he who laughs last laughs best and this week, he’s off to the Fred Page Cup, after the Bearcats won the league championship last Friday, taking Game 7 against the Miramichi Timberwolves.
“It was a pretty big deal, I don’t know if I could describe it any better than that, really,” Leger said on Monday, a couple of days before he was to head to Terrebone, Que., with his teammates for the FPC.
“He’s a great young man, plays with his heart on his sleeve,” said Truro coach Shawn Evans.
“Really, really well-respected in the dressing room.”
Leger is generously listed as being five-feet-eight on the league’s official website, but he’s not that big. What he lacks in size, however, he makes up for with his heart.
“He goes to the dirty areas,” Evans said. “He’s not a big guy, but he competes and he makes the other team earn their ice. He gets under people’s skin.
“Whether he gets a whole bunch of shifts a game or whether he only gets a few, I know the team is going to get his best effort and in the teamoriented way.”
There are no regrets for Leger, who finished out his junior career with a championship.
“I really enjoyed it,” he said of his one season in Truro.
“It was exciting coming to the rink every day and all the guys here were really close.”